Alissa Simon Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Alissa Simon Film Critic Egypt’s Oscar submission “Voy! Voy! Voy!,” from director-writer-producer Omar Hilal, is a blackly comic look at migration viewed through the lens of a conman pretending to be visually impaired in order to play in the Blind Football World Cup. The fast-paced, entertaining film makes its Moroccan debut in the Special Screenings section of the Marrakech Film Festival. Following its September premiere in Egypt, it held the top box-office spot for two months and did remarkably well in the Gulf states.

Alissa Simon Film Critic Scottish auteur Lynne Ramsay and former Icelandic Film Center (IFC) chief Laufey Guðjónsdóttir received honors from the 10th anniversary edition of Reykjavik’s Stockfish Film & Industry Festival (April 4 – 14, 2024). The awards, presented during a reception on April 11th, celebrate outstanding contributions to the film industry both internationally and domestically.

Alissa Simon Film Critic As some former European Shooting Stars celebrate Oscar noms for their latest films, the Europe-wide initiative to draw attention to up-and-coming performers coordinated by European Film Promotion introduces another 10 talents during the Berlinale. From Feb. 16-19, the selected actors will participate in workshops, as well as meetings with producers and casting directors.

Alissa Simon Film Critic With “My Love Affair with Marriage,” animator Signe Baumane creates another dense personal narrative that expresses complicated concepts and ideas in images. Stuffed with irony, humor, Soviet history and musical numbers, her ambitious second feature (following 2014’s festival hit “Rocks In My Pockets”) boasts 30 singing and speaking characters (including a talking neuron that explains the biochemical processes of the brain) and about 200 non-speaking ones.

Alissa Simon Film Critic With her debut feature “Tiger Stripes,” Malaysian writer-director Amanda Nell Eu joins an exciting group of directors who provide subversive takes on genre and body horror. Julia Ducournau and “Raw” comes to mind, as do Agnieszka Smoczynska and “The Lure” and John Fawcett and “Ginger Snaps” — like David Cronenberg before them. Eu, an MA graduate of the London Film School, blends Malaysian folklore with heightened realism and a large dollop of “Mean Girls” in the story of a tween going through changes wrought by puberty and alterations in her friendship group.

Alissa Simon Film Critic After “Their Algeria,” a well-received documentary from 2020 about the parents of her actor father Zinedine Soualem, France-born filmmaker-performer Lina Soualem turns her camera on her maternal relatives in “Bye Bye Tiberias,” in particular her mother, the Palestine-born actress Hiam Abbass. By telling their story, she hopes to reclaim and question the personal, historical and visual legacies she inherited and to answer the question “How does a woman find her place when caught between worlds?” a question that applies equally to her and her mother.

Alissa Simon Film Critic From its jaunty animated credits to its absurdly satisfying conclusion, “Voy! Voy! Voy!” is a saucy and blackly comic look at immigration. An entertaining first feature inspired by stranger-than-fiction actual events from seasoned adman Omar Hilal, here serving as director, writer and producer, Egypt’s official Oscar submission nabbed the top spot at the local box office for two months following its mid-September domestic release and also played well in the Gulf states.

Alissa Simon Film Critic Sometimes films highlight little-known events in their country of origin that wind up catalyzing a re-evaluation of their nation’s history. Finnish director Klaus Härö’s “Never Alone” is shaping up to be that sort of film. It follows the deportation from Finland of eight Austrian-Jewish refugees by the Gestapo during World War II and the work of Abraham Stiller, a pillar of the Helsinki Jewish community, who tried to stop it from happening.

Alissa Simon Film Critic Britain’s official post-WWI administration of Palestine lasted from 1920-48 and is probably the UK colonial enterprise least addressed by its fiction filmmakers. But now prolific writer-director Michael Winterbottom (“The Trip,” “A Mighty Heart”) uses that complicated era as a backdrop to the compelling historical romance “Shoshana.” A passion project 15 years in the making and based on real people and events, the film employs the ill-fated, cross-cultural relationship between a ranking member of the British Palestine Police Force and a young Jewish woman to explore the way extremism and violence push people apart, forcing them to choose sides.

Alissa Simon Film Critic A classically crafted feature debut from veteran TV director James Hawes (“Black Mirror”), “One Life” intercuts two eras 50 years apart in the long life of humble British humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton (1909-2015), referred to by some as “the British Schindler.” The biopic serves as a testament to the power of good, with a prestige cast including a fine, understated Anthony Hopkins as the reflective, older Winton, still haunted by the tragic end to his plan to save European child refugees, and Johnny Flynn as his energetic younger self, who embodies the belief that that if something is not impossible, then there must be a way to do it. Although the film as a whole struggles to match the poignancy of its finale, a re-creation of a famous 1988 clip from the British TV program “That’s Life!,” it nevertheless serves as an urgent reminder of the importance of individual action at a time when the world refugee crisis is at a scale not seen since the Second World War.

Alissa Simon Film Critic Swedish writer-director Lukas Moodysson is much beloved internationally for films such as “Show Me Love” (1998), “Together” (2000) and “Lilya 4-Ever” (2002). His filmography also includes the mostly English-language drama “Mammoth” (2009) with Michelle Williams and Gael Garcia Bernal, and “We Are the Best!,” (2013), a delightful adaptation of his wife’s graphic novel. His new film, “Together 99,” marks a sequel to his second feature. Why did you want to revisit the characters of “Together” 24 years on from the original film? I wanted to make a movie about the passage of time, but also about the feeling of time standing still.

Alissa Simon Film Critic As you read this, new titles from filmmakers of Tunisian, Moroccan and Franco-Palestinian-Algerian heritage are making their mark at the Venice Film Festival, while Toronto Film Festival will premiere a trio of first features from Saudi Arabia, along with discoveries from the UAE and Palestine, plus a handful of Arab titles screened at Cannes and Venice. Those in the know say that the annual number of Arab films produced has increased along with the emergence of new filmmakers, and that fall festivals such as El Gouna, Marrakech, Cairo and Red Sea will be chockablock with fresh regional titles.

Alissa Simon Film Critic After a one-year hiatus, the much-missed El Gouna Film Festival (Oct. 13 – 20) is back and poised to make an increased impact.

Christopher Vourlias Ukrainian filmmaker Roman Bondarchuk is winding down post-production on his latest feature film, “The Editorial Office,” a dramedy set on the eve of the Russian invasion. It’s among the works in progress being presented this week at CineLink Industry Days, the industry arm of the Sarajevo Film Festival.

Alissa Simon Film Critic Bulgarian multi-hyphenate Stephan Komandarev completes his trilogy on social problems and moral ills in contemporary Bulgaria with “Blaga’s Lessons,” world premiering in Karlovy Vary Film Festival’s Crystal Globe competition. Heretic is the sales agent. After “Directions” (2017), which centers on tough times for some Sofia taxi drivers over a long and eventful night, and “Rounds” (2019), about police officers patrolling the capital, Komandarev and his co-writer Simeon Ventsislavov use an older woman duped by a telephone scam to look at issues afflicting their parents’ generation. Komandarev says: “The Bulgarian pensioners turned out to be the real victims of the so-called ‘transition’ (the time from 1989 to today.) These people, who have worked and created persistently all their lives, have lost basic safety and security, normal food, adequate medical care, heating, etc.”

Alissa Simon Film Critic It’s already been a good year for the English cinematographer turned writer-director Molly Manning Walker. A film that she shot, “Scrapper,” won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, as well as praise for her vibrant lensing. Now, her first feature, the intimate, near-anthropological “How to Have Sex,” premieres as part of Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section. And to top it off, MUBI has already acquired the title for major territories. “How to Have Sex” follows three female teens on a summer holiday in the loud, hectic party town of Malia, Crete. Having just completed their GCSE exams, the English trio are ready to let off steam by drinking, dancing and getting laid. This latter goal ranks as the most sensitive for petite Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce), who still retains her virginity. The film shows how having sex as a teenager is complicated and the role that peer pressure and consent (or the lack of it) plays.

Alissa Simon Film Critic Australian helmer-screenwriter-cinematographer Warwick Thornton won Cannes’ Camera d’Or with “Samson and Delilah” in 2009. Now he’s back with his third feature, “The New Boy,” competing in Un Certain Regard. The film turns on the story of an Aboriginal child, who arrives at a remote monastery run by a renegade nun. The new boy’s presence disturbs a delicately balanced world in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival. The film stars Cate Blanchett, Deborah Mailman and Wayne Blair, and is produced by Kath Shelper, Andrew Upton, Blanchett and Lorenzo de Maio. Veterans is selling in Cannes.  How did the Cannes Golden Camera influence your career?

Alissa Simon Film Critic U.K. sales agent Mr. Smith Entertainment is launching one of the Marché’s most anticipated genre titles: “Grafted,” from Kiwi helmer Sasha Rainbow. The smart, surprising, female-led body-horror film marks the feature debut of the L.A.-based, Wellington-born Rainbow, who took a quick break from post-production in New Zealand to talk to Variety.  Penned by Mia Maramara, Hweiling Ow and Lee Murray, “Grafted” follows a bright but socially awkward Chinese scholarship student who arrives in Auckland to study biology and hopes to continue the work of her late scientist father. Rainbow was brought on board by Murray Francis, one of the film’s producers.

Alissa Simon Film Critic The ninth edition of Iceland’s Stockfish Film & Industry Festival, which runs March 23 to April 2, is innovating under an ambitious new team that includes one of Variety’s 10 Producers to Watch, Hrönn Kristinsdottír (“Lamb”), as artistic director and festival veteran Carolina Salas as managing director. Among the highlights will be a masterclass with Oscar-nominated cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister (“Tár”), who is currently in Iceland shooting the fourth season of HBO’s “True Detective.” The screening program opens with Ukraine’s “Pamfir,” directed by Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk and includes tributes to Oscar-nominated Polish helmer Jerzy Skolimowski and U.K. producer Mike Downey, recipient of the fest’s first “Outstanding Contribution to the Industry” kudos.

Alissa Simon Film Critic Icelandic writer-director Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson (“Under the Tree”) makes a smooth transition to English-language directing with the high-concept comedy “Northern Comfort,” co-written with longtime collaborators Halldór Laxness Halldórsson and Tobias Munthe. It centers on a disparate group of people who share a disabling fear of air travel, which they are trying to overcome through a high-end fearless flyers course. As a final challenge, the class is scheduled for a short, roundtrip “exposure” flight during which they should face and conquer their phobias. But this practical plan soon runs into some literal and figurative turbulence. Combining human drama and absurdist comedy, “Northern Comfort” should fly into other festivals before making a comfortable landing at a boutique art-house distributor or streamer.

Alissa Simon Film Critic Overline: Hed: By Alissa Simon “Subtraction,” from idiosyncratic Iranian helmer-writer Mani Haghighi (“Men at Work,” “Modest Reception,” “A Dragon Arrives!”) is a tense Hitchcockian thriller set in Tehran, where a heavy, non-stop rainfall signals a lingering malaise. There, a young couple come across their doppelgängers. The film premiered at the Toronto festival. The idea for the plot grew out of the helmer’s long-ago trip to Southwest Iran to look at places where the Iran-Iraq war took place.

Alissa Simon Film Critic Danish director-writer Malou Reymann’s sophomore feature, “Unruly,” premiered in the Toronto festival, and is an affecting drama set in the 1930s about  a rebellious teen forced into an institution, the real-life Sprogø Women’s Home.  At a time when women’s control of their bodies is under attack, your film carries a special resonance. Is what took place at the Kellersk Institute on Sprogø island widely known in Denmark?  Among young people, very few know about the Sprogø Women’s Home and the whole historical context. And they are angry that this wasn’t something taught in school. The whole political aspect of the sterilization laws is not something people know about. Denmark was actually the first European country to make eugenic-based sterilization laws, so when Nazi Germany made their laws they looked to the Danish laws. It all came from trying to control the gene pool of society. And it was developed at the same time as the welfare system, so the concept was that if the state needs to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves, then we need to reduce the number of people who can’t take care of themselves.  

Alissa Simon Film Critic By ALISSA SIMON  Actress, producer and musician Trace Lysette, known for her recurring role as Shea on all five seasons of Amazon’s “Transparent,” and for her appearance alongside Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu in “Hustlers,” takes her career to a new level with a heart-rending turn in the title role of Venice competition title “Monica.”  • What drew you to this project? What stuck out to me most are the universal themes. A lot of people can relate to a loved one nearing the end of this physical life. Also, just the fact that families in general go through a lot together. There are strains on relationships, drama, humor, sadness… all of these things. This movie just happens to place a trans woman at the center of it all and we get to see it through her eyes. Which unfortunately is very rare and maybe even unheard of in film.  

Alissa Simon Film Critic This fall, Arab filmmakers will be out in force at such prestigious international fests as Venice and Toronto. Venice alone boasts six features from first- and second-time Arab directors in its official sections, plus an additional six works-in-progress at its Final Cut Production Bridge. Meanwhile, Toronto opens with “The Swimmers,” a drama from U.K. helmer Sally El Hosaini based on the journey of Syrian sisters and Olympic hopefuls Yusra and Sara Mardini, who fled the war in their home country for Germany. Yusra competed in the 2016 and 2021 Summer Olympics. An additional six Arab films will screen at the Canadian fest. Dek: Arab filmmakers embrace genres and issues as festivals and distributors take notice

Alissa Simon Film Critic“Every big story is made of little stories,” a novice Egyptian newsreel director patiently explains to those who question his footage in the epic historical drama “Image of Victory.” It’s also a truism that pithily describes veteran Israeli helmer Avi Nesher’s engrossing 19th feature, which highlights young people during a dramatic time of history and brims with small episodes of courage, passion and humor.Inspired by real events, the film provides a nuanced look at circumstances leading up to the June 1948 fighting at Kibbutz Nitzanim, viewed from both the Egyptian and Israeli perspectives. Its consideration of how storytelling and visual images can be weaponized makes it a tale with great resonance for these times.

Alissa Simon Film Critic“How Saba Kept Singing” seeks to understand how Polish Jewish teenager David Wisnia survived nearly three years in Auschwitz. The editing and vague timelines make it seem as if this latest doc from multi-hyphenate Sara Taksler (“Tickling Giants”) is revealing something previously unreported, even though a 2019 New York Times article already divulged the touching love story that underlies the “How” of the title.

Alissa Simon Film Critic“Brighton 4th” tells a gentle, naturalistic story of parental devotion and sacrifice, unfolding mostly in the former Soviet émigré enclave of Brighton Beach, N.Y. The tragicomedy nabbed a trifecta of awards at the recent Tribeca Festival, including best international narrative feature, screenplay and actor.

Alissa Simon Film CriticA naïve teenager comes of age amid the carnage of World War I’s Eastern Front in this propulsive adaptation of Aleksandrs Grins’ 1934 patriotic classic “Blizzard of Souls.” With its muscular direction by former documentarian Dzintars Dreibergs, atmospheric cinematography and careful attention to period detail, this account of a troop of Latvian Riflemen fighting first for the Russian Imperial Army against invading German forces and then for an independent Latvia should

Alissa Simon Film CriticThe Moomins, with their hippo-like silhouettes, are beloved cartoon characters familiar to readers around the globe. But less is known about their creator, the bisexual, Swedish-speaking, Finnish visual artist and author Tove Jansson and her surprisingly unconventional life.

It's too little too late in this tedious biopic of Anglo-Irish modernist designer Eileen Gray and her antagonist Swiss architect Le Corbusier.