Malgorzata Szumowska: Last News

Ben Croll Seated before a photo of filmmaker Sarah Moldoror, panelists at this year’s Women in Film roundtable shared strategies for greater industry parity, while reflecting on recent successes and standstills in that ongoing pursuit. Variety has been give access to the video of the panel discussion.

Polish director Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert’s transgender drama Women Of world premieres in Competition at the Venice Film Festival on Friday.

While they’re perennial favorites that arguably never go away, snowy survival dramas are having a moment right now. In the past month, we’ve been offered five of them from various distributors, including Hulu‘s “No Exit,” Netflix’s “Against the Ice,” and now, the nearly-silent thriller “Infinite Storm” from Bleecker Street.

Dennis Harvey Film CriticNaomi Watts has had a penchant for highly physical roles unusual among female stars not particularly associated with action movies. It made her acrobatics the most special effect amidst so many CG wonders in Peter Jackson’s “King Kong,” and a vividly plausible victim of grueling crises in films like “Funny Games” and “The Impossible.” Of course, one can always get too much of a good thing, as when recent, regrettable “The Desperate Hour” seemed to reduce the hot-button topic of school shootings to a gimmicky “Watch this fearless actress run the gamut of emotions while JOGGING!”Fortunately, there is nothing gratuitous about the physicality demanded of Watts by “Infinite Storm,” which is based on a real-life incident that took place in New Hampshire’s White Mountains a dozen years ago.

Naman Ramachandran Panah Panahi’s “Hit the Road,” Laura Wandel’s “Playground” and Liz Garbus’ “Becoming Cousteau” have won the feature competition awards at the 65th BFI London Film Festival.Phoebe Waller-Bridge and BFI chief executive Ben Roberts led a judging panel to award “True Things” filmmaker Harry Wootliff the £50,000 ($68,470) IWC Schaffhausen bursary, which recognizes emerging talent. Family road trip movie “Hit the Road” won best film at the festival’s official competition.

You probably remember “Never Gonna Snow Again” from the Venice Film Festival last year, where it was met with much acclaim. Then Poland chose it as their Official Submission to the 93rd Academy Awards.

The Göteborg International Film Festival, Scandinavia's largest public festival, has announced its official lineup for 2021, unveiling the films that will compete in its 44th edition, which runs Jan.29-Feb. 8.

Never Gonna Snow Again co-directors and co-writers Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert’s professional collaboration is an unusual one — the pair are ex-husband and wife. But Szumowska says their enduring partnership shows “collaboration is possible.”

Emptiness and longing afflict the sad residents of a wealthy gated community outside an ugly Polish city, until a mysterious visitor arrives offering massages with his strong, healing hands. At that point they realize what is missing from their lives and find it almost within their grasp.

Close your eyes and imagine what Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin” would evolve into if its tone were more uplifting than unsettling and its protagonist wasn’t preying on humans but trying to heal them. That new material would remain a film about a mysterious entity coming into a foreign land, or planet, and peculiarly engaging with its inhabitants—who may never unearth the origin or exact motivations of their unannounced guest.

Christopher Vourlias An enigmatic man from the East arrives in a drab, anonymous Eastern European city one foggy morning, bearing little more than a massage bed. As he earns the confidence of the residents of an exclusive gated community, he becomes equal parts confessor and healer, his Russian accent carrying hints of a longed-for past, his therapy offering the promise of a salve for more than just their aching bodies.“Never Gonna Snow Again” stars Alec Utgoff (“Stranger Things”) as Zhenia, the mysterious masseur at the center of the latest feature from two-time Berlinale Silver Bear winner Malgorzata Szumowska (“Body,” “Mug”), who co-wrote and co-directed with cinematographer Michał Englert, making his directorial debut.