Ulrich Seidl: Last News

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor “The Last Showgirl” director Gia Coppola is set to be honored with the Auteur Award at the 7th annual Kodak Awards. “Maria” cinematographer Ed Lachman will receive Kodak’s Career Achievement Award for his contributions to film. Lachman has collaborated with directors such as Todd Haynes, Robert Altman, Steven Soderbergh, Ulrich Seidl, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Bernardo Bertolucci, Jean-Luc Godard, and Pablo Larraín.

Guy Lodge Film Critic Sometimes, in a closely contested festival competition, it pays to be the one thing that isn’t like the others. A starkly powerful, observational study of contemporary bullfighting, Spanish auteur Albert Serra’s “Afternoons of Solitude” was the only documentary in the main competition at this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival — and this evening won the Golden Shell for best film of the festival, beating some big-name narrative competition.

José Luis Rebordinos, director of the San Sebastian Film Festival, has just over a week until opening night when he sits down for an interview with Deadline, and he is still plagued by one niggling organizational issue. 

Naman Ramachandran Big World Pictures has acquired U.S. and Canadian distribution rights to Iair Said’s “Most People Die on Sundays” from sales agent Heretic. The existential comedy, Said’s fiction feature debut, was an official selection in the ACID sidebar at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The teaser (above) has debuted for “Moon” (Mond), which has its world premiere on Aug. 11 in the International Competition section of Locarno Film Festival. Bendita Film Sales has just come on board to handle world sales rights.

American Cinematographer Ed Lachman will be the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s Camerimage Film Festival.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Playtime has boarded “The Devil’s Bath,” a period psychological thriller directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, the Austrian filmmaking duo behind the critical and commercial hit “Goodnight Mommy.” The movie reteams Franz and Fiala with Ulrich Seidl, who also produced “Goodnight Mommy.” Set in rural Austria in 1750, “The Devil’s Bath” stars Anja Plaschg, the up-and-coming singer and composer known as Soap & Skin. Plaschg plays Agnes, a young married woman who feels oppressed in her husband’s world which is devoid of emotions and limited to chores and expectations. A pious and highly sensitive woman, Agnes falls into a deep depression, before committing a shocking act of violence that she sees as the only way out of her inner prison.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Hailing from the country that gave us such grim social critics as Michael Haneke and Ulrich Seidl (fittingly, the latter serves as a producer here), Vantablack Austrian satire “Veni Vidi Vici” opens with a senseless homicide. It’s a startling scene, no less upsetting than the Scorpio killing that kick-starts “Dirty Harry” — except that in this case, the incident is calibrated as the darkest sort of comedy.

Marta Balaga Veni, vidi, vici: “I came, I saw, I conquered,” reportedly said Julius Caesar after an especially swift victory. Now, his words echo in Daniel Hoesl and Julia Niemann’s satire about a family so powerful it can get away with murder. Literally.

Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl is set to debut a new combined version of his 2022 films Rimini and Sparta at the Rotterdam Film Festival later this month.

Ulrich Seidl has canceled his trip to San Sebastian for the premiere of his latest film Sparta following a report in German magazine Der Spiegel that raised concerns about the treatment of younger cast members during the production.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Austrian director Ulrich Seidl has cancelled his visit to San Sebastian for the Sept. 18 world premiere of “Sparta,” amid allegations of impropriety and child exploitation made against the director. The world premiere will still go ahead at San Sebastian with the film playing in main competition contending for San Sebastian’s Gold Shell. Seidl’s decision comes after the Toronto Film Festival pulled “Sparta” and on Sept. 14, FilmFest Hamburg announced that it would no longer be giving Seidl its Douglas Sirk Award, though it would be screening “Sparta.”

Filmfest Hamburg will no longer present Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl with its prestigious Douglas Sirk Award following a report in German magazine Der Spiegel that raised concerns about the treatment of younger cast members during the production of his latest film Sparta.

The San Sebastian Film Festival is pushing on with a competition screening of Austrian director Ulrich Seidl’s new film Sparta, following a report in German magazine Der Spiegel raising concerns about the treatment of its young cast, saying only a court order would result in it dropping the film.

Manori Ravindran International Editor Ulrich Seidl’s “Sparta” has been pulled from the Toronto International Film Festival amid allegations of impropriety and child exploitation against the director, but its premiere at next week’s San Sebastian Film Festival will continue as planned, Variety can reveal. A spokesperson for the Spanish festival tells Variety on behalf of festival management that “Sparta” will remain in competition. Providing a three-point list explaining their reasoning, San Sebastian said “the festival team assesses the films after their viewing according to their interest and quality” and that the event “does not have the ability to judge how a film has been shot and whether a crime has been committed in the course of the filming. If anyone has any evidence of a crime, they should report it to a judge.”

UPDATED w/TIFF Statement: Sparta, the German-Romanian drama from Austrian director Ulrich Seidl that is in the Contemporary World Cinema section of the Toronto Film Festival, has been pulled from the festival lineup.

Manori Ravindran International Editor The Toronto International Film Festival has withdrawn the film “Sparta” following allegations of on-set impropriety against director Ulrich Seidl. “Sparta” was due to have its world premiere in Toronto on Friday afternoon. However, there has been speculation as to whether the film would remain in the festival after allegations against Seidl and the production were published last week in German news magazine Der Spiegel. The investigation alleges that Seidl did not communicate the film’s theme of paedophilia to its young actors, who were between the ages of 9 and 16. It’s also alleged that the actors were confronted with alcoholism, nudity and violence during the production without adequate preparation or support.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentSebastian Lelio’s “Wonder,” starring “Black Widow’s” Florence Pugh, “Winter Boy” with Juliette Binoche and directors Hong Sang-soo and Ulrich Seidl will compete in main competition at September’s San Sebastian Film Festival, the biggest film event in the Spanish-speaking world.In “Wonder,” the latest from Academy Award winning director Lelio (“A Fantastic Woman”),Pugh plays an English nurse brought in to the Irish Midlands in 1862 to observe the alleged miracle of girls going months without food.Binoche co-stars in “Winter Boy,” from resilient French auteur Christophe Honoré who won at Cannes Un Certain Regard with 2019’s “On a Magical Night.” Hong Sang-soo, the prolific South Korean director, will present “Walk Up,” a film which is billed as taking a gently delightful new perspective on themes dear to his poetics. Seidl’s “Sparta” forms part of a diptych with 2022 Berlin competition contender “Rimini,” both movies turning on men who cannot escape their past.The 12 competition titles announced on Tuesday by San Sebastian join its four Spanish contenders, unveiled last month.A brief breakdown on the new competition entries:San Sebastian Main Competition: Newly Announced Titles“Il Boemo,” (Petr Václav, Czech Republic, Italy, Slovakia)The passions and ambitions, breakthrough and tragic fall from grace of Czech opera composer, Josef Mysliveček,a mentor to Mozart.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe Melbourne Film Festival will return to cinemas after two turbulent years caused by COVID-related disruptions – the city endured one of the world’s longest pandemic lockdowns – and will run Aug 4-21, 2022. It will open with powerful Australian-U.K.-Serbian-made first film “Of An Age,” by renown shorts director Goran Stolevski.

Jessica Kiang Freezing winter in a place designed for frolicsome summer can be a doleful time. A case in point: the empty hotels, shuttered waterparks and endless fog banks of the Italian beach town that gives Ulrich Seidl’s challenging but riveting Berlin competition film its name.

There’s bleak, there’s despairing, and then there is Ulrich Seidl, Austrian chronicler of the marginal, the miserable and plain mad. If there are Nazis still worshipping Hitler in some rural basement, Seidl will dig them out. Closet religious fanatics, marriages mired in cruelty, depraved things respectable people do on holiday that nobody at home will know about: Ulrich Seidl sets them out for all to see. Perhaps the Rimini director/co-writer is not so much bleak as relentlessly clear-eyed.