THIS OCTOBER, FILM MOVEMENT PLUS UNVEILS TEN AWARD-WINNERS TO THE SVOD PLATFORM, MANY MAKING THEIR STREAMING PREMIERES, INCLUDING SWISS OSCAR ENTRY, MY LITTLE SISTER, STARRING NINA HOSS
Highlights Include the Catherine Deneuve Drama, CLAIRE DARLING, Ukrainian Author/Filmmaker Marysia Nikitiuk’s Feature Debut, WHEN THE TREES FALL, the Brazilian, Sundance Premiere Drama, LOVELING, Asli Özge’s Subtle Thriller, ALL OF A SUDDEN and a Trio of Restored Mexican Classics IncludingLuis Bunuel’s ROBINSON CRUSOE
This October, Film Movement Plus adds continues to add to their burgeoning streaming library with an award-winning cornucopia of films from around the globe. Included in the ten new films to the service are a trio of recent acclaimed festival favorites enjoying their North American Premieres: WHEN THE TREES FALL from Ukraine, LOVELING from Brazil and ALL OF A SUDDEN from Germany, a host of Film Movement’s own theatrical releases, including MY LITTLE SISTER from writer-directors Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond and Oren Jacoby’s fascinating NYC art doc, SHADOWMAN.
Cinema aficionados will also be able to help the great Catherine Deneuve celebrate her birthday on October 22 with CLAIRE DARLING, starring her real-life daughter, Chiara Mastroianni, as well as soak up the atmosphere from a trio of restored Mexican classics: REBELION DE LOS COLGADOS AKA THE REBELION OF THE HANGED, LA BARACCA and Luis Buñuel’s ROBINSON CRUSOE from 1954.
Film Movement Plus October highlights are as follows:
Friday, October 1
A FILM MOVEMENT PLUS EXCLUSIVE: WHEN THE TREES FALL
Director Marysia Nikitiuk
In a godforsaken post-Soviet village, Larysa has fallen in love with Scar, an attractive young criminal. After he heads to the city, she will be forced to follow the traditional life she has always refused. However, Vitka, her 5-year-old rebellious cousin, holds a secret that can change everyone’s destiny. The feature debut by Ukrainian author and filmmaker Marysia Nikitiuk, the film had its premiere in the Panorama Section of the Berlin International Film Festival. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas of The Blue Lenses wrote that When the Trees Fall is “a beautiful tale of hope, life, and the joyful weightlessness of dreaming.” (2018 | 88 minutes | Ukraine, Poland, Macedonia | Ukrainian with English subtitles)

A FILM MOVEMENT PLUS EXCLUSIVE: LOVELING
Director Gustavo Passos Pizzi
Irene (Brazilian star Karine Teles) lives in a crumbling house in the outskirts of Rio with her husband and her four sons. Her teenage son Fernando is a local handball star and when he’s scouted to play professionally in Germany, the family has only a few weeks to ready his departure and say goodbye. The perspective of Fernando leaving is a shock and a big change in Irene’s life but also a chance to see herself as a woman again and not just as a mother. Irene gets her high-school diploma, finds a new job and pushes forward with plans for a new family home. As she flourishes, things begin to look up for her family as well. Irene understands that while some things come to an end, new things start and the future is bright as long as they stick together. Peter Debruge of Variety calls the melodrama, which premiered in the World Dramatic Competition at Sundance, “a warm and wonderfully universal love story” and Fionnuala Hannigan of Screen Daily writes “there’s no denying Loveling’s rambunctious charm…[it’s an] audience-pleaser.” (2018 | 97 minutes | Brazil, Uruguay | Portuguese with English subtitles)
Friday, October 8
A FILM MOVEMENT PLUS EXCLUSIVE: ALL OF A SUDDEN
Director Asli Özge
Inventive Turkish filmmaker Özge tested the genre waters with ALL OF A SUDDEN, which world-premiered in the Berlinale’s Panorama Special section. Following a party in Karsten’s apartment in a provincial German town, everybody leaves except Anna (Natalia Belitski), a mysterious woman, who Karsten (Sebastian Hülk, Amour Fou, Hitman: Agent 47) admiringly approaches. How could he have known, that in a moment of weakness, his well-established life would spiral out of control and turn into a disaster? Disappointment soon fuels anger, justice hides behind hypocrisy, and evil gradually unfolds, in this subtle thriller that features “a dazzling array of arresting images and smart plot twists” (Georgia Straight). (2016 | 112 minutes | Germany, France, Netherlands | German with English subtitles)
FM+ CLASSIC PREMIERE: REBELION DE LOS COLGADOS AKA THE REBELION OF THE HANGED: 4K RESTORATION (1954)
Director Alfredo V. Cravenna
In this gripping Mexican classic, digitally restored in 4K, the workers at a mahogany logging camp deep in a remote area of the jungle are subjected to such brutal conditions and harsh discipline that they are effectively little more than slaves. Pushed to the brink of fury, the man decides the only way out for himself, and his coworkers, is to lead them in a violent and bloody revolt against their oppressors in a daring revolution. (1954 | 85 minutes | Mexico | Spanish with English subtitles)
Friday, October 15 FM+ PREMIERE: MY LITTLE SISTER
Directors Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond
A once successful playwright sacrifices her life and career for her dying brother in MY LITTLE SISTER, Switzerland’s Official Selection for Best International Film, nominated for the Golden Bear and Teddy Awards at the 2020 Berlinale. Lisa (Nina Hoss, Phoenix, The Most Wanted Man), once a brilliant playwright, no longer writes. She lives with her family in Switzerland, but her heart remains in Berlin, beating in time with that of her twin brother Sven (Lars Eidinger, Proxima, Never Look Away), the famous theatre actor. Since Sven has been suffering from an aggressive type of leukemia, the relationship between them has become even closer. Lisa does not want to accept this blow of fate, and she does everything in her power to bring Sven back on stage. For her soulmate, she neglects everything else and even risks losing her husband, but Lisa only has eyes for her brother, who reflects her deepest longings and awakens in her the desire to be creative, to feel alive again. A New York Times Critic’s Pick, MY LITTLE SISTER garnered awards and accolades around the globe. Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal said, “The quiet wonder of My Little Sister…is its cumulative effect… Every moment strengthens the essence of the drama — the bond of love between two people who came out of their mother’s womb within seconds of one another,” and Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post called the powerful drama “[an] elegantly constructed meditation on family, identity, filial boundaries, and ethical obligation.” (2020 | 99 minutes | Switzerland | English, German and French with English subtitles)

FM+ CLASSIC PREMIERE: LA BARACCA (1945)
Director Roberto Gavaldón
For his 1945 directorial debut, Director Gavaldón took on this adaptation of an 1895 novel by the popular Spanish writer, Vicente Blasco Ibánez (Blood and Sand). Though set in Spain, this story of an immigrant family’s struggles to establish their own small farm was close enough to the concerns of Mexico’s tradition of rural melodramas to become an immediate popular and critical success and the most successful Mexican film of 1946. In recent years, as part of a collaborative project, the Film Library of the UNAM and the AMACC (Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences) have joined efforts to restore and preserve Mexico’s national film collection. LA BARACCA, #21 on the list of “The 100 Best Movies of Mexican Cinema” (SOMOS) and winner of 9 Silver Ariel Awards and 1 Gold Ariel, including Best Director, Male Actor, Female Actor, Screenplay and Cinematography, is one of five classic films that have been restored thus far. (1945 | 110 minutes | Mexico | Spanish with English Subtitles)
Friday, October 22 A FILM MOVEMENT PLUS EXCLUSIVE: CLAIRE DARLING
Director Julie Bertucelli
Join Film Movement Plus in celebrating Catherine Deneuve’s birthday (10/22) with CLAIRE DARLING. Living alone in the French village of Verderonne, north of Paris, and suffering from dementia, Darling (Catherine Deneuve), believes the first day of summer will be the last day she lives and decides spontaneously to sell all her belongings. She has them spread out on the lawn as a horde of curious bystanders and neighbors fight over the ridiculously underpriced antiques. Her estranged daughter Marie (Chiara Mastroianni, Deneuve’s real-life daughter with Marcello Mastroianni), whom she has not seen in years, returns home to try and stop the sale when her childhood friend alerts her to what’s happening. The reunion is difficult and through flashbacks from both mother and daughter, we learn the story of Claire’s tragic and flamboyant life. David Stratton of The Australian said, CLAIRE DARLING “showcase[s] a late-career performance from a cinema icon,” and Sandra Hall of The Sydney Morning Herald writes that it’s “a film overloaded with atmosphere.” (2018 | 94 minutes | France | French with English Subtitles)
FM+ CLASSIC PREMIERE: LUIS BUNUEL’S ROBINSON CRUSOE
Director Luis Buñuel
Buñuel’s first color film and one of only two he made in English is a revelatory take on Daniel Defoe’s classic survival novel about a shipwrecked castaway (Oscar® nominee Dan O’Herlihy) stranded on a desert island for decades, while facing both physical and psychological peril. Chronicling Crusoe’s crisis of faith and loosening grip on reality, the gripping saga is both “morally and spiritually adventuresome… Buñuel dares his audience to question everything they’ve come to know about morality, savagery, and everything in between” (Ed Gonzalez, Slant) (1954 | 90 minutes)
Friday, October 29 FM+ PREMIERE: SHADOWMAN
Director Oren Jacoby
In the 1980s, Richard Hambleton was the Shadowman, a specter in the night who painted hundreds of startling silhouettes on the walls of lower Manhattan and, along with Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, sparked the street art movement. After drug addiction and homelessness sent him spinning out of the art scene for 20 years, the Shadowman gets a second chance…but will he take it? Celebrate the talented Hambleton on the day of his passing in 2017 with SHADOWMAN, which plunges the viewer into the chaotic life of a forgotten artist, from early fame as a painter and denizen of the Lower East Side, through his struggles with heroin, to his surprising comeback as street art exploded to become one of the most popular and lucrative art movements in the world. Before Banksy, there was Hambleton. An Official pick of the Tribeca Film Festival and a New York Times Critics Pick, SHADOWMAN captivated critics and viewers alike. “This intense documentary shows a driven creator walking the walk, so to speak, in the most perverse fashion possible,” wrote NYT’s Glenn Kenny. “The story is both repellent and strangely inspiring.” And Jason Bailey of Flavorwire called the documentary “[A] captivating portrait of the modern art world.” (2017 | 82 minutes)
FM+ PREMIERE: AN AMERICAN SATAN
Director Aram Garriga
This October, take a deep dive into Satanism, its rituals, myths and magic with the darkly fascinating documentary, AN AMERICAN SATAN. Founded in 1966 in California by a former organist and lion tamer named Anton Szandor LaVey, the Church of Satan has often been surrounded by mysteries, scandals and moral panics. Some of today’s active members of the church and other free-styled Satanists will share their views, memories, ritual practices, and personal stories about how they got involved with Satanism, discussing the false myths that still surround the movement. AN AMERICAN SATAN, from director Aram Garriga (American Jesus), is an immersive journey into one the most fascinating phenomena of American religious pluralism. Angel Sala the Director of the Sitges Film Festival called the doc “Funny, bizarre, surprising and enriching. A deliciously ironic journey through one of the most influential mythologies of American culture in the late 20th century.” (2019 | 72 minutes)