Berlin Review: Andrew Dominik’s Nick Cave Documentary ‘This Much I Know To Be True’

This Much I Know to Be True, the latest feature from Andrew Dominik which recently debuted at the Berlin Film Festival, has been set for a May theatrical release by Trafalgar Releasing.

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis have announced a full global cinema release for their forthcoming film This Much I Know To Be True.The film will be released in cinemas globally on May 11, with tickets going on sale on March 23. They will be available here.The Andrew Dominik-directed feature is a companion piece to the 2016 music documentary One More Time With Feeling, and premiered at the Berlin Film Festival this month.This Much I Know To Be True will explore Cave and Ellis’ creative relationship and feature songs from their last two studio albums, 2019’s ‘Ghosteen’ (by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds) and last year’s ‘Carnage’ (by Cave and Ellis).It will feature the first ever performances of the albums, filmed in Spring 2021 ahead of their UK tour.

Naman Ramachandran Following its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, Trafalgar Releasing has set a May worldwide cinema release for Andrew Dominik’s “This Much I Know to Be True.”Shot on location in London and Brighton, the film captures the creative relationship of revered musicians Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ as they bring to life the songs from their last two studio albums, “Ghosteen” (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds) and “Carnage” (Nick Cave & Warren Ellis). The film serves as a document of their first ever performances of these albums, filmed in spring 2021 ahead of their U.K.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds have cancelled their scheduled concerts in Russia and Ukraine “in light of current events”.The group were due to perform at Bol Festival in Moscow, Russia on June 18 before visiting the Palace Of Sports complex in Kyiv, Ukraine on August 19 as part of a wider run of dates for 2022.Sharing a statement on social media, Cave and co. said they had “no choice but to cancel” the shows following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last week.

Miley Cyrus, 29, has never been shy about putting her body on display — and she certainly did so with a tiny black bikini in Mexico. The Disney alum rocked a black thong two piece with a triangle top and low rise bottom as she sunbathed in Cabo Mexico, with her musician boyfriend Maxx Morando, 23, in these photos. In other images, Maxx could be seen wearing just his boxer underwear as he tanned and strolled around.

Jessica Kiang Two cameras orbit a grand piano on a circular track. Sometimes one will catch sight of the other, passing behind the black-haired singer at the keyboard, flashing between the session violinists or gliding beyond the bearded man crouched low over his synthesizer.

Paolo and Vittorio Taviani directed films together from the early 1950s until Vittorio died in 2018, leaving his now 90-year-old brother to carry on alone. Leonora Addio, the second film Paolo has made without Vittorio, is not only dedicated to him but picks up many of the themes that ran through their earlier work, including their enthusiasm for theater in general and the writings of Nobel laureate Luigi Pirandello in particular. The Berlin Film Festival competition entry looks and sounds sumptuous, but its two stories — both of which raise questions about what the living owe the dead — are disappointingly slight.

The Sole family grows peaches. Round white peaches ripen first; then the flat white peaches that supermarkets like; then yellow cling peaches. Their farmhouse is surrounded by the plantation they have tended for three generations, promised to them in perpetuity by the current owner’s great-grandparents during the Civil War. Memories are long in their corner of Catalonia. Nobody remembers a time before peaches. Harvesting determines the rhythm of their rumbustious family life. When the fruit ripens, it’s all hands on deck.

Sat in front of a computer, musician Nick Cave reads a few questions aloud. These are deeply existential musings sent in by people he has never met.

Here’s another walking-and-talking film from festival favorite Hong Sang-soo, encapsulating a sliver of Korean life with his customary elusive delicacy. Shot largely in creamy black and white, Berlin competition entry The Novelist’s Film centers on the meeting between two artists who, for different reasons, have simply stopped working.

Brother in Every Inch definitely offers the world something it’s never seen before — the training of Russian air force pilots on an actual Russian air base — but guess what: It looks exactly flight training in any other country. All the same, this second feature from director Alexander Zolotukhin (after his debut three years ago with A Russian Youth) does take you somewhere new as it examines the progress of twin brothers as they undergo the rigors of learning to fly jet fighters, even if it’s presented in a semi-arty way that is both aesthetically pleasing and dramatically skimpy. This visually entrancing short feature (just 80 minutes long) premiered in the Encounters section of the Berlin Film Festival.

Fêted and eternally fabulous, Isabelle Huppert is this year’s Berlin Film Festival honorary Golden Bear laureate for her life’s work so far, with an accompanying program of some of her most celebrated films. About Joan is her newest, screened out of competition as a Berlinale Special gala (though Huppert was unable to make the trip to Berlin after testing positive for Covid). That is quite a lot of weight to carry for Laurent Larivière’s slender story about the malleability of memory. That subject in itself, broad and deep as it is, may be too much for this rickety film to bear, even with Huppert’s flickering brilliance in the title role.

Heroism, obsession, sheet ice and huskies. It’s a winning combination, the stuff of stories that show men – because these were stories about men – reaching beyond themselves to survive the elements. Sometimes, even in stories, they didn’t survive because they sacrificed themselves for their comrades, finding their best selves in tough situations. Before imaginary superheroes took over, these tall tales and true of derring-do used to fill children’s annuals.

An isolated house in the country, a small tribe of peculiar characters mostly keeping a wary distance from each other: That Kind of Summer (Un Ete Comme Ca) is a film set up perfectly for the pandemic era. The bonus zinger is that the house is a live-in retreat for supposedly, or maybe just possibly, recovering sex addicts. Nobody leaves, and everyone talks dirty. Denis Cote, the prolific Quebecois provocateur, must have been hugging himself when he thought of that one.

A couple struggles to process the aftermath of the Bataclan terrorist attack in One Year, One Night (Un Ano, Una Noche), an affecting Berlin Film Festival competition title from Spanish director Isaki Lacuesta (Between Two Waters). Inspired by a book from Ramón González entitled Peace, Love and Death Metal, it’s based on recollections from real survivors of the 2015 attack in Paris, and the level of detail is compelling.

“Do you believe in God?,” Julia asks her stepfather on his sickbed. He looks down at her little face. Not much captures his interest these days. “I think so,” he mumbles. Julia continues, undeterred. “I believe in something else,” she says firmly. “The sun, mountains, animals, trees. And snow.” Marco says nothing — he never said much, even at his most hale and hearty — but his big body seems to soften in acceptance. She’s talking his language.

Of all the unsolved mysteries in Claire Denis‘ new Berlin Competition film, the biggest may just be its U.S. retitling to a generic and not particularly representative “Fire.” The film’s English title in the rest of the world, “Both Sides of the Blade” — a line from the terrific Tindersticks track that ends the film —is not just cooler and more compelling.

Since her Sundance hit An Education in 2009, Denmark’s Lone Scherfig has become something of an honorary Brit, specializing in prestige adaptations of best-selling English novels (or, in the case of 2014’s The Riot Club, critically acclaimed stage plays). Surprisingly, none of these ever quite tipped in the way An Education did, and after a mixed reaction to One Day (2011), which mostly rounded on Anne Hathaway’s Yorkshire accent rather than her performance, Scherfig’s first real attempt to tap into the American market — 2019’s The Kindness Of Strangers — was an uncharacteristic misfire and pretty much vanished into the ether after opening the Berlinale that year.

Juliette Binoche puts in another tremendous performance in Claire Denis’ drama Both Sides Of The Blade (aka Fire, and also aka Avec Amour Et Acharnement). The Berlin Film Festival competition title is an intimate slow-burner that sets a credible scene, but doesn’t quite deliver on the mystery it promises. 

A determined Turkish mother takes on the authorities in Rabiye Kurnaz Vs. George W. Bush, Andreas Dresen’s drama that takes a light approach to a moving true story.