‘The Story Of Film: A New Generation’ Surveys The Industry’s Past Decade, 10 Years After Original Pic – Specialty Preview
10.09.2022 - 00:29
/ deadline.com
The Story of Film: A New Generation opens at two dozen theaters this weekend — Laemmle Royal in LA, Museum of the Moving Image in NY, Music Box Theatre in Chicago and Brattle in Cambridge. It’s a mix of arthouses, cinematheques, museums and even a few multiplexes for Mark Cousins’ follow-up to his 15-hour, 2011 opus The Story Of Film: An Odyssey. (This one clocks a relatively brief three hours.)
Several theaters are programming repertory series with the release, “which we feel will elevate its profile and continue the conversation,” said Kyle Westphal, head of theatrical sales for Music Box Films, the distributor for both installments.
A New Generation debuted at Cannes to strong reviews, Deadline’s here. Now, Westphal said, the first film, only available in standard definition, has been remastered in HD and both works will be released in a Blu-ray box set. The earlier work, which essentially played as a series given its running time, “was very successful for us. It’s been available on Kanopy for a number of years, and it’s not just for cinephiles, a lot of film professors use it in their classes. It’s an evergreen title for us.”
An Odyssey was Cousins’ expansive inquiry into the state of moviemaking in the 20th century. In a New Generation, the writer and director from Northern Ireland, turns his gaze on world cinema from 2010 to 2021 using films from Frozen, The Babadook and Cemetery of Splendour as launchpads to explore recurring themes and emerging motifs, from the evolution of film language, to technology in moviemaking, to shifting identities. From Parasite and The Farewell to Black Panther and Lover’s Rock, Cousins seeks out films, filmmakers and communities that are underrepresented in traditional film histories,