Author: rb809rb

A nocturnal odyssey through the spectral streets of Tbilisi is conjured with mesmerizing effect in Georgian writer-director Ana Urushadze’s “Supporting Role.” On the heavy heels of Niaz (Dato Bakhtadze), a lumbering Georgian movie star whose glory days are behind him, Urushadze’s second feature plays like an old-school Jim Jarmusch joint — all existential wandering and weird, winding conversations — but with a distinctly post-Soviet gallows humor. Having won a Special Jury award and the FIPRESCI prize at Rotterdam in January, the film now lands in the main competition at Sarajevo.

This mordant melange takes off from the opening sequence, when Niaz finds himself at a casting call for an indie directed by Aza (Elene Mausuradze), an androgynous female director with the pallid look of a Tim Burton extra. Winking back to Bakhtadze’s stints in Hollywood (“Wanted,” “Extraction 2”), Niaz is used to playing brawny leading men and taking direction from male auteurs. So he’s silent and slackjawed when “this tiny weird creature,” as he describes Aza, confidently pitches him a tragic one-scene role with no script — only a hand-drawn storyboard, the sole copy of which she lends him when he asks for three days to consider. So ensues a period of delirious soul-searching, given tremendous gravitas by Bakhtadze.

The film follows Niaz as he drifts through depopulated streets and former haunts like a dizzied mastiff. With a meandering rhythm, he encounters characters from his past, fans and random eccentrics who sweep him into their homes and vehicles as quickly as he slips away. Among them are an Armenian duo with whom Niaz goes to the spa; a few former lovers, including a statuesque makeup artist and a veiled actress; and a crowd of colleagues attending the wake of a veteran critic whose final unpublished work is an exhaustive study of Niaz’s career. 

Too driven a character study to be the kind of trancelike reverie you might float in and out of sleep from, the film nevertheless challenges with an 139-minute runtime — a length that induces a dreamworld immersion. The film’s trippy side keeps Niaz’s reckoning from drowning in male sorrow, while the measured use of a jazzy, bass-heavy refrain by composer Sten Sheripov accents this wry romanticism.

Urushadze, to her great credit, employs surrealism with a delicate touch: a special herb that Niaz picks from the side of the road reappears later in the film when he turns out his pockets during a tender meeting with his former partner; a finger doodle traced on a fogged-up window resurfaces like a bout of déjà vu. An avatar for Urushadze, who based “Supporting Role” on an experience she had making her debut feature “Scary Mother” (which won Locarno’s Best First Feature award in 2017), Aza justifies her lack of a script by claiming that the visuals are most important. Urushadze agrees, complementing the film’s shadowy Tbilisi nightscape with bursts of jewel color: a turquoise bird, a room bathed in purple light, a bone-white body against midnight blue sheets. 

Disheveled and brutish, Niaz is routinely greeted by his peers with wariness and surprise, his star faded by what is heavily suggested to be his own doing. But if the idea of Aza’s film triggers Niaz’s mourning over the death of his career — which is tied up with his old self — it also forces him to consider a new act, and perhaps the necessity of change in a world that’s beginning to shed its tolerance for the antics of male genius.

Eventually, he becomes obsessed with playing the supporting role. As Niaz searches desperately for a way into the character — at one point shaving an eyebrow, and being whisked away before the second one comes off — he finds the challenge posed by this novel part demands a softness and vulnerability he had long denied both onscreen and off. A sensitively observed meeting with his estranged son crystallizes the film’s ideas about the hazy boundary between performance and real life; we are who we play and those characters can reshape us, a notion that, in Urushadze’s hands, comes with a decent side of hope.

The 70th edition of the BFI London Film Festival has revealed its official competition, with 10 titles set to compete for the best film award.

The films selected represent 10 countries, including the U.K., Ireland, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, and Poland. The winner will be chosen by the LFF awards jury.

Among the film are news works from Hirokazu Kore-eda, Sergei Loznitsa, Carol Morley, Lili Horvát, Benjamín Naishtat, Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, Giovanni Tortorici, Malgorzata Szumowska, May el-Toukhy and Michal Englert and Rubaiyat Hossain. Star names among the casts include the likes of Aimee Lou Wood, Monica Bellucci, Mackenzie Davis, Rupert Friend and Johnny Flynn.

“As we celebrate the 70th edition of the BFI London Film Festival, it’s an honour to have a number of alumni filmmakers represented in the Official Competition alongside those making their first appearance at the festival,” said festival director Kristy Matheson. “Our 2026 competition selection brings an astounding array of filmmaking styles to the screen. As ever, it’s been creatively nourishing for myself and the team to encounter each of these works — we’re excited to share these with audiences in October.”

The 10 films in the official competition are:

“7 Miles Out” (UK, Dir-Scr. Carol Morley)  

Carol Morley (“Dreams of a Life,” “The Falling”) adapts her moving semi-autobiographical novel, which documents her adolescence in Stockport during the 70s and 80s. Morley’s film follows Anne, who struggles to come to terms with her beloved father’s suicide and finds escapism in the emerging of new-wave punk movement.

“Act 3” (Ireland-UK, Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor)

The latest in Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s series of cinematic essays is a rich and thought-provoking journey through aging, legacy and the intersection between artistic and personal relationships. Molloy and Lawlor (“Baltimore,” LFF 2023) engage in a witty and moving conversation that explores family history and their latest project, a film about groundbreaking artists Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore.

“Glaxo” (Brazil-Argentina, Dir. Benjamín Naishtat)

An act of betrayal between a close group of friends has terrible consequences in Benjamín Naishtat’s atmospheric period-noir thriller. Four young men in the provincial Argentine city of Chivilcoy find their lives disrupted when a retired police officer and his glamorous young wife move into the area. Add two visiting American Mormons into the mix, along with a volatile political situation, and tensions soon escalate.

“Imperium” (Germany-France-Italy-Lithuania, Dir. Sergei Loznitsa)

Archival footage master filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa reframes Soviet history once again, via the revealing gaze of Italian cameramen who captured life there in the early 1970s. The footage Loznitsa uncovered at Rome’s Audiovisual Archive of the Labour and Democratic Movement left him marvelling at the contrast with official Soviet productions from the same era.

“Ketticè” (Italy, Dir. Giovanni Tortorici)

Following his debut with “Diciannove” (LFF 2024), Giovanni Tortorici continues his collaboration with producer Luca Guadagnino on this vibrant coming-of-age story, set in early 2000s Palermo. Giulio a dissatisfied 16-year-old, drifts through life with no enthusiasm for his education or his future, much to his family’s dismay (particularly his endlessly frustrated mother, brilliantly played by Monica Bellucci).

“Look Back” (Japan, Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda)

Spanning more than a decade, Hirokazu Koreeda’s tender coming-of-age story follows two girls who bond over their passion for and dream of becoming manga artists. Fujino, a gifted artist and aspiring manga artist, meets Kymoto, a shy admirer of her work. Seemingly opposites, they create the perfect team with their shared love of the form. But as their work draws praise and attention, they find themselves confronted with decisions that threaten their artistic collaboration.

“My Notes on Mars” (Hungary-Austria, Lili Horvát)

In Lili Horvát’s beguiling third feature, the sudden return of Sam’s missing wife, who has no memory of anything except her scientific research, gives their relationship another chance. A talented scientist goes missing while hiking with her husband. Weeks later, she reappears at the family home but is not herself; all memories, save for those of her recent research on Mars, have mysteriously disappeared.

“The Difficult Bride” (France-Bangladesh-Portugal-Norway-Germany, Rubaiyat Hossain)

A bride-to-be wrestles with beauty rituals, social restrictions and supernatural forces as her dream wedding approaches, in this gripping feminist body horror from Bangladesh. Zaineen is very excited about her upcoming wedding. But she soon bristles under the many planned makeovers intended to make her thinner, fairer, sleeker and more bride-like. Resistance takes root in her body, and she experiences strange changes and omens.

“The Idiot(s)” (U.K.-Poland, Dir. Malgorzata Szumowska, Michal Englert)

Aimee Lou Wood and Johnny Flynn play Anna and Fyodor Dostoevsky in Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert’s acerbic and joyful period film. Anna Dostoevsky loves her husband Fyodor. Fyodor loves his wife, but he also loves gambling and booze. Living in self-exile in Germany, Fyodor’s biggest obstacle to creative progress is himself. Anna tries desperately to rid him of his procrastination so he can deliver a new novel and they can avoid destitution.

“Woman Unknown” (Denmark-Latvia-Sweden, Dir. May el-Toukhy)

Marie, a young nanny and housemaid, is about to marry the wealthy older widower, Christian, for whom she is working. But Marie guards a shameful secret. During World War II, she was in an intimate relationship with a German soldier. Now Marie’s past threatens to catch up with her, and she is forced to do everything in her power to preserve her new status as lady of the house in post-war anarchy. 

The 70th BFI London Film Festival takes place from Oct 7 — Oct 18.

Iranian director Ali Asgari, who was in Venice Horizons last year with dark satire “Divine Comedy,” will soon be back — in competition this time — with his new feature “A Bit of Light.”

Variety is unveiling a first clip of the timely film, which is being sold internationally by France’s Salaud Morisset and released by Teodora Film Distribuzione in Italy.

Set in contemporary Iran, “A Bit of Light” follows a disillusioned doctor who, after being arrested and having his medical practice shut down, loses faith in the future. “Determined to end his life, he spends one final day visiting his siblings and mother to prepare them for his departure. Their compassion, care and companionship slowly reconcile him with reality,” says the film’s synopsis.

In the “A Bit of Light” clip, we see the film’s protagonist engage in conversation with someone who is helping him remove plants from a room amid the thumping sound of helicopter blades overhead.

“This Trump guy is threatening to bomb here every day,” the person helping the doctor says. “And these window panes are huge,” he adds. “God forbid they should shatter and hurt you.”

The film stars Misagh Zareh, Sadaf Asgari, Forouzan Jamshidnejad, Ramtin Daghigh and Mina Rahimzadeh.

“A Bit of Light” marks Asgari’s sixth feature following “Disappearance” (2017), which also premiered in Venice; “Until Tomorrow” (2022), presented at the Berlinale; “Terrestrial Verses” (2023), selected for Cannes’ Un Certain Regard; “Higher Than Acidic Clouds” (2024), presented at IDFA; and “Divine Comedy,” in Venice Horizons last year. “A Bit of Light” is Asgari’s first film selected for Venice’s main competition.

“I have often wondered: when suffering becomes an inseparable part of our daily existence, what gives life its value? Can we ever separate our own existence from the lives of others? Are our choices truly only our own, or do they leave traces in the hearts and memories of those around us?” Asgari said in his directors’ statement.

“Living in Iran, where economic hardship, political uncertainty, and the constant shadow of war have become part of everyday life, I have witnessed how people continue to endure, to care for one another, and to create small moments of hope. Perhaps what allows us to keep going is not the absence of suffering, but the invisible connections that bind us together, the feeling that our existence is intertwined with the lives of others,” he added.

“‘A Bit of Light’ explores the fragile space between despair and the quiet forces that keep us connected to life. Through ordinary gestures and seemingly insignificant encounters, it reveals how meaning can emerge from the smallest moments: an act of kindness, a familiar presence, a shared silence, or the gentle touch of a mother’s hand,” Asgari continued.

“For me, this film is not a story about sorrow, but about the invisible bonds that make life worth holding onto. Suffering may never disappear completely, and life may remain filled with uncertainty and injustice. But perhaps the value of life has never depended on the absence of pain. Perhaps it lies in our ability to love, to be loved, and in the traces we leave behind in the lives of others,” the director concluded.

“A Bit of Light” is lead produced by Milad Khosravi’s Seven Springs Pictures. The film’s other producers are Sunny Independent Pictures, Zoe Films, Good Measure Productions, Haurvatat Film, MeMo Films,
Salt for Sugar Films and Avantika Singh Desbouvries.

Watch the clip below. The Venice Film Festival will run Sept. 2-12.