Larger than life

TV on the big screen, legendary ladies, ‘Mr. Robot’ returns.

By HANNAH BROWN
‘The Night Of' (photo credit: HBO)
‘The Night Of'
(photo credit: HBO)
Television has gotten so good that even film festivals are devoting time and space to it. At the Jerusalem Film Festival, which runs from July 7 to 17, there will be a special program of upcoming television shows.
It may sound odd to think of seeing TV shows in a movie theater, but at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, the premiere of the series The Night Manager drew one of the most dressed-up and star-studded crowds of the whole event.
A great many movie directors also work in television now, among them Martin Scorsese (Boardwalk Empire, Vinyl) and David Fincher (House of Cards). Woody Allen is working on a series for Amazon, and Jerusalem Film Festival guest Whit Stillman has written the pilot for a series, also for Amazon, called The Cosmopolitans, about American ex-pats in Paris, which stars Chloe Sevigny.
On July 11 in Auditorium 3 at the Jerusalem Cinematheque, the first episodes of four new series that will be shown throughout the year on YES will be screened. The Night Of is an HBO series that staras John Turturro (who was a guest of honor at the Jerusalem Film Festival last year). Turturro plays a defense lawyer representing Naz (Riz Ahmed), a Pakistani teen accused of murdering a girl. The drama, created by producer/director Steven Zaillian (he produced Schindler’s List, Gangs of New York and many other films) and novelist Richard Price, focuses on the New York criminal justice system.
Robert and Michelle King are the husband-and-wife duo who created The Good Wife. Their follow-up series, Braindead, combines suspense, humor and the paranormal. It’s about a documentary filmmaker who goes to work in Washington, DC, and discovers that not only has the government stopping functioning but that aliens have been eating the brains of members of Congress – a premise that seems only too real.
Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman also has a new series, Outcast, about a young man played by Patrick Fugit (the star of Gone Girl and Almost Famous), who feels he has been haunted his whole life by something that may be out to destroy life on Earth.
Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur (Everest) has made a TV series about a policeman in a desolate seaside town trying to solve a murder.
To order tickets for these screenings, go to www.jff.org.il.
Also in the spirit of the film festival, YES Docu is featuring several documentaries on showbusiness icons.
One of the highlights of last year’s Jerusalem Film Festival was Stig Björkman’s Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words, which will be shown on July 12 at 9:35 p.m. Her children (among them actress Isabella Rossellini and former New York City television news arts critic Pia Lindstrom) collaborated with the director and gave him access to their mother’s letters, photos and, most fortuitously, her home movies. The result is an in-depth portrait of a very talented and very assertive woman, one who defied the conventions of the times when it came to matters of the heart. The movie is a must for classic-film lovers.
Those who admired the late essayist, novelist, screenwriter, director Nora Ephron will want to see the documentary Nora Ephron: Everything Is Copy, directed by her son, Jacob Bernstein. It will air on July 11 at 10:15 p.m. The movie features rarely seen interviews with Ephron, as well as interviews with her sisters, colleagues (among them Mike Nichols and Rob Reiner) and friends. There are also many clips from her movies, such as When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, Julie and Julia and Heartburn.
The title refers to what Ephron described as her mother’s “mantra,” an admonition to take pain and use it to create. Actresses, including Meg Ryan and Lena Dunham, read excerpts from her essays.
If you enjoyed Season One of Mr. Robot, you’ll want to follow the twisty, suspenseful series in its second season, which premieres on HOT Plus on July 19 at 10 p.m.
and on HOT VOD.