You may have heard his name uttered by Kanye West or Migos in songs but Martin Margiela isn’t necessarily a household name when it comes to fashion — but it should be. One of the most elusive designers in the fashion industry, there are barely any photos of him on the internet, but his work speaks for itself. In the documentary, Martin Margiela: In His Own Words, filmmaker Reiner Holzemer takes us behind the scenes of the career of the titular avant-garde.
With the docu, Margiela breaks his no-interview policy and aversion to being in the public eye as Holzemer puts the spotlight on the “Banksy of fashion”. He worked as Jean Paul Gaultier’s assistant and was the creative director at Hermès before he started his own fashion house. For the first time, Margiela reveals his drawings, notes, and personal items in this intimate profile of his vision that has brought some of the most revolutionary and radical fashions seen in his 41 collections.
Holzemer, who wrote, directed and produced the film, is no stranger to profiling artists in the fashion world. He directed documentary on photographers Juergen Teller and William Eggleston. In 2017, he directed Dries, which profiled prolific fashion designer Dries Van Noten, who is a member of the fashion collective the Antwerp Six which included Walter Van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester, Dirk Van Saene, Dirk Bikkembergs and Marina Yee. Although he wasn’t part of the group, Margiela was often associated with the forward-thinking group of artists.
The film features interviews with Margiela himself, Gaultier, former editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris Carine Roitfeld, trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort, fashion critic Cathy Horyn, and fashion historian Olivier Saillard. Aminata Sambe serves as co-producer.
Martin Margiela: In His Own Words is available for digital rental and select U.S. cinemas and partners including Film Forum in New York, Laemmle Theatres in Los Angeles, Music Box Theatre in Chicago among others. Watch the trailer below.
IFC Midnight debuts Egor Abramenko’s sci-fi thriller Sputnik today. Marking the filmmaker’s debut, the pic was an official selection at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival and stars Oksana Akinshina, Pyotr Fyodorov, Fedor Bondarchuk, and Anton Vasilev.
Cut from the same monster-in-space cloth as Ridley Scott’s Alien and based on the short film The Passenger, Sputnik follows Tatiana (Akinshina), a young doctor whose controversial methods has her in danger of losing her medical license — but not all is lost. After she’s recruited by the military, she is brought to a secure science research facility to assess a very special case, that of Konstantin (Fyodorov), a cosmonaut who survived a mysterious space accident and has returned to Earth but something isn’t right. There is something living inside of him and the military wants dibs. However, Tatiana wants to stop whatever is living inside of Konstantin from killing him because the creature thrives on destruction — and that’s not good news for anyone?
Oleg Malovichko and Andrei Zolotarev wrote the screenplay. Mikhail Vrubel, Alexander Andryushenko, Fedor Bondarchuk, Ilya Stewart, Murad Osmann, Pavel Burya, and Vyacheslav Murugov produced.
Sputnik is set to debut in select theaters, digital platforms, and cable VOD today. Watch the chilling trailer below.
Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine’s (The Overnighters) documentary Boys State is making its global premiere today on Apple TV+. The political coming-of-age docu debuted at Sundance where it won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize.
Set in Texas, Boys State follows an annual program where thousands of high school seniors gather to build their own mock state government. The docu puts the spotlight on the participants of the program as escalating tensions rise within a gubernatorial race. Boys State is timely and echoes our current political landscape and what the future could possibly hold.
Moss and McBaine follow participants such as Ben, a Reagan-loving, arch-conservative who brims with confidence despite personal setbacks as well as Steven, a progressive-minded child of Mexican immigrants who stands by his convictions amidst the sea of red. In the process, the film paints a portrait of contemporary American masculinity, as well as a microcosm of our often dispiriting national political divisions that nevertheless manage to plant seeds of hope.
Boys State a Concordia Studio production. The film is produced by Moss and McBaine’s Mile End Films production banner. Executive producers are Laurene Powell Jobs, Davis Guggenheim, Jonathan Silberberg and Nicole Stott. Shannon Dill serves as co-executive producer.
Vertical Entertainment drops the modern Hitchcockian thriller The Bay of Silence today on digital and VOD platforms as well as select theaters. From Oscar-nominated director Paula van der Oest’s (Zus & Zo).
Based on Lisa St. Aubin de Teran’s novel of the same name, it was adapted for the screen by actress Caroline Goodall. In it, Claes Bang (The Square) plays Will, who discovers that his wife Rosalind (Olga Kurylenko) and their three children have suddenly disappeared. He goes out on a search for them and finds them in a remote village in northern France. This should be good news but it’s not. Will can’t catch a break. He finds out that his baby son has mysteriously died. He tries to figure out the truth, but Rosalind’s former stepfather, Milton (Brian Cox) makes it difficult because he has his own agenda when it comes to protecting his stepdaughter.
In Eugene Kotlyarenko’s Spree, Joe Keery (Stranger Things) plays Kurt, who is a driver for a rideshare app called Spree. He is thirsty for social media attention and will do anything to go viral. He cooks an evil scheme to get attention and installs a set of cameras in his car and begins streaming his rides. It becomes popular… maybe too popular. While trying to navigate the ramifications of his scheme, he meets a stand-up comedian (Sasheer Zamata) who has her own viral agenda and she becomes the only hope to put an end to the madness. Spree debuted at Sundance in January and comes from RLJE Films. Kotlyarenko co-wrote the script with Gene McHugh.
The Silencing follows a reformed hunter (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) living in isolation on a wildlife sanctuary who becomes involved in a deadly game of cat and mouse when he and the local Sheriff (Annabelle Wallis) set out to track a vicious killer who may have kidnapped his daughter years ago.
Directed by Robin Pront and written by Micah Ranum, The Silencing was set to debut at SXSW and was acquired by Saban Films. The crime thriller also stars Hero Fiennes Tiffin. Anova Pictures’ Cybill Lui Eppich produced the film. Saban Films, which partnered with XYZ Films, executive produces alongside with XYZ Films’ Aram Tertzakian and Maxime Cottray.