Other Highlights Include a Selection of Eight Films from MY FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL.COM, Eduardo Casanova’s Shocking Karlovy Vary Award-Winner LA PIETA, Silver Bear Winner BEFORE, NOW & THEN from Director Kamila Andini, a Trio of Japanese Genre Classics and More!
New York, NY – If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to stream more award-winning cinema, look no further than Film Movement Plus’s January line-up of North American exclusive premieres and thoughtfully-curated selections. The streaming subscription service, available at both Film Movement Plus.com, via the Film Movement Plus apps on Roku as well as IOS, Android and Samsung devices, and via Amazon Prime Video, offers up a wide range of new releases sure to please cineastes of all stripes including the North American exclusive premieres of UNDER THE OPEN SKY, a poignant Japanese drama from director Miwa Nishikawa (The Long Excuse, Dear Doctor, Sway) starring celebrated actor Koji Yakusho (Third Murder, Perfect Days, Shall We Dance, Warm Water Under a Red Bridge) as a fish-out-of-water Yakuza, and Niccolo Vivarelli & Fabrizio Laurenti’s documentary, LIFE AS A B-MOVIE: PIERO VIVARELLI, unpacking the unbridled life of the postwar pop culture maverick, provocateur and revolutionary.
Traveling the world for the rest of January’s premieres, new to the service are the annual selections from MY FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL featuring eight films from the newest generation of French-language filmmakers; 200 METERS, both a tender family drama and frenetic political thriller from Palestine; from Spain, Eduardo Casanova’s LA PIETA, “strange, yet surprisingly heart-breaking film” that encapsulates “bizarre art horror at its finest” (Dread Central); Kamili Andini’s BEFORE, NOW & THEN, an “intoxicating” period drama from Indonesia; a trio of Japanese genre classics featuring Tai Kato’s BY A MAN’S FACE YOU SHALL KNOW HIM and I, THE EXECUTIONER and more!
The January FM+ premieres are as follows:
Friday, January 3 – FM+ PREMIERE: 200 METERS, Director Ameen Neyfeh
Mustafa, a Palestinian construction worker, lives in a West Bank home a mere 200 meters away from his wife and children, on the other side of the Israeli border wall. Though eligible for an Israeli ID, Mustafa sacrifices living with his family in resistance to what he believes are unjust laws enforced by the occupying Israeli government, so he instead uses his work permit to visit daily. The arrangement is functional, until one day Mustafa gets a call every parent dreads: his son has been seriously injured and brought to an Israeli hospital. Rushing to cross the border checkpoint, Mustafa is denied on a technicality. Stopping at nothing to reach his child, a 200-meter distance becomes a 200 kilometer odyssey, as the increasingly desperate Mustafa attempts to smuggle himself to the other side of the wall.
Featuring a mesmerizing central performance by Ali Suliman (PARADISE NOW, JACK RYAN), 200 METERS “persuasively captures the grinding indignities of day-to-day Palestinian life” (Screen Daily) in an impressive feature debut by writer/director Ameen Neyfeh that expertly balances tender family drama and frenetic political thriller. (2021 | 96 minutes | Arabic, English and Hebrew with English Subtitles).
Friday, January 10 – FM+ EXCLUSIVE: UNDER THE OPEN SKY, Director Miwa Nishikawa
After serving a 13-year sentence for murder, middle-aged Yakuza Mikami (Koji Yakusho) has finally decided to go straight, in this poignant drama from Miwa Nishikawa, based on Ryuko Saki’s novel. Hoping to find his long-lost mother, from whom he was separated as a child, a television company takes an interest in his case and promises to help him find his mother – but that comes with its own set of expectations. However, it does introduce him to Tsunoda (Taiga Nakano), the young TV director who forms a genuine connection with the rough-edged former gangster. Meanwhile, as he tries to get a job and fit into society while reigning in his propensity for violence, the indignity of relying on state hand-outs is hard to swallow for a man accustomed to the status that his former incarnation as an enforcer brought with it.
UNDER THE OPEN SKY, an Official Selection at the Toronto International Film Festival, Rome Film Fest and AFI Fest, captured a Best International Feature Audience Choice Award at the Chicago International Film Festival, and a Silver Hugo for Best Performance for lead Koji Yakusho (The Third Murder, Perfect Days, Shall We Dance, Warm Water Under a Red Bridge), among other festival awards. (2021 |126 minutes | Japanese with English Subtitles)
Friday, January 17 – FM+ PREMIERE: LA PIETA, Director Eduardo Casanova
Mateo and his mother Lili (Ángela Molina) have been inseparable for years. The two share an apartment, answer questions for each other, and spend practically all their moments together. But this bond becomes fraught when Lili is diagnosed with a fatal illness. With the limited time Lili has left, the pair take their toxic mother-son relationship to extreme ends.
From provocateur Eduardo Casanova, LA PIETA is a “gorgeously vulgar and shocking” work unlike any other (ScreenAnarchy). Winner of the Special Jury Award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Casanova’s latest film is a “strange, yet surprisingly heart-breaking film” that encapsulates “bizarre art horror at its finest” (Dread Central). (2022 |86 minutes | Spanish with English Subtitles)
FM+ PREMIERE: MY FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL
Returning for a seventh year on Film Movement Plus, MY FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL.COM is designed to showcase the latest generation of French-language filmmakers. From January 17 through February 17, 2025, movie lovers will have the opportunity to stream new French feature films in competition with a Film Movement Plus subscription. After viewing all the festival selections, film lovers will then have the opportunity to go to myfrenchfilmfestival.com, create a login and cast votes, helping to recognize some of the most talented young filmmakers on the international stage today. For more information, go to: https://www.myfrenchfilmfestival.com
Friday, January 24 – FM+ PREMIERE: BEFORE, NOW & THEN, Director Kamila Andini
Set amid the political violence of late-1960s Indonesia, Kamila Andini’s “intoxicating” (Variety) film BEFORE, NOW & THEN follows Nana, the beautiful wife of a wealthy plantation owner whose inner life remains with her deceased first husband, murdered in the civil war a decade prior. A survivor, Nana values her safety and material comforts, but carries out a haunted existence, dreaming of her lost love. Forced to confront her husband’s blatant infidelity, Nana makes an unusual connection with his younger mistress, Ino. The two women, sharing their secrets and desires, discover a newfound freedom and intimacy withheld from them both by the strictures of patriarchal society.
Framed by elegant cinematography and a lush score, BEFORE, NOW & THEN, nominated for Best Film at Berlin and Winner of a Silver Bear for Best Supporting Actress (Laura Basuki), is a lyrical, transporting character study in the lineage of Wong Kar-wai and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, “wreathed in poetic melancholy and never less than beautiful” (Deadline). (2022 | 103 minutes | Indonesian with English Subtitles)
FM+ EXCLUSIVE: LIFE AS A B-MOVIE: PIERO VIVARELLI, Directors Niccolo Vivarelli & Fabrizio Laurenti
The unbridled life and kaleidoscopic filmography of Piero Vivarelli, who made Italian B-movies of all genres, wrote hit rock songs and penned the screenplay for Sergio Corbucci’s Western “Django,” adored by Quentin Tarantino, are intertwined in this award-winning documentary portrait of an unsung postwar pop culture maverick, provocateur and revolutionary (the only non-Cuban besides Che Guevara to be given a Cuban Communist Party card signed by Fidel Castro).
LIFE AS A B-MOVIE is also a prism into an unexplored “secret” history of Italian B-movies cinema encapsulated as the “left sidewalk of the Via Veneto” which is “where the leftists and the hookers hung out.” It explores a cinematic world with analogies to Roger Corman’s alternative productions but at the same time delves into the particular energy that prompted Tarantino’s passion for the Italian B-movie masters. Nominated for the Venezia Classici Award for both Best Documentary on Cinema and the Venice Days Award at the 2019 Venice Film Festival, it also captured Italy’s Nastro d’Argento (Silver Ribbon) in 2020 for the Best Documentary on Cinema. (2019 | 90 minutes | Italian with English Subtitles)
Friday, January 31 – FM+ CLASSIC PREMIERE: ASIA-POL, Director Matsuo Akinori
Asia-Pol, also known as Asiapol Secret Service or Asia Secret Police Force, is a 1966 Shaw Brothers spy film loosely inspired by the James Bond movies, released the same year as You Only Live Twice. Jimmy Wang Yu, the golden child of Shaw Brothers at the time, plays Ryutaro, a secret agent on an assignment after a contraband of stolen gold. After tracking down a team of yakuza smugglers, he’s suddenly caught in a helicopter attack that nearly kills him, destroying much of the evidence, and leaving him for dead. Hunted by the yakuza, Ryutaro needs his wits to survive and take down yakuza smuggling ringleader, George (veteran Japanese baddie Jo Shishido). Asia-Pol was co-produced with Japan’s Nikkatsu studios, and directed by Matsuo Akinori, who previously directed The Lady Professional for Shaw Brothers. (1966 | 97 minutes | Japanese with English Subtitles)
FM+ PREMIERE: GIRL’S BLOOD, Director Koichi Sakamoto
“Girl power” takes on a new meaning in GIRL’S BLOOD, the erotic action drama based on a light novel by award-winning writer Sakuraba Kazuki (My Man). Set in the seedy underbelly of Tokyo, the film by director-former action choreographer Sakamoto Koichi follows the lives of four women who join an underground MMA fight club in an abandoned elementary school in Roppongi. Every night, the women escape their mundane lives and troubled pasts – Satsuki (Yuria Haga) suffers from a gender identity disorder, Chinatsu (Asami Tada) ran away from an abusive husband, Miko (Ayame Misaki) is an S&M queen and Mayu (Rina Koike) has a Lolita face — by stepping into the ring under unique personas and take on brutal fights in front of a spectacle-hungry audience. However, the women face a real enemy when two of the fighters fall in love. (2014 | 118 minutes | Japanese with English Subtitles)
FM+ CLASSIC PREMIERE: BY A MAN’S FACE YOU SHALL KNOW HIM, Director Tai Kato
WWII veteran Dr. Amamiya (played by real life former yakuza Noboru Ando) runs a clinic in a downtrodden Japanese neighborhood. When an accident victim brought to him for treatment turns out to be his ethically Korean war buddy, he recalls the criminal strife that practically ripped their town apart and changed their lives forever right after the war. Flashbacks reveal the brash and contentious Korean gang that tried to take over the local market and turn it into a red-light district. While fueled by innate prejudice from the native Japanese residents, the hoodlums’ ruthless methods lead to unspeakably treacherous acts. As both sides’ anger escalates to the brink, Dr. Amamiya takes matters into his own hands to try and control this untenable conflict. Director Tai Kato’s groundbreaking feature takes on controversial sociopolitical issues with his distinct cinematic aesthetic in a seamless blend of melodrama and action that is exemplary of his “superb craftsmanship and personal style” (Los Angeles Times). (1966 | 89 minutes | Japanese with English Subtitles)
FM+ CLASSIC PREMIERE: I, THE EXECUTIONER – Director Tai Kato
As the police investigate a sudden rash of brutal murders whose victims are all women the unscrupulous killer’s murky motivations remain hauntingly elusive. A labyrinthine character study slowly unfolds implying that the targets of these unspeakable acts may be culpable in their own shocking demise. Although director Tai Kato worked within the studio system mostly on genre films, his distinctly bold and somber style proved him a maverick auteur, with I, the Executioner one of his most incendiary masterpieces. Kato matches the film’s bleak narrative themes to its innovative aesthetics, “with blown out negatives, extreme close-ups, and deep focus mixed with his characteristic low angle composition to add to the sense of noirish dread which paints the modern city as an inescapable hellscape” (Haley Scanlon – Windows on Worlds). (1968 | 90 minutes | Japanese with English Subtitles)
About FILM MOVEMENT PLUS
FILM MOVEMENT PLUS (www.filmmovementplus.com) opens up a world of provocative, compelling and award-winning films. Priced at $5.99 per month with a free 7-day trial, the SVOD subscription service, currently available as a Prime Video Channel and on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Android TV, mobile (iOS and Android), Chromecast, and most Samsung Smart TVs, offers consumers immediate access to festival favorite movies from around the world, including a growing catalog of acclaimed films not available anywhere else. New films are added weekly. Classics from the Film Movement catalog include Sergio Corbucci’s iconic 1968 Spaghetti Western, THE GREAT SILENCE, Marleen Gorris’ landmark Oscar-winning film ANTONIA’S LINE, and much more.
