New to Stream: MUBI’s October 2020 film slate
MUBI, the premier streaming service for curated films, has revealed its October lineup, including new retrospectives, tributes and exclusive premieres, the month seeing the exclusive online premiere of South Terminal, which reflects on the long civil war that racked his native Algeria throughout the 1990s.
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October will also mark the beginning of an ongoing retrospective dedicated to Amit Dutta, one of India’s most significant contemporary filmmakers and practitioners of experimental cinema. Giving viewers a chance to discover his bold and stirringly beautiful body of work, this retrospective will present one of Dutta’s films each month beginning with Nainsukh, a dreamy and intoxicating tribute to the 18th-century Indian painter Nainsukh of Guler.
For those in the mood for a good scare this spooky season, MUBI will present a month-long series dedicated to genre maestro Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who just took home the Best Director award at Venice. Best known for his many contributions to the Japanese horror genre through cult classics such as Cure and Pulse, this selection features a handful of Kurosawa’s mind-bending work including the absorbing four hour ghost series Penance and nail-biting thriller Creepy.
Additional programs of note include: a double bill from Ben Rivers featuring his two recent short films Ghost Strata and Now, at Last! as well as Performers We Love, a new ongoing series dedicated to masterful performances by singular actors, starting with Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas, in which Mads Mikkelsen stars in the titular role.
Highlights from the October lineup are as follows:
EXCLUSIVELY ON MUBI
MUBI is proud to present the online premiere of South Terminal(Locarno ‘19), the latest work from the celebrated Algerian-French auteur Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche. Blending fiction with reality, the film vividly explores the traumas and deep wounds imprinted by colonial violence. This exclusive presentation will sit alongside a retrospective dedicated to the director in the MUBI Library, which will include his much-feted films Wesh wesh, qu’est–ce qui se passe? and Story of Judas.
South Terminal — October 5
Winner of the Silver Bear for Best Short Film at Berlin last year, Manuel Abramovich’s intimate documentary Blue Boy profiles immigrant male sex workers in Berlin. Abramovich captures the young men as they react to their own stories in a series of portraits that explore the performativity of the everyday.
Blue Boy — October 15
MUBI is thrilled to exclusively present the international premiere of the new 2k restoration of Werner Schroeter’s celebrated film Malina, the first of the director’s three collaborations with Isabelle Huppert. An adaptation of Ingeborg Bachmann’s 1971 novel, the film is driven by Huppert’s masterful performance and features breathtaking visuals and a striking operatic score.
Malina — October 22
The Inimitable Image: An Amit Dutta Retrospective — Exclusive
MUBI is proud to launch a new ongoing retrospective dedicated to the experimental filmmaker Amit Dutta, one of India’s most distinctive and unique contemporary cinematic voices. Operating outside India’s conventional film industry hubs, his deeply meditative films explore diverse forms of artistic expression. Dutta’s prolific body of work has garnered admiration from major film festivals, including Venice and Rotterdam. Sitting alongside MUBI’s current series A Journey Into Indian Cinema, which features a classic of Indian Cinema each month, MUBI will now also exclusively present one of Dutta’s films monthly. The series kicks off with Nainsukh, an intimate portrait of an 18th-century painter.
Nainsukh — October 16
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Double Bill: Ben Rivers — Exclusive
After featuring much of his work on the platform and co-producing his film Trees Down Here in 2018, MUBI returns again to the visionary work of UK artist and filmmaker Ben Rivers. This double bill exclusively features his two recent short films, the globetrotting Ghost Strata and his singular portrait of a sloth Now, at Last!
Ghost Strata — October 21
Now, at Last! — October 27
The Uncanny Universe of Kiyoshi Kurosawa
This October, MUBI embraces the Halloween spirit with the mind-bending cinema of genre maestro Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Bridging both the art house and genre film worlds, Kurosawa’s unmatched career has been celebrated by major festivals and genre fans alike. His prolific and diverse filmography proves few are more skillful at cultivating suspense and a sense of uneasiness. This selection includes his epic four hour ghost series Penance and the celebrated disquieting thriller Creepy.
Döppelganger — October 1
Creepy — October 12
Beautiful New Bay Area Project — October 20
Penance — October 28
Taiwanese in America
MUBI is currently highlighting the vibrant works of the “first wave” of New Taiwanese Cinema, including the influential directors Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-hsien. This October, MUBI will continue this focus on Taiwanese cinema, featuring two masters from the next generation of Taiwanese filmmakers (the “second wave”): Sylvia Chang and Ang Lee. This double bill presents two films exploring the Taiwanese immigrant experience in America, Sylvia Chang’s Siao Yu and Ang Lee’s Pushing Hands.
Siao Yu — October 6
Pushing Hands — October 7
MUBI will launch a new ongoing series dedicated to masterful performances by singular actors. The program kicks off with Mads Mikkelsen’s valiant performance as the titular Michael Kohlhaas in Arnaud des Pallières’s epic Palm d’Or contender Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas.
Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas — October 9