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      Margot Benacerraf, Award-Winning Venezuelan Documentarian, Dies at 97

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      She made only two films, but her “Araya,” a rumination on the daily rituals of salt-mine laborers, became an enduring work of Latin American cinema.Margot Benacerraf, a critically acclaimed Venezuelan documentary filmmaker whose hypnotic “Araya,” a visual tone poem chronicling the daily lives of salt workers on an austere peninsula on her country’s coast, shared the critics’ prize at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, died on Wednesday in Caracas. She was 97.Her death was announced by the country’s culture minister.Hailed as a major figure of Latin American cinema, Ms. Benacerraf founded Venezuela’s national cinematheque and in 2018 was given the Order of Francisco de Miranda, honoring outstanding merit in the sciences and humanities, by the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro.But although Ms. Benacerraf was celebrated, she was not prolific. She made only two films in her career: “Reverón” (1952), a 23-minute documentary short about the reclusive later years of the Venezuelan artist Armando Reverón, and “Araya,” her sole feature-length work.Influenced by the magic realism of novelists like Gabriel García Márquez and Alejo Carpentier, Ms. Benacerraf captured, in 90 minutes, the sweat and toil of workers amid the towering salt pyramids on the centuries-old mining terrain of the Araya peninsula. “Araya” shared the International Federation of Film Critics award at Cannes in 1959 with Alain Resnais’s landmark New Wave film, “Hiroshima Mon Amour.”A scene from Ms. Benacerraf’s acclaimed 1959 documentary, “Araya,” which the director Steven Soderbergh called “a gift to cineastes.”Milestone FilmsIn 2019, the New Yorker film critic Richard Brody called “Araya” a “majestic documentary portrait” of salt producers and their families. “Benacerraf’s grand style,” he wrote, “captures the drama of subsistence in the face of nature,” adding that “the overwhelming beauty of the wide-open spaces contrasts with the workers’ burdened trudges through them.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      From Demi Moore to Rob Lowe, Here Are 5 Defining Brat Pack Movies

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      With the documentary “Brats” coming to the Tribeca Festival and Hulu, here’s a look back at ’80s movies featuring young stars who defined a generation.The 1980s: when the hair was crimped, the pants were parachute and the movie stars were as fresh-faced as could be. The decade produced a surprising volume of hit coming-of-age movies, featuring actors often in their late teens and early twenties. Some of these charismatic stars would come to be known as the Brat Pack, a term coined by the writer David Blum in a 1985 New York magazine article about the youth movie phenomenon.Emilio Estevez, left, and Andrew McCarthy on the set of “Brats.”ABC News StudiosAt the time, the stars who were considered a part of the Brat Pack were offended by the term, one that seemed dismissive of their work and painted them as careless and unprofessional. The actor Andrew McCarthy had been grappling for decades with how the term changed the trajectory of his career, and he decided to make a documentary about it. In “Brats,” which is screening at the Tribeca Festival and streaming on Hulu beginning June 13, McCarthy reconnects with some of his ’80s co-stars (including Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy and Demi Moore) to discuss how being in the Brat Pack affected them, for better or worse.Despite the negative connotations of the term, the Brat Pack movies truly did come to define a generation, and the documentary shines a light on what these movies meant, and still do mean, to young people (even as the culture has changed). While a dozen or so movies qualify as Brat Pack selections, below is a look at five of the most defining films for the moniker, and why they had such an impact.Molly Ringwald in “The Breakfast Club.”Universal Pictures/Getty Images‘The Breakfast Club’ (1985)Detention has never been as fascinating as it is in this John Hughes classic, about five archetypal students forced to endure a Saturday together in the school library: the brain (Anthony Michael Hall), the athlete (Estevez), the basket case (Sheedy), the princess (Molly Ringwald) and the criminal (Judd Nelson). They trade jabs, laugh, cry and share personal stories that allow them to see one another as individuals rather than as the convenient labels placed on them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Life, and Death, as a Mexican Journalist Shown in Documentary

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      The documentary “State of Silence,” premiering at the Tribeca Festival, uses personal stories to explain the bleak situation for journalists in Mexico.If you are going to make a documentary about danger, you have to take your camera to daring places. You have to point it at nefarious subjects, doing brazen things, and capture a level of authenticity essential for a credible film.That was the case for the crew on “State of Silence,” which explores the existential threats faced by journalists in Mexico. For the documentary’s tense opening segment, the team accompanied the reporter Jesús Medina on a nighttime search for illegal loggers cutting down trees in a remote forest in the state of Morelos. When Medina, with his camera in hand, encountered one, the unsuspecting transgressor was fully masked — and brandishing a thundering chainsaw.As Medina began his interview with the logger, the film crew was just a few steps behind, recording the scene while both men did their risky jobs, and as the journalist — no stranger to precarious assignments — de-escalated the situation into a businesslike conversation between two professionals.An illegal logger being interviewed for the film. The “State of Silence” crew accompanied the reporter Jesús Medina on a nighttime search for illegal loggers cutting down trees in a remote forest in the state of Morelos. La Corriente del GolfoThe reporter Jesús Medina.La Corriente del Golfo“Sometimes you have no other work option and you have to do this out of necessity,” the logger explained. Medina got the point, and his story gently morphed into a nuanced profile of a worker toiling to support his family, despite the hazards.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tribeca Festival: Liza Minnelli Documentary Includes Lost Footage

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      The director Bruce David Klein’s documentary, premiering at the Tribeca Festival, includes old footage found in Minnelli’s closet.A new documentary celebrates the life of the singer and actress Liza Minnelli. And it kicks off with the death of her mother, Judy Garland.“Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story” (which premieres at the Tribeca Festival on June 12) opens with the vision of Garland’s rose-covered coffin being carried past thousands of mourning fans in New York in 1969.With that somber start, the director Bruce David Klein is making a point. Rather than dwell on Minnelli’s childhood years in the orbit of her prodigiously gifted mother, he sets out to show that Minnelli, 78, shot to fame almost immediately after her mother’s passing — as if it were a catalyst of her success.Klein includes interviews with Minnelli’s artistic mentors, stage partners and close friends, including the actress Mia Farrow, who speaks of her with affection and insight.There are also glimpses of the media nastiness she faced throughout her career, such as the male journalist who asked, “They write about you that you are ugly?” Her reply: “I don’t really care. When I’m onstage, I just do my job.”Bruce David Klein, the director of the Liza Minnelli documentary. “Liza deserves it, because she has a level of artistry that many people have forgotten and need to be reminded of, that is really mind-blowing,” he said.Arin Sang-urai/Atlas Media CorpWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Nigerian Filmmaker Daniel Oriahi Seeks to Elevate Nollywood

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      The director Daniel Oriahi is capturing the audience’s attention with his latest film, “The Weekend,” which will premiere at the Tribeca Festival.The bustling Nigerian film industry known as Nollywood certainly keeps directors busy: In the past decade, Daniel Oriahi has made over 25 movies. But the filmmaker hit a new career breakthrough when the Tribeca Festival accepted his latest, “The Weekend,” a simmering thriller about in-laws with nightmarish appetites.The selection brings the 41-year-old director welcome recognition after years of churning out movies. “You’re like, ‘Where does it end?’” Oriahi said of the relentless pace. “The Weekend,” premiering Sunday, is intended as a polished, genre-bending departure from Nollywood quickies, and it screens in the mature-themed Midnight section of the festival, which runs Wednesday through June 16.Oriahi’s debut feature in 2013 was a psychological thriller called “Misfit,” and he scored a breakthrough hit in 2015 with the action comedy “Taxi Driver: Oko Ashewo,” set in the Nigerian capital, Lagos.Oriahi’s love of movies dates back to his childhood in the small town of Ewu when he drew comics of films like “Die Hard with a Vengeance” and watched Steven Spielberg pictures on cable television. After attending film school in Nigeria, he founded his own production company, meeting demand with supply.Daniel Oriahi, third from right, on set for “The Weekend.” He noted that, “in the Nigerian landscape, ‘The Weekend’ is seen as a high-budget film.”The WeekendIn “The Weekend,” normal tensions escalate to grisly demands as Nikya (Uzoamaka Aniunoh) and her fiancé, Luke (Bucci Franklin), grapple with his cheery but profoundly unsettling family. In a video interview, Oriahi spoke about keeping the audience on tenterhooks, the challenges of Nollywood and his filmmaking heroes. The conversation has been edited and condensed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tribeca Festival: ‘Mars’ Provides Refuge for its Writers

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      The comedy group The Whitest Kids U’ Know completed the project dealing with the loss of one of its founding members, Trevor Moore, who died in 2021.The animated film “Mars” — about a ragtag group of civilians visiting the red planet on a trip financed by a billionaire with an asteroid-sized ego — will premiere Thursday at the Tribeca Festival. It will mark the end to a bittersweet journey for the film’s writers that began more than a decade ago.“Mars” was written as a live-action film in 2012 by Trevor Moore, Zach Cregger and Sam Brown, the founders of the comedy group The Whitest Kids U’ Know. They met thanks to living in the same dormitory at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where they performed lots of gigs. From there came tours of the city’s comedy clubs and a television show that ran from 2007 to 2011.During the Covid-19 pandemic, they decided animation was the best way forward for the feature and opted to crowdfund the film. But in August 2021, tragedy struck when Moore died in an accident.“It did seem kind of unfathomable to complete this movie without him,” Cregger said during a recent video interview with Brown and Timmy Williams, who is also in the comedy group. They, Darren Trumeter (the fifth member of the group), and Moore, who completed his recordings before the accident, provide the voices for all the characters in “Mars.”“Trevor’s death changed everything,” Cregger said. Before Moore died, the group was having regular interactions with fans on Twitch and other social media platforms, which helped fuel interest in “Mars.” Continuing that was difficult. “When he died, it kind of became like, this hurts every time,” Cregger said. But they felt a responsibility to their fans, who helped fund the film, to complete the project.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Richard Linklater on ‘Hit Man’ and the Killer Inside Us All

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      Richard Linklater’s latest movie, “Hit Man,” is a bit of a departure for the director, who has made some of the most acclaimed and influential indie films of the last 30-plus years. The movie, which stars the ascendant Glen Powell, is about a mild-mannered college professor who has a side gig with the New Orleans Police Department, setting up stings by posing as different hit men. It’s a tight, stylish and sexy thriller, with some twisted romance added in, from a filmmaker better known for the ambling rhythms and gently existential tone of beloved classics like “Dazed and Confused,” “Boyhood” and “Before Sunrise” (not to mention his great comedy “School of Rock,” which exists in a category of its own).Listen to the Conversation With Richard LinklaterDavid Marchese talks to the acclaimed director about his new film “Hit Man” and life’s big questions.But alongside its pop charms, “Hit Man” still manages to sneak in a provocative exploration of one of Linklater’s pet themes: the nature and malleability of personal identity. It’s also, as so many of the 63-year-old’s films are, a movie that understands the pure cinematic pleasure of watching smart, inquisitive people converse — exploring ideas and philosophies, making one another laugh, testing one another.It’s the talking that made me fall in love with Linklater’s films, which he almost always writes or co-writes. (He co-wrote “Hit Man” with Powell.) The way his vivid, relatable characters discuss the big questions, with so much soul and hang-looseness, free from any highfalutin airs, has long been something of a north star for me as a movie lover and as a talker. The searching, openhearted discussions in Linklater films are the kind of conversations most meaningful to me in my own life and work. I don’t want to make too big a deal of it, but I can see a pretty clear line from adolescent me sitting around watching all the chatty oddballs in “Waking Life” and “Slacker” to middle-aged me, here and now, speaking with Richard Linklater — who, surprise surprise, sounds a lot like a character from one of his movies.I’m curious how you think about your identity at 63 years old. Do you feel as if it’s fixed? Do you still have formative experiences? It’s the kind of thing I’ve thought a lot about my entire life: What could transform me? I was probably more in the camp of we’re fixed, give or take whatever little percentage around the edges. So I was interested in this notion lately that, oh, you can change, the personality isn’t fixed. That seems current: this notion of self and identity, gender. I sort of like that it’s all on the table, that everybody’s thinking you kind of are who you say you are. To me, that’s interesting.Do you have a lot of different identities? Probably as many as anybody else.What are the different ones? Well, if you get me on a Ping-Pong table — my third rail is athletics. I feel this little rush of competitiveness, which I really don’t have in the world of art at all — or my life even. I’m the guy looking at the world through glass. I was always the guy in the corner thinking about everything. I’m an introvert who gets put in extroverted situations occasionally, and I can play that role. But roles I currently play? I don’t know. It’s nice to care less about it as you get older. More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Amazon, AMC+, Disney+, Hulu, and More in June

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      “The Boys,” “Orphan Black: Echoes,” “The Bear” and “The Acolyte” will be streaming.Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of June’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)New to Amazon Prime Video‘The Boys’ Season 4Starts streaming: June 13After a two-year break, this over-the-top action series returns for a fourth season of gleefully vulgar, wickedly satirical riffs on the superhero genre. Based on a comic book franchise created by the writer Garth Ennis and the artist Darick Robertson, “The Boys” is ostensibly about the bitter rivalry between a popular, powerful, government-backed superteam and a band of cynical vigilantes. But following the lead of the Ennis-Robertson source material, the show’s writer-producer Eric Kripke has built this premise into a riotous commentary about the dangers of charismatic leaders. In Season 4, the roguish antihero Bill Butcher (Karl Urban) has to resort to drastic measures to thwart the political ambitions of the authoritarian supe Homelander (Antony Starr), even if he and his cohorts have to splatter the city with superhero blood.Also arriving:June 4“Marlon Wayans: Good Grief”June 6“Counsel Culture”June 18“Power of the Dream”June 20“Federer: Twelve Final Days”June 25“I Am: Celine Dion”June 27“My Lady Jane” Season 1Krysten Ritter and Zariella Langford in “Orphan Black: Echoes.”Sophie Giraud/AMCNew to AMC+‘Orphan Black: Echoes’ Season 1Starts streaming: June 23Set 37 years after the events in the cult favorite science-fiction TV series “Orphan Black,” this spinoff introduces an entirely new heroine, with a new mystery to unravel about the nature of her existence. Krysten Ritter plays Lucy, an amnesiac who escapes from a medical facility and builds a new life off the grid — until an accident draws unwanted attention, sending her back on the run. Then she crosses paths with a teenager, Jules (Amanda Fix), who looks remarkably familiar. Gradually, Lucy begins to piece together her past and the bizarre connection she shares with a handful of other women. A few surprise “Orphan Black” characters return for “Echoes,” as Lucy and Jules start a dangerous investigation into a secret science project gone tragically wrong.Also arriving:June 3“The Babadook”“Family History Mysteries: Buried Past”June 14“Exhuma”June 17“Inspector Rojas”“My Life Is Murder” Season 4We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More