It’s hard to choose the most arresting scene in “Touch Me Not,” the documentary/narrative hybrid that captivated jurors at the 2018 Berlinale to earn the festival’s top prize. There’s the opening shot of a flaccid penis, of course, but nudity quickly loses its luster as the various depictions of sex unfold like a kaleidoscopic tour through human sexuality. It’s hard to forget watching a woman (Laura Benson) who can’t stand being touched encounter a portly Bdsm expert punch her chest in a steady, thumping rhythm until she lets out a guttural roar. Or witnessing the intimacy required for a reserved man with alopecia (Tómas Lemarquis) to admit to a man with spinal muscular atrophy (Christian Bayerlein) the discomfort he feels during their prolonged eye contact.
Directed with sensitivity by Romanian filmmaker Adina Pintilie, the two-hour epic is a mesmerizing look at human sexuality from a wide diversity of perspectives.
Directed with sensitivity by Romanian filmmaker Adina Pintilie, the two-hour epic is a mesmerizing look at human sexuality from a wide diversity of perspectives.
- 3/14/2019
- by Jude Dry
- Indiewire
“All emotions are welcome here.” So says male escort/therapist Seani Love during a session with Laura (Laura Benson) in Romanian filmmaker Adina Pintilie's startling and provocative film Touch Me Not, which follows Laura and several other characters as they explore their relations to their own bodies and to other people, explorations that often involve sexuality and other intimate realms. And in the generously accepting spirit of Seani Love's statement, the characters featured are quite a varied lot, including: Tomas (Tómas Lemarquis), a man with alopecia; Hanna (Hanna Hofmann), a transgender sex worker/therapist whom Laura also meets with; Christian (Christian Bayerlein), a severely disabled man with spinal muscular atrophy, and his able-bodied girlfriend Grit (Grit Uhlemann). Through these characters, Pintilie explores her themes by blurring the boundaries between fiction and documentary, mixing professional actors with nonprofessionals, and appearing in her own film as one...
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- 1/14/2019
- Screen Anarchy
It’s ironic that Adina Pintilie’s “Touch Me Not” was received as something of a provocation when it premiered at (and won) the 2018 Berlinale, because for all of its nudity and kink — its unashamed erections and Bdsm — this beguiling film is defined by an almost childlike innocence. Of course, almost and childlike are the critical words, there; this is a movie that opens with a middle-aged woman paying a male prostitute to masturbate in her sheets so that she can sniff them after he leaves, so please don’t think that IndieWire is suggesting you take your kids.
Both clinical and radically humane, inscrutable and beautifully straightforward, scripted and unimpeachably real, “Touch Me Not” is a bold treatise about the strange (and often estranged) relationship humans have with their own bodies. Approaching the subject with the antiseptic detachment of a scientist and the warmth of a healer — often at...
Both clinical and radically humane, inscrutable and beautifully straightforward, scripted and unimpeachably real, “Touch Me Not” is a bold treatise about the strange (and often estranged) relationship humans have with their own bodies. Approaching the subject with the antiseptic detachment of a scientist and the warmth of a healer — often at...
- 3/15/2018
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
A blend of documentary, fiction, staged therapy, and biography–with considerable full-frontal nudity and sex–the surprise winner of the Berlinale’s Golden Bear is a film not easily summed up in an elevator pitch. It is, however, a studious, intelligent, if flawed and scattershot, work with an open mind about modern sexuality and intimacy. That open mind will need to be replicated in the audience too.
Much of Adina Pintilie’s career has been spent in works more comfortable in gallery spaces. This, her first feature, is certainly worthy of theatrical release, however limited, as it deals with the capacity we have to touch others and be touched, emotionally and, inevitably, sexually. Pintilie has said that she thought her ideas of love and sex were fully-formed at 20-years-old, but the two decades since have made her re-evaluate her certainties. The film of that result of that self-interrogation.
The launching...
Much of Adina Pintilie’s career has been spent in works more comfortable in gallery spaces. This, her first feature, is certainly worthy of theatrical release, however limited, as it deals with the capacity we have to touch others and be touched, emotionally and, inevitably, sexually. Pintilie has said that she thought her ideas of love and sex were fully-formed at 20-years-old, but the two decades since have made her re-evaluate her certainties. The film of that result of that self-interrogation.
The launching...
- 2/25/2018
- by Ed Frankl
- The Film Stage
Christian Petzold, Emily Atef, Lance Daly join Berlinale.
Source: Great Point Media
‘Damsel’
Another ten films have joined the Competition of the 68th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 15 - 25). Three more have also been selected for the programme of the Berlinale Special.
Joining the eight Competition films and two Berlinale Special titles are 13 productions from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong - China, Iran, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Paraguay, People’s Republic of China, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, and the USA.
Joining the main competition are Barbara and Phoenix director Christian Petzold’s new drama Transit, a contemporary reworking of Anna Seghers’ 1944 novel about refugees attempting to flee through Marseille after the Nazi invasion of France in 1940. The film stars Frantz breakout Paula Beer.
Also new to competition is David and Nathan Zellner’s Damsel, the western about a Us businessman who travels to join his fiancée...
Source: Great Point Media
‘Damsel’
Another ten films have joined the Competition of the 68th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 15 - 25). Three more have also been selected for the programme of the Berlinale Special.
Joining the eight Competition films and two Berlinale Special titles are 13 productions from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong - China, Iran, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Paraguay, People’s Republic of China, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, and the USA.
Joining the main competition are Barbara and Phoenix director Christian Petzold’s new drama Transit, a contemporary reworking of Anna Seghers’ 1944 novel about refugees attempting to flee through Marseille after the Nazi invasion of France in 1940. The film stars Frantz breakout Paula Beer.
Also new to competition is David and Nathan Zellner’s Damsel, the western about a Us businessman who travels to join his fiancée...
- 1/15/2018
- by Andreas Wiseman
- ScreenDaily
Christian Petzold, Emily Atef, Lance Daly join Berlinale.
Source: Great Point Media
‘Damsel’
Another ten films have joined the Competition of the 68th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival. Three more have also been selected for the programme of the Berlinale Special.
Joining the eight Competition films and two Berlinale Special titles are 13 productions from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong - China, Iran, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Paraguay, People’s Republic of China, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, and the USA.
Additional films for both categories are due to be revealed soon. Films announced today are:
Competition
3 Tage in Quiberon (3 Days in Quiberon)
Germany / Austria / France
By Emily Atef (Molly’s Way, The Stranger In Me)
With Marie Bäumer, Birgit Minichmayr, Charly Hübner, Robert Gwisdek, Denis Lavant
World premiere
Black 47
Ireland / Luxembourg
By Lance Daly (Kisses, The Good Doctor)
With Hugo Weaving, James Frecheville, Stephen Rea, [link...
Source: Great Point Media
‘Damsel’
Another ten films have joined the Competition of the 68th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival. Three more have also been selected for the programme of the Berlinale Special.
Joining the eight Competition films and two Berlinale Special titles are 13 productions from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong - China, Iran, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Paraguay, People’s Republic of China, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, and the USA.
Additional films for both categories are due to be revealed soon. Films announced today are:
Competition
3 Tage in Quiberon (3 Days in Quiberon)
Germany / Austria / France
By Emily Atef (Molly’s Way, The Stranger In Me)
With Marie Bäumer, Birgit Minichmayr, Charly Hübner, Robert Gwisdek, Denis Lavant
World premiere
Black 47
Ireland / Luxembourg
By Lance Daly (Kisses, The Good Doctor)
With Hugo Weaving, James Frecheville, Stephen Rea, [link...
- 1/15/2018
- by Andreas Wiseman
- ScreenDaily
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