This might just be the sweetest short film you'll see all year. Crush is an adorable 3-minute animated short made by a French animation collective called MegaComputeur (from their site: "We love telling stories and bringing characters to life... Especially dumb characters.") and it's a must watch. It was commissioned by the French Alps ski resort Val Thorens and it's a delightful short about two cable cars in love. A scrap dealer about to crush an old 80s cable car imagines what life was like for two mountain lovers on cables. The character designs are so cute and I love how pure their love is - sharing fondue and snacks together, relaxing in a hot tub, making snowmen. Yes, I can confirm that this definitely makes me want to visit the mountains. I always adore these kind of warm, charming animated shorts that are meant to make you smile and laugh. https://onfs.net/34Shaej

"Where's my Nan?!" Warner Bros UK has revealed an official trailer for a wacky British comedy titled The Nan Movie, arriving in theaters in the UK this March. If you're not from the UK, you probably have no idea what this is about or who this "Nan" is. She is from a BBC spin-off series of specials following the character "Joannie Taylor" from the original sketch comedy series 'The Catherine Tate Show". She has been featured in numerous specials before, but never on the big screen. Until now. The movie is "an origin story that mixes Nan's present with her past where we finally find out what’s made her the cantankerous old b*****d she is today." She embarks on a roadtrip to Ireland with her grandson to make amends with her estranged sister. Catherine Tate stars, reprising her role as the "foul mouthed pensioner", with Matthew Horne, Pete Bennett, and Katherine Parkinson. This is definitely not for everyone, she seems particularly annoying. https://onfs.net/36rUHFA

"You can't fight the state." Film Movement has revealed an official US trailer for a Bulgarian B&W indie dark comedy titled Fear, made by a classic Bulgarian actor turned director named Ivaylo Hristov. This first premiered at the 2020 Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival a few years ago, and also played at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. It won the Jury Prize at the Kazan Festival of Muslim Cinema, an Audience Award at the Sofia Film Festival, plus Grand Prize in Tallinn. Svetla, a widow who lost her job recently is living next to the Bulgarian-Turkish border. There are many cases of refugees in her village due to it's location. One day she meets a refugee from Africa and this changes her life. It's a story about love, but also a story about fear. The film stars Svetlana Yancheva, Michael Flemming, Kristina Yaneva, and Ivan Savov. It is also Bulgaria's submission to the 2022 Academy Awards, but it didn't end up with a nomination this year. That said, it still looks like this is worth a watch. Featuring an awesome Wes Anderson vibe! Check it out below. https://onfs.net/3GZfNYh

"Nothing is real until it’s socially expressed." Telling stories about people long gone can change the world. One of the best documentaries from the 2022 Berlin Film Festival is this discovery - Nelly & Nadine made by Swedish filmmaker Magnus Gertten. The film delves into World War II history to tell the story of two women who met at a concentration camp during the war and fell in love, spending their lives together in Venezuela after their camp was liberated. It's a remarkable story, not only that they could find each other and fall in love, but that they made it out alive and were able to live together after the war. It's a wonderfully touching film, sensitive and compassionate as it explores their story and connects with relatives that are still alive today. Even though it's far from perfect, there's no way this film won't move you to tears at some point or another. And these kind of films are the ones that will stay with you far beyond all the film festival buzz. https://onfs.net/3BCtlbh

"We can deal better with the world when we're connected to nature." Madman Films has debuted the first official trailer for an experimental documentary short film called Regenerating Australia, which is made by Damon Gameau, of the films That Sugar Film and 2040 previously. The film offers a vision of the future based on this proposal: "What would Australia look like in 2030 if we simply listened to the needs of its people." The film itself is "a hypothetical news report from 2030 based on interviews with Australians who were asked about their hopes & dreams for the future." It will be showing at events around Australia, and they suggest: "Bring your family & friends. And your ideas." This doc was made following the disastrous year of wildfires in Australia (see the doc Burning) and the need to evolve in order to address dire climate change issues. So far the response hasn't been encouraging, but this film hopes to change the conversation and look at it as a problem we can solve with a positive attitude. Let's see if this actually makes a difference. https://onfs.net/3H5U5SK

"Nation is a phantom. An anarchist society exists always." Alpha Violet has debuted an early promo trailer for the Swiss indie film Unrest, which just premiered at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival earlier this month. It played in the "Encounters" section and is a much more experimental, very dry, slow moving drama. It's set in Switzerland around 1877, "when the disparity between the authorities, manufacturers and models gives rise to parallel temporal dimensions." New technologies are transforming a 19th-century watchmaking town in Switzerland. Josephine, a young factory worker, produces the unrest wheel, swinging in the heart of the mechanical watch. Exposed to new ways of organizing money, time and labour, she gets involved with the local movement of the anarchist watchmakers, where she meets a Russian traveller. The director "continues to refine his style, which combines meticulous composition – both in his characteristic wide shots as well as in the extreme close-ups celebrating manual labour – with a distinct political stance." The film stars Clara Gostynski, Alexei Evstratov, Monika Stalder, Hélio Thiémard, and Li Tavor. This is worth a look. https://onfs.net/3BAywIR

Good news for one of the best films of 2021! Sian Heder's CODA is returning to theaters again this weekend - starting on February 25th. Apple picked up the film after its rapturous premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival last year, and originally opened the film in theaters in the fall. After a successful theatrical run and Apple TV+ streaming debut, they're releasing CODA back into theaters again - for free. CODA (which stands for Child of Deaf Adults) also picked up a total of three (!!) Academy Award nominations this year - for Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actor (Troy Kotsur) and Best Picture. I am so happy for this film! I fell hard for it at Sundance last year (read my review) and I've been championing it ever since. This re-release is an obvious push for more attention during this Oscar season, but it's also a great way to get more people to see this wonderful film. It certainly deserves that Best Picture nomination, along with many more accolades. https://onfs.net/3v73t66

"It shouldn't be this warm here." ScreenDaily has revealed the first festival trailer for another new climate change documentary called Into the Ice, a Danish feature that'll be premiering at the upcoming CPH:DOX Film Festival this March. This was announced as the Opening Film at the doc festival, following researchers as they head to Greenland to study glaciers and ice flows. Not to be confused with the other film Against the Ice, also about a Danish expedition to Greenland, but as a survival film not a real world thriller. How fast is the Greenland ice sheet melting? What future are we heading towards when oceans rise? These questions and more are put forward by director Lars Henrik Ostenfeld in his newest film Into the Ice. Alongside three of the world's leading glaciologists Ostenfeld travels into one of the most ferocious and extreme landscapes on earth to understand the consequences of climate change. As good as this film looks, I'm sure it's going to end with another dire warning about how bad it is out there. Things are getting worse and worse every day. https://onfs.net/35gzduv

"Immaculately subtle and fiendishly clever." Grasshopper Film has revealed the first official US trailer for a Romanian film titled Întregalde, which premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival last year. It played by in the Directors' Fortnight sidebar and picked up some great reviews at the fest, before hitting the Toronto, New York, and Vienna Film Festivals in the fall. A group on a humanitarian mission arrive in a remote area of Transylvania to offer the inhabitants various goods. Apart from a few quarrels and conflicts between the group members, everything seems to be going well for Maria and Dan. But soon after they stumble upon a disoriented local and try to help him, things go wrong... Starring Maria Popistasu, Ilona Brezoianu, Alex Bogdan, Luca Sabin, and Toma Cuzin. This is a strange trailer for the film, opening with the setup then jumping right into this scene where everything goes awry when the car gets stuck. What happens next? https://onfs.net/3Iglq68

"I want to bump you the same way you bumped me!" Have you ever bumped someone on the sidewalk? We probably all have.. it happens. But has something this weird ever happened to you after an accidental bump? This amusing 3-minute short film involves a scenario where a harmless bump on the street turns into a bit of a scuffle. Bump is made by Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Maziyar Khatam, and it just premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival last month. It's available online to watch. Khatam wrote on Twitter during the festival that "my film Bump is very much inspired by [Jim Cummings' film] Thunder Road, it's filmed in a single take, directed and performed by me." By the end – you have to wonder... will he actually wait for him? https://onfs.net/3s9HgCG

"Do you think Murat is guilty?" The Match Factory has debuted the promo trailer for the German political comedy Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush, which premiered at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival earlier this month. It won two awards: Best Screenplay and Best Lead Performance for actress / comedian Meltem Kaptan. Desperate to help her son, Rabiye Kurnaz, a housewife and loving mother from Bremen, goes to the police, notifies authorities and almost despairs at their impotence and in the end, against all the odds, something truly remarkable happens. She learns her son has been sent to Guantanamo, and spends years fighting to free him, taking her all the way to the Supreme Court in the US. Kaptan stars as Rabiye Kurnaz, joined by Alexander Scheer, Charly Hübner, Nazmi Kirik, Sevda Polat, Abdullah Emre Öztürk, and Safak Sengül. This is one of the only good films from the Berlin Film Festival this year (my review here) and I hope it finds an audience outside of Germany as it's both an important and uplifting story to tell. https://onfs.net/35mXyPG

"This isn't the end of the war... it's the end of everything." Netflix has launched the first official trailer for an action thriller titled Black Crab, made by Swedish filmmaker Adam Berg delivering his first feature film. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, six soldiers on a covert mission must transport a mysterious package across a frozen archipelago. The concept combines post-apocalyptic survival in freezing cold conditions with a war movie thriller involving transporting a package that might or might not save the world end the war. "But for speed skater turned soldier Caroline Edh, the mission is about something else entirely" as she wants to find and rescue her daughter. Noomi Rapace stars as Caroline, with Jakob Oftebro, Erik Enge, Dar Salim, Ardalan Esmaili, Aliette Opheim, and David Dencik. This actually looks pretty dang good, and it has a very dark Children of Men vibe. Ice skating as part of the plot in an action movie? Sure why not, bring it on. https://onfs.net/3IaQVy5

"My planet is dying... Earth is on the same trajectory." Showtime has unveiled a full-length official trailer for their sci-fi series The Man Who Fell To Earth - arriving this spring. A modern update on the iconic 1976 sci-fi film that starred David Bowie, also titled The Man Who Fell To Earth. They're re-adapting the novel that the film was based on, written by Walter Tevis and first published in 1963. "An alien who arrives on Earth at a turning point in human evolution and must confront his own past to determine our future." The highly anticipated upcoming original sci-fi drama series The Man Who Fell To Earth – starring Oscar & Emmy nominee and BAFTA Award winner Chiwetel Ejiofor – debuts on Showtime this April. Naomie Harris will also star as Justin Falls, a brilliant scientist and engineer who must conquer her own demons in the race to save two worlds. The cast also includes Jimmi Simpson, Rob Delaney, and Sonya Cassidy. It seems a bit different than the first film in that his focus is on saving Earth from climate related mistakes, but it doesn't look like he loses his focuses and becomes an alcoholic as in the Bowie film. I'm very curious. https://onfs.net/36xrsBg

"Not every man in a suit and tie is a gentleman. Not every gentleman wears a suit and tie." But some still do... The Outfit is the first feature film directed by an up-and-coming writer and producer named Graham Moore, originally born in Chicago, Illinois. The film recently premiered as a Special Screening at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival and it's a clever, sneaky little mob thriller set in one location. It has this familiar "made during the pandemic" vibe, specifically that it's built around a very small cast and it all takes place in one location meaning they could make it in a small studio with a small crew and easily follow all the COVID-19 rules & regulations. But that doesn't take away from the thrill of the film, as it's a gripping tale of Chicago mobsters and one tailor who might just be smarter than all of them. If you've been watching movies over the last decade, you already know that any time Mark Rylance is in a film it's a must see – even if just for him. https://onfs.net/35hYRPy

"I have faith in you, you just need to have faith in yourself." Netflix has revealed the first official trailer for a charming feel good dog movie titled Rescued by Ruby, about a fluffy shelter dog finding its connection with a frigidity state trooper. How adorable. It's actually based on a true story! Made for Netflix, this seems like the kind of stuff that Disney used to drop straight-to-VHS. Chasing his dream to join an elite K-9 unit, a state trooper named Dan partners with a fellow underdog: clever but naughty shelter pup Ruby. As you can see in the trailer, she seems to be a Border Collie - not the usual German Shepherd or Doberman K9 dogs, but that's all good! She seems awesome enough anyway. This stars Grant Gustin, Scott Wolf, Kaylah Zander, Camille Sullivan, Tom McBeath, and Sharon Taylor. Who doesn't like a dog movie?! At least the dog is real in this one, and it seems wholesome enough, though completely obvious in every single way. https://onfs.net/3IfrRWP

"It's a wake up call to us all." HBO has unveiled the official trailer for the documentary Phoenix Rising, directed by Oscar-nominated doc filmmaker Amy Berg. It just premiered last month at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, playing as a 77 minute feature film. This HBO doc special is debuting streaming as a two-part series instead: Part 1, Phoenix Rising: Don't Fall, starting March 15th, then Part 2, Phoenix Rising: Stand Up, on March 16th. Actress and activist Evan Rachel Wood takes her experience as a survivor of domestic violence to pursue justice, heal trauma, and reclaim her story in a culture that instinctively blames women. The film intimately charts her journey as she moves toward naming her infamous abuser for the first time. Phoenix Rising delves behind familiar headlines and explores the often-misunderstood aspects of domestic abuse, helping to shed light on the many factors that prevent survivors from coming forward with their stories as they deal with years of aftershocks and emotional trauma. This looks powerful and inspiring. https://onfs.net/3h89irL

Here's a whole other "view" of Norway. I despise cruise ships. I cannot stand them, I don't think they should be allowed anywhere, they're harmful to the planet and local communities. But the industry is growing, and some people love them. This fantastic four minute short gives us a look at how bad the cruise ship invasion is in one city in Norway. Stavanger is a beautiful place located on the west coast of Norway, and in recent years has become a destination for many of these giant, ugly ships. "It takes away the sun, it takes away the air. It's claustrophobic." Norwegian poet / filmmaker Odveig Klyve made this film titled View, a dialogue-free short that let's us see what it's like when these ships come to town. And it's not pretty. Not at all, folks. https://onfs.net/3p4fNjG

"We didn't leave him... He is always with us." RLJE Films has revealed an official trailer for a horror film titled The Twin, which takes place in Finland following an American family that moves there after losing one of their children. The film is opening in Finland first in April, then in the US this May. The film is about a mother who needs to confront the unbearable truth about her surviving twin son. She must "unravel the torturous truth about her son and confronts the malicious forces attempting to take a hold of him." Teresa Palmer stars, along with Steven Cree, Barbara Marten, and Tristan Ruggeri playing both of the twin boys. Another epic horror thriller from Finland! Wow - this has some incredible shots in it. Definitely not a low key indie - this seems to have some big thrills and intense twists in the story. The trailer is worth a look. https://onfs.net/3BIuLkD

"I have to have it... purely because this is what I do." Freestyle Digital Media has unveiled an official US trailer for a documentary film titled Batman And Me, originally from Australia, arriving on VOD starting this March. Perfectly timed with the release of Matt Reeves' new Batman movie The Batman next week. This is the super-geek story you're probably afraid to hear about! "I didn't want to do it. I knew it would become a monster." When Darren Maxwell began collecting Batman merchandise in 1989, obsession quickly gave way to addiction. Decades later, Darren struggles to let go of the beast he created. Today, an entire room in Darren's house is occupied by his Batman collection - a situation he's not entirely comfortable with. Batman And Me takes a hard look at his situation and the wider pop culture climate, wondering: Why do we collect? What does it mean to us? Can a collection become an identity? These are good questions! I need to see this. https://onfs.net/3HfWj1E

"If you want to stay out of jail, you need to go good." Nobody has ever failed so hard at trying to be good as The Bad Guys. DreamWorks Animation has revealed a second trailer for The Bad Guys, in theaters this spring, based on the Scholastic book series of the same name. Mr. Wolf, Mr. Snake, Mr. Piranha, Mr. Shark and Ms. Tarantula hatch a plot to pull off the ultimate heist. Under the tutelage of their mentor Professor Marmalade, an arrogant (but adorable!) guinea pig, The Bad Guys set out to fool the world that they've been transformed. Along the way, though, Mr. Wolf begins to suspect that doing good for real may give him what he's always secretly longed for: acceptance. So when a new villain threatens the city, can Mr. Wolf persuade the rest of the gang to become... The Good Guys? The voice cast features Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos, Awkwafina, Richard Ayoade, Zazie Beetz, Lilly Singh, & Alex Borstein. I still love the cel shading mixed with 3D look of this, it also just seems like such an unexpected movie from DreamWorks. Which is cool! Maybe this will be their chance to shine again? Check it out below. https://onfs.net/3BHWqlL

"Andy Warhol's greatest work of art is Andy Warhol." The perfect quote to introduce this trailer. Netflix has revealed an official trailer for a docu-series called The Andy Warhol Diaries, made by acclaimed doc filmmaker Andrew Rossi, and executive produced by Ryan Murphy. After he's shot in 1968, Andy Warhol begins documenting his life and feelings. Those diaries, and this docuseries, take a peek behind his persona. This breathtakingly expansive, six-part portrait of a legend chronicles the remarkable life of Andy Warhol from the intimate vantage point offered by the artist’s own posthumously published diaries. The filmmakers say that "The Andy Warhol Diaries deftly validates Warhol’s belief that the idea is not to live forever but to create art that will." It also features many of those who worked, created, and played alongside him from the subversive to the mainstream, from John Waters to Rob Lowe. This looks utterly fascinating, going beyond just his art, beyond just his public displays, diving deeper into who he was and what he stood for and his personality. I'm curious to watch! Always enjoyable to learn about artists, especially one as prolific as Andy. https://onfs.net/353v1i7