Here’s a brief rundown of news from this month. I tend to tweet these things, but I think it’s a good idea to summarise it all once a month. Better for you, and for me.

The first stills from Tsai Ming-liang’s new film, Journey to the West, have appeared onlineThey are few, but they look SO good. Very photographic. And much similar to Walker, as expected. You can find the stills here.

Journey to the West – New Film by Tsai Ming-liang

That said, The Cinema Guild has acquired the right to Tsai’s Stray Dogs. Fantastic news. This means that we will have the pleasure of having yet another Tsai DVD at home.

Carlos Reygadas has received two nominations for this year’s Cinema Tropical AwardsPost Tenebras Lux is nominated in the category Best Film, while Reygadas himself is nominated for Best Director. Good luck!

Irish filmmaker Pat Collins, who made the beautiful slow film Silence, shows his new film, Living in a Coded Land, at the Dublin Film Festival. I hope it will make its way to the UK. It was a pain to get a copy of Silence – only sold in and distributed within Ireland. Here’s what Collins said about his film:

“For this film, I’m most interested in topics like the legacy and impact of colonialism, privilege, the residue of paganism, our disconnection from and our connection to the land. But the task is to create unexpected links between the past and the present, to look at the past to illuminate the present.”

Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul and other independent Thai filmmakers have launched their own sales company, Mosquito Films Distributions. Aim is it to increase the visibility of Thai film in the film circuit. Good news: the omnibus feature Tsai contributed to, Letters from the South, is in their hands.

Denis Côté, whom I have mentioned in this blog in relation to his film Bestiaire, also has a new film, which is to premier at the Berlinale. Title: Joy of Man’s Desiring. Stills and a trailer have emerged, and it looks intriguing. Very similar to Bestiaire in a way. I really like this type of filmmaking.

The Joy of Man’s Desiring – New Film by Denis Côté

Apart from this, Slow Cinema is having a good start of the year with films at Göteburg, Rotterdam, Glasgow, Tromsö, Portland and Berlin. As far as I can see, there are a lot of newcomers on the slow horizon, especially in Rotterdam.