The mid-July lull is real, but it's not empty. Here's what's actually moving.
1. MUBI Acquires Eleanor Coppola's Making Marie Antoinette — and the Story Is the Family
MUBI has acquired Making Marie Antoinette, a documentary directed by Eleanor Coppola and produced by Sofia Coppola. The film is an intimate behind-the-scenes document of Sofia's 2006 Marie Antoinette — which means it's also, unavoidably, a portrait of a mother watching her daughter work.
No release date has been announced. This is an acquisition, not a confirmed theatrical or streaming date.
Why it matters: Eleanor Coppola's Hearts of Darkness is one of the great making-of documentaries precisely because it had access no studio would have permitted — and because the filmmaker had skin in the game. The same conditions apply here. MUBI continues to be the most interesting acquirer of documentary work that doesn't fit the Netflix true-crime pipeline, and this fits their pattern of betting on films with a built-in critical conversation rather than a built-in audience.
2. Ari Aster Has Three Films Lined Up and Shoots in November
According to The Playlist, Ari Aster has stated he has three films lined up and plans to shoot his next in November. No titles, cast, or distributors have been confirmed for the subsequent projects.
This is worth flagging not because of what we know but because of what the pipeline implies: Aster is operating at a pace that suggests he's no longer treating each film as a singular event. Whether that's a good thing depends entirely on whether the work stays as formally committed as Hereditary and Midsommar or starts coasting on aesthetic signatures. Three films in the queue is a production strategy, not a creative guarantee.
3. The Criterion Channel's July Slate Is a Harry Dean Stanton Retrospective — and That's Enough
IndieWire's July streaming guide highlights the Criterion Channel's month-long Harry Dean Stanton retrospective, running from Monte Hellman's Ride in the Whirlwind (1966) through John Carroll Lynch's Lucky (2017), with Paris, Texas, Repo Man, and Wild at Heart in between.
The Channel is also running a "Murderous Melodramas" series anchored by Nicholas Ray's Bigger Than Life and Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind — a pairing that makes the subversive function of the genre legible in a way individual screenings rarely do.
If you've been meaning to do a proper Stanton deep-dive, this is the infrastructure. Lucky in particular holds up as one of the quieter masterworks of the last decade.
4. Karlovy Vary Is the Festival Moment Right Now — and It's Surfacing Underseen Work
Screen Daily's festival calendar has Karlovy Vary running through mid-July, and dispatches from the festival have included coverage of The Friend's House Is Here, whose cast spoke about the persistence of Iran's underground art scene despite ongoing conflict.
No distribution has been announced for that film. It's a festival premiere, not an acquisition. But Karlovy Vary has historically been a first stop for Central and Eastern European work that eventually finds its way to MUBI or Kino Lorber — worth tracking.
Coming up on the calendar: Fantasia (Montreal, July 16–August 2), Locarno (August 5–15), and Melbourne (August 6–23). The next six weeks are when the fall festival season starts taking shape.
5. Physical Media Is Still Doing the Work Nobody Else Will
Letterboxd's July Shelf Life column spotlights Muscle Distribution's restoration of Tally Brown, New York — a documentary on the late New York underground figure Tally Brown — alongside new releases of The Elephant Man in 4K, Jeong Jae-eun's *Take Care