Hokum stars Adam Scott as successful yet apathetic author Ohm Bauman, who journeys to Ireland to scatter his parents’ ashes. He brings with him childhood trauma, a drinking problem and a pure hatred of the world. He has a touch of the Stephen King to him, or at least a …
What would you do if you knew the end was coming? Would you hunker down somewhere with your loved ones? Would you say “to hell with it” and run around doing whatever you want? Would you finish yourself before the world could do it? Or would you take the opportunity …
Joe was supposed to have a bright future, but somewhere along the way, he got lost. Now he’s stuck in his apartment playing video games and “getting around” to calling his mom, meeting up with friends, getting a good job, just everything. Joe would stay in his apartment forever if …
The greatest thing about film festivals is the room they provide for experimental work from anywhere in the world to catch a wider audience. The complex set-up of Dao is significantly tougher to explain than it is to watch, but it’s exceptional at capturing a large and complex family’s life …
Films based on true stories are always a difficult prospect for audiences. While most cases are effective portrayals of real events, other “true stories” can be more fabrications. Movies like I Swear operate somewhere in the middle. I Swear follows John Davidson (BAFTA winner, Robert Aramayo), a child diagnosed with …
There’s a myth that knowing your death approaches brings out the best in you. In these circumstances you will simply rise above the horror of your looming demise to love your family, be kind to your neighbours, save kittens from trees and generally be all excellent until you perish. Anyone …
Rio de Janeiro is arguably the most well-known city in Brazil and one of the most iconic places in the world. However, despite the undeniable natural beauty, the town is destroyed by its contradictions. Throughout the construction of Rio as a city, there has been a connection between wealth and …
Not since 2012’s Oscar-nominated Belgian bluegrass film The Broken Circle Breakdown has a European movie been so in love with Americana. There is a significant though dwindling group of Europeans for whom the American dream has always been the ideal fantasy. For these people the most definite way to express …
In recent years, documentaries have become a space for personal histories. Filmmakers saw the non-fiction form as an opportunity to reflect on their lives and eternalize the memories, shadows, and complexities of their backgrounds. Therefore, throughout archival, diary, and poetic structures, directors expose their intimacies, unveiling their emotions and the …
When the world is a smorgasbord of tastes and sensations you can’t blame someone for wanting to sample it all, but at a certain point you’ve got to admit you know what you prefer. The gimmick of the novel Allegro Pastell is a very good one: it’s the text and …
A true Europudding includes plenty of gratuitous nudity and loads of sex, but those are the only things missing from the supremely ridiculous The Blood Countess. This movie is not good, but it is such a stupidly fun good time that you should see it anyway. It is always a …
Documentary filmmaking also works as a personal chamber for filmmakers to pour their hearts into films. Throughout the diary or poetic non-fiction, the directors can discuss their personal lives, the formality of cinema, and themes they are passionate about. It is a chance to unveil themselves and the world surrounding …
The central couple at the heart of this complex Pakistani movie have known each other from around the village since childhood. They are thrown together because everyone else considers them damaged goods. The way they deal with their damage, separately and together, enables an unusual depiction of the power struggles …
Jafar Panahi is arguably the most relevant Iranian filmmaker since Abbas Kiarostami. Fascinatingly, Panahi was his pupil and an assistant director for the legendary director in Through the Olive Tree, the final act of the Koker trilogy, alongside Where Is the Friend’s House and And Life Goes On. Despite the …
When discussing American Independent Cinema from the 1980s and 1990s, Hal Hartley’s name is a central one for the conversation. Releasing his low-budget NYC-shot film The Unbelievable Truth in 1989, the New York director launched his arguably most well-known works in the following years with Trust, Simple Men, and Flirt. …
After the movie is over but before the credits there is some explanatory text that makes Sukkwan Island aka My Father’s Island very difficult to review. For one thing, discussing them spoils the entire concept of the film. For another, it blurs the line between fiction and real life in …
The signs were there when Sony transferred the rights to Tommy Wirkola’s Shiver – now called Thrash – to Netflix, which the streamer is now attempting to quietly dump a few weeks ago, with minimal promotional awareness. It’s strange, though, because Wirkola’s filmography is filled with impassioned genre works, from …
If you can spot the telltale signs, there’s no second-guessing that Filipino director P. R. Monencillo Patindol’s debut feature I Grew an Inch When My Father Died, now screening at Rotterdam under Bright Future, is in part a spiritual sequel to his previous shorts Hilom (Still) and Abogbaybay (Shoredust), both …
The main value of A Second Life is that parts of it were shot on the street in Paris on the day of the 2024 Olympics opening ceremony. This is therefore a movie that will be revisited fifty years from now as an important document of that moment. The rest …
At the beginning of the 20th Century, Europe was boiling with ideas and cultural movements. Modernism, Brutalism, and the Belle Epoqué bloomed with multiple currents that provoked changes in the cultural and societal landscape in the world. In 1919, a particular school in Germany taught and shaped artists whose work …