The Brazilian experimental filmmaker Ana Vaz is probably best known for her 2022 project É Noite na América (It is Night in America). The project premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, and she has now returned to it with Fire Flower (Hanabi). Shot over the last ten years, her latest …
The Singaporean director Nelson Yeo is a fascinating new name in the country’s younger generation. In 2023, he presented Dreaming & Dying (Hao jiu bu jian) at the Cineasti del Presente in Locarno. Two years later, he took his shorts Durian, Durian to the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and Through …
Filmes de Plástico is one of the most fascinating production companies in Brazil. In a sense, it is more of a collective than a traditional film producer. Composed by André Novais Oliveira, Gabriel Martins, Maurilio Martins, and Thiago Macêdo Correia, the group took the creative process from the capital, usually …
The French filmmaker Sarah Leonor returns to the Locarno competition after seventeen years, when her A Real Life (Au voleur) was in the running for the Golden Leopard. Now, she presents D’ici là, a contemplative film about three different individuals living in the Vosges valley, in France. Firstly, Lucien (Frank …
The question of how you tell an untellable story is at the heart of Agata the Writer, which was evidently a passion project for writer-director-cinematographer-editor-composer Kuba Dorabialski (who also plays the small part of Janek). Its awkward thoughtfulness sets an unusual tone that will not resonate with a lot of …
It’s always interesting, though not always for the right reasons, when a director on a publicity tour manages to undermine his own movie. At this year’s Venice Film Festival the headlines about Paul Schrader were not about The Basics of Philosophy, the movie receiving its world premiere. Oh no, he …
In her sophomore feature, Luise Donschen attended the Locarno Film Festival’s Cineasti del Presente section to present Tomorrow a Long Time Ago, Morgen vor langer Zeit. After Casanova Gene, which screened at the Berlinale Forum, the German filmmaker introduces her second film to audiences. Set in 1990, in the middle of …
The director Nikias Chryssos presents in his Bloody Tennis a tale of competitive sports. Sophie (Sandra Guldberg Kampp), an American tennis player, is offered the opportunity to attend a camp in Europe. It is a highly exclusive club, where six players practice at a high level. Mary (Elina Löwensohn) is …
Father Joe is dumber than a box of rocks and more entertaining than a box of frogs. There is nothing to recommend Father Joe except for its commitment to being the stupidest possible piece of action entertainment. Luc Besson, who wrote and produced the film for director Barthélémy Grossmann, clearly …
Beatrice Gibson has been a fascinating voice in the film community for a while. Her work has been featured at major events worldwide, including I Hope I’m Loud When I’m Dead and Someplace In Your Mouth, both of which were screened at TIFF. Those works blur the line between autofiction …
The location is Reboleira, in the suburbs of Lisbon, Portugal. In the outskirts of the Portuguese capital, a robbery goes wrong. A car crashes, the police arrest the driver, and almost two hundred thousand Euros vanish. Which of the criminal groups took the money? In O Jacaré by Basil da …
In the festival circuit, with each announcement of a major festival, there is a name that people expect to hear: Hong Sang-soo. In February, he premiered The Day She Returns , which played at the Berlinale’s Panorama. Six months later, the Korean master is back with his latest, Nowhere to …
In the first seconds of Rehmat by Gurvinder Singh, a black screen explains the political context of the film. During the forced migration in the Indian subcontinent, the Punjab was partitioned. Independence in 1947 divided the country along religious lines: Hindus and Sikh east in India, Muslims in the west …
In a small Romanian town, Marius (Adrian Văncică) is the medical chief at the local hospital. He just lost his wife, and his son, Ioan (Teodor Butănescu), is almost finished with high school. This is the setting of You Don’t Belong Here (Nu e locul tau aici) by Florin Şerban. …
The Greek director Konstantina Kotzamani has a massive short film haul in her career, most of which have played at the world’s central events. Washingtonia premiered at the Berlinale. Yellow Fieber and What Mary Didn’t Know were at Locarno. Electric Swam was at the Venice Film Festival, and Limbo was …
The journalist and documentary filmmaker Daniel Lombroso has been consistently releasing shorts and features that reflect on two central themes: beauty and the American society. In the previous years, he released Denial, Hold the Line, American Scar, and White Noise, which all portray the history of the United States and …
When discussing pioneers in cinema, Barbara Hammer’s name is quintessential for any discussion. The avant-garde filmmaker is essential for the feminist cinema alongside names like Chantal Akerman, Lizzie Borden, Barbara Loden, and Sally Porter. In a sense, all of those directors provided different multitudes for the feminine representation on the …
As the discussions surrounding Artificial Intelligence sparked the daily conversations of society, mostly of the aesthetically different artistry might be appointed as GenAI by the untrained eye. Our difficulty in absorbing the artistic content of unconventional art leads us to confuse the various artistic styles with a new, harmful tool …
Some writers might use subtext. Others have the main female character ask the male lead, “So you’re on a f*cked-up American pilgrimage?” It never hurts to spell things out, but Via Negativa ricochets quite a bit between overly explaining things and letting Young Mazino’s handsome face do all the work. …
Wasteman follows the great British cinema tradition of bringing no-holds barred, gritty stories to life. Cal McMau’s feature debut casts a sceptical eye on the British prison system and questions how effective it realistically is. The drama follows Taylor (David Jonsson) who is mere weeks away from being released on …