In 2018, the couple Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin made a splash at the Telluride Film Festival with their film, Free Solo. At that time, they were known for their 2015 Meru, another documentary about mountain climbing. However, Solo changed everything for them. It was a massive hit at the …
Šarūnas Bartas is one of the most prominent Lithuanian directors. Over three decades, the filmmaker has produced films such as Few of Us, The House, Peace to Us in Our Dreams, Frost, and In the Dusk. Those films would premiere at the world’s principal film events, such as the Cannes …
Documentary filmmaking is a tool for encapsulating time. Actually, all films are, but the non-fiction frames a specific portrait of an individual in a particular period. Despite the apparent manipulations, such as camera angles and editing, the documentary features a level of realism that fiction fails to reach. Therefore, we …
In modern Ukrainian filmmaking, Valentyn Vasyanovych is one of the best-known names on the festival circuit. His films Atlantis and Reflection premiered at the Venice Film Festival. In this sense, the director has already been discussing the Russia-Ukraine conflict in his work. Reflection narrates the kidnapping of a Ukrainian surgeon …
The central plot point of The Stranger – a coloniser kills one of the colonised, and there are consequences – lands very differently now that it did when the original novella was published by Albert Camus in occupied France in 1942. For one thing, the world is trying with mixed …
Few documentary filmmakers analyze the political landscape as well as Raoul Peck. Born in a country historically attached to Colonialism and imperialism, the Haitian filmmaker has a broad range of work, from narrating the transatlantic slavery trade and its impact on structural racism to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. In …
In 1972, Singapore, Adeline’s mother dies in an unexplained fire, and Adeline suddenly finds herself alone in the world. Or maybe not. Adeline follows a trail of breadcrumbs to discover who her mother really was and discovers an underground world of gangsters and magic that she never could have imagined. …
The Costa Rican filmmaker Kim Torres is one of the most exciting emerging voices of Latin American cinema. In her short-film efforts, she presented Atrapaluz at Locarno and Luz Nocturna at Cannes. Yet, she made a splash in the festival circuit with her Solo La Luna Comprenderá (The Moon will Contain Us), a beautiful …
Melodrama is a constantly sub-genre appreciated by cinephiles. Historically, filmmakers like Douglas Sirk, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Pedro Almodovar earned admiration from the lovers of the seventh art, predominantly because their work approaches the structures of the melodramatic conventions. In this sense, another contemporary filmmaker admired for his oeuvre in …
Few countries in the world have invested in documentary filmmaking as much as Spain. In recent years, films like Tardes de Soledad by Albert Serra have impacted the festival circuit with their gut-wrenching observations of bullfighting. Also, there are new names in the Spanish non-fiction community, such as Patricia Franquesa in My Sextortion Diary. …
Annemarie Jacir is a crucial filmmaker to understand modern Palestinian cinema. In 2003, she made history with her short film, Like Twenty Impossibles, the first Arab short selected at the Festival de Cannes, and later earned an Academy Award nomination. In her subsequent efforts, Jacir reached the principal international stages. …
The Romanian director Radu Jude is one of the most prolific filmmakers of our time. A member of the Romanian New Wave, a group of new voices in the mid-2000s, which generated great works from Cristian Mungiu, Cristi Puiu, Corneliu Porumboiu, and Alexander Nanau. Since 2020, Jude has released 11 …
Documentary filmmaking is probably the cinematic medium that benefits the most from technological improvements in the arts. Each new tool used in production allows the directors to fill gaps caused by the lack of archival footage and the limitations of interviewing subjects. Hence, in recent years, we have observed the …
The animation medium allows a plenitude of experimentation. In this sense, it is possible to represent and narrate any story the writer’s head wishes to, using the technique and animation conventions to develop that specific story. One of the most popular and eccentric subcultures in the world is the furry …
The Pitt felt like the best of before-times TV, before streaming and big-budget miniseries with dramatic cliffhangers took over the genre. Here we have 15 solid episodes full of an interesting ensemble of characters, a well-balanced mix of comedy and tragedy, and that address a range of relevant topics. Set …
The Malaysian/Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang is one of the most prominent figures in slow cinema. This philosophy of filmmaking contradicts the modern postulates of the commercial cinema, where the film features multiple cuts and plenty of scenarios to compose its story. As the name suggests, this form of filmmaking contemplates …
As the title makes abundantly clear, Tu Meri Main Tera Main Tera Tu Meri (which means ‘you’re mine, I’m yours, I’m yours, you’re mine’ in Hindi) is here to have its cake and eat it. Its explicit purpose is to make a 90s-style romance (this means old-fashioned, readers of a …
It is a cultural quirk of Indian cinema that they will show the most gruesome torture and murders in glorious close-up while simultaneously subtitling the language used during these scenes as “Dang!” and “You idiot!” If we are in a hard-R/18 environment, capable of being shown a man suspended off …
The Brazilian director Daniel Nolasco has been creating a trademark for himself as a filmmaker. Drawing inspiration from his personal interests and his academic path, his films approach the stories of the LGBTQIA community in a conservative state. In his debut feature, Vento Seco (Dry Wind), he approaches the monotonous …
Adam grew up listening to his grandfather’s stories of a magical place in Scotland called Craigmar. Now that his grandfather has passed on, Adam is looking for a way to feel connected to him again, so he goes in search of the place that has grown to epic proportions in …