Memorizu is an incredible movie about the power of the image and the way images keep us connected to each other. It also does this within the context of a three-generation family which loves and likes each other and wants very much to stay connected, even if each generation has …
It’s hard to believe that a movie which begins with a suicide pact is able to feel so heartwarming, but What Is To Come is about a woman moving from the lowest point of her life into – well, something else. This Israeli movie about the importance of never giving …
The trouble with prison documentaries is the elephant in the room. Either you must find the reasons people are incarcerated beneath mentioning, or you must be right up front with the conviction that landed someone inside. This unfair but reasonable fact of life might go double if the documentary is …
The considerably more dramatic original title of this German movie is Ants Don’t Eat Halva. This is a line spoken during the argument that’s at the core of this sweet and strange story of adult responsibilities assumed much too young. I Spy With My Little Eye has heavy subject matter …
One movie is an experience. Four is a consensus. The female filmmakers of America have agreed: modern motherhood is hell on earth. The mommies at the centre of these recent movies are all wealthy, with every societal advantage their husband’s money can buy. (They’re all thin and white too, if we …
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. …
Romantic movies told from the male point of view tend to focus on the guy, especially a guy able to recognise something in a woman – beauty, brains, talent – that she didn’t know she had. Through the guy’s actions the woman is able to get what she deserves, which …
For anyone who is, knows, or aspires to be a dad, Finnegan’s Foursome is the perfect movie. The stakes are low, the banter is high, and there’s so much golf that anyone who’s ever fallen asleep in front of Sunday afternoon television will feel right at home. Edward Burns has …
Director Jamie Adams has a no-budget niche. He finds a location and maybe six actors, prepares a concept and character arcs, starts the camera rolling, and allows the cast to improvise their way to the aimed-for ending. Within a week. His shooting schedule for his films lasts approximately a week. …
Dustin Hoffman might not have too many more films in him, but he is winding up his career on a personal high. In Tuner, also released this year, he stole the entire film as the kind and charismatic piano tuner everybody can’t help loving. In The Revisionist he pulls off …
The title is wrong, but what Deepfake gets right is the sense that, for too many people, life is a performance for the approval of strangers instead of something to please yourself. This movie was clearly made for no money, filmed almost entirely in a single Manhattan apartment, and with …
Nearly a decade ago, American alternative artist and provocateur Joe Coleman painted a door-sized, hyper-detailed self-portrait titled “Doorway to Joe,” which reflects his personal lore, uninhibited fantasies and fetishes, and penchant for the divine and the profane. Later, he figured that the project called for a seven-foot companion portrait of …
Nearly six minutes into We Are Pat, a hybrid documentary from Tribeca alum Rowan Haber, our gaze fixates on a graphic in pink and blue gradient featuring a photograph of the director’s toddler self—naked, sporting a cute red eyewear, and waving their hand—juxtaposed with a larger photograph of Pat, the …
In Yanuni, the Tribeca closer from Austrian director Richard Ladkani, ecocide and genocide are one and the same. From the vantage point of the occupied, the Ecocidal project is decidedly one of ethnic cleansing—it is only through the forceful killing and erasure of Indigenous peoples defending their homeland that the …
Veteran documentary filmmakers Sam Pollard (MLK/FBI and Citizen Ashe) and Daniel Junge (Challenger: The Final Flight and A Lego Documentary) come together to direct I Was Born This Way. Borrowing the title name from the 1975 song by Valentino, globally famous through the voice of Carl Bean in 1977. The …
In their debut feature film, Esta Isla (This Island), Lorraine Jones Molina and Christian Carretero narrate a story about love and crime. Bebo (Zion Ortiz) is a working-class young man who lives on an island in Puerto Rico. He fishes in the sea with his brother Charlie (Xavier Morales). They …
At times it’s best to encounter a movie as a blank slate, even for film critics like me who have never been put off by any ounce of spoilers. If anything, there’s a different kind of pleasure that arises from experiencing something for the first time, and it’s often ambrosial …
The veteran indie director Stephanie Laing (Irreplaceable You and Family Squares) teams up with Rose Byrne to present Tow. The film tells the true story of Amanda Ogle (Byrne), a woman who left her child, Avery (Elsie Fisher), to find a better life condition as a veterinary technician. However, she …
Director David Verbeek presents his latest film, The Wolf, the Fox, and the Leopard, at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Divided into chapters, the film narrates the story of a girl (Jessica Reynolds) who lives in the woods as a wolf. She behaves, eats, and walks like a wolf. Suddenly, …
In her debut feature premiering at this year’s Tribeca, Lillian T. Mehrel narrates about the relationship between a mother and daughter in Honeyjoon. In the film, June (Ayden Mayeri) and Lela (Amira Casar) travel to Açores in Portugal to celebrate the first anniversary of the family patriarch’s death. In their …