Review

By Rod Lott. Ah, young love! When John (enfant terrible extraordinaire Klaus Kinski) meets Helen (Margaret Lee, Venus in Furs) on holiday in 1969’s Double Face, their courtship is instant and intense, with bedding and wedding in quick succession. Within two years, predictably, the white-hot flame of love has burned […]

By Martin Kudláč. The Brazilian cinema has been in the viewfinder of the International Film Festival Rotterdam for some time now and certainly for a good reason. New talents have been emerging and captivating cinema has been pouring out of the country despite the ever-increasing political turbulences. Brazilian films have been […]

By Gary M. Kramer. Made in 2017, but just getting a release now, Jan Zabeil’s Three Peaks is a flinty chamber drama set mainly in the Dolomites. And despite the spectacular mountain range location – the title refers to Aaron’s (Alexander Fehling) favorite rock formation – most of this nervy film is extremely claustrophobic. The story […]

By Ali Moosavi. If the quality of a country’s cinema is judged on a per capita basis, then surely Palestine would be sitting at the top table. For a country boasting a population of less than five million, it has consistently been producing films of a very high standard and […]

By Mina Radovic. Richard Billingham’s debut as a director is an unjudgmental, observational, frequently difficult, and highly internalized portrait of his family. Composed to the brim, glacial but consistent in its movement of the camera, with a beautifully decaying pastel colour texture, the film follows a series of interconnected vignettes […]

By Ali Moosavi. Two films competing for the main prizes at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Both having a person’s name as their title. Lara (Jan Ole Gerster) from Germany and Patrick (Tim Mielants) from Belgium. Lara opens with a shot of the eponymous character, alone in her bedroom, […]

By Michael Sandlin. Greg Kinnear has come a long way since his early 1990s career phase sniggering at daytime talk show freaks for E! Network’s Talk Soup. Rising through the ranks of the late-night TV circuit, he finally gained some artistic cred with a series of marquee film roles playing […]

By Ali Moosavi. After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, a number of national filmmakers, who were well-established in their homeland, such as Dariush Mehrjui (The Cow; The Cycle), Amir Naderi (The Runner; Water, Wind, Dust), Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Gabbeh; A Moment of Innocence), moved abroad. In the late director Sohrab Shahid […]

By Gary M. Kramer. Heredity filmmaker Ari Aster’s eagerly awaited sophomore feature, Midsommar, is impressive when one looks at the craft that went into it. There are elaborate dinner table scenes for dozens of guests, as well as intricate tapestries, costumes, and wall decorations. Aster’s camerawork is showy – some […]