Activist & Political · Documentaries · Eco · Festivals & Awards
This film is more than a wholesale indictment of political policy. It’s peppered with real stories of loss and near-disaster told by victims, firefighters, researchers, and native peoples who are[…]
At last, seduction: the festival ended on a crescendo with Ennio, Giuseppe Tornatore’s expansive yet intimate tribute to the great Morricone. This is no superficial primer: Tornatore edits the film[…]
Activist & Political · Documentaries · Festivals & Awards · Muslims
Stranger at the Gate is sharp, and benefits from a tense and credible narrative. It’s constructed like a bomb – a heavy orb with a lit fuse, carefully and reassuringly[…]
Covid-19 · Digital · Documentaries · Festivals & Awards · Pandemic · Societal Trends · TV & Streaming · Videos
YouTube is a global idea farm, not unlike Big Agriculture: welcome, user, to your pre-fab silo, built “just for you” by YouTube’s secret algorithm. That algorithm loads about 70% of[…]
Drama · Eastern European · Festivals & Awards · Russia
There would be nothing wrong with taking sides in such a heated ideological debate if any of the five films screened this year in the prestigious Romanian Days section of[…]
Experimental & Underground · Festivals & Awards
Watching as a FIPRESCI festival juror from Australia, at all hours of night and day, I was overwhelmed by the breadth of the international program, with its dizzying, often undifferentiated,[…]
Directors · Festivals & Awards · Interviews
Our globe-trotting correspondent Amir Ganjavie spoke with four emerging women directors at the 2019 Berlinale and Toronto International Film Festivals and the 2020 Sundance Festival. Collectively, they represent France (via[…]
Documentaries · Festivals & Awards · War
This is the first in a series of reviews by our New York correspondent Claire Baiz of entries in this year’s Doc NYC, the Big Apple’s – and one of[…]
Eastern European · Festivals & Awards
Note: We’re publishing this to coincide with New York’s Scandinavia House’s important second festival devoted to Baltic cinema. * * * Introduction The second New York Baltic Film Festival will[…]
It seems a good opportunity to talk about film and nationhood, given that so many of this year’s local films – not only A Family but Alice, Buoyancy, and Animals[…]
In her fourth report from the Tribeca Film Festival, Claire Baiz looks at first-time feature director Matt Ratner’s intriguing family drama Standing Up, Falling Down, which, as a thoughtful film[…]
Documentaries · Festivals & Awards · Sound & Language
Herewith we begin our coverage of the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, courtesy of our intrepid reporter Claire Baiz, who will be filing dispatches on some of the more worthy entries[…]
From volatile sibling relationships to House of Atreus–style depravity, traditional ideas about family were upended and replaced with a contemporary look at the complex, ever-expanding definition of the ties that[…]
Festivals & Awards · Women in Film
Rather than a fascist leader, in Vox Lux Celeste suggests a different sort of monstrosity – a receptacle for the nation’s horrors and fantasies, even more than a Madonna or a[…]
Festivals & Awards · New Media
Francis Ford Coppola introduced the screening of his Robin Williams vehicle Jack. Since this was the Festival of Disruption, Coppola said he wanted to “disrupt” by screening his worst film,[…]
Even more than in The River, with The Deserted we are sensually implicated in the small gestures of rest and relief, saving graces in this abandoned world. When Lee later[…]
Comedy · Drama · Festivals & Awards
To Dust (dir. Shawn Snyder) “Isn’t that sweet,” I thought when I picked up my mother’s dropped pocket calendar. So many dates had names on them. Mom doesn’t want to[…]
Documentaries · Festivals & Awards
“I’m grateful I didn’t grow up with Barbie.” – Gloria Steinem * * * Gloria Steinem isn’t alone. Lisa Simpson hates Barbie. Feminist writer Roxanne Gay wishes Barbie had never[…]
Comedy · Documentaries · Festivals & Awards
The effect is intimate, but not particularly enlightening. Love, Gilda offers a lot of reminiscing, some sweet (and a few heavy) insights, but very little new information about Radner’s life.[…]
Activist & Political · Festivals & Awards
Emblematic of the prevailing sober atmosphere was the festival’s Invisible Hands Tribute, a series of five films about the erosion of workers’ rights, unemployment, and collective action. * * *[…]
