The Whistlers makes the most of its basic parts, tying some nifty knots and glossing up proceedings, but it fails to offer anything memorable. Corneliu…
Vitalina Varela is a profound humanistic effort, conceptually bold and featuring compositions of affecting beauty. Winner of last year’s Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film…
While Saint Frances manages to mine some rich thematic material, its standard lo-fi indie aesthetic fails to elevate. For his feature film debut, director Alex Thompson…
Tseden’s latest is a clever indictment of the ways that both religion and government seek to deny women their due agency. Tibetan director Pema Tseden’s…
Patricio Guzmán’s latest documentary offers similar but waning insight to his two previous, more successful efforts. The Cordillera of Dreams is the third and final…
I Was at Home, But… is an admirable but obnoxious examination of the nature of artifice. At right around the halfway mark of writer-director Angela Schanelec’s…
After Midnight is an exercise in indie intentionality, seeking to upend genre convention but mustering only smug banality. Labels are always reductive and usually insulting.…
Young Ahmed is an misguided effort in the Dardennes’ usually rock solid filmography. Jean Pierre & Luc Dardenne have created a corpus of films strong enough…
Another portrait of trauma, Nora Fingesheidt’s debut feature revolves around the social condition indicated by its title: Systemsprenger, or System Crasher. The film follows…
OK, so things don’t really vanish anymore: even the most limited film release will (most likely, eventually) find its way onto some streaming service or into…