Just as the prospect of taking root in one place imposes an uneasiness on the mind, so too does relocation prompt a restlessness of the…
With Short Summer, writer/director Nastia Korkia has created an exquisite, evocative portrait of a rapidly disintegrating world told almost entirely through the eyes of a child.…
The grist mill of capitalism has no shortage of critics today, incisive policymakers and inane pedants alike who know too well the anonymous and alienated…
Russian luminary Alexander Sokurov delivers another curveball. Following Fairytale, his 2022 animated feature about notorious leaders of the 20th century languishing in purgatory, Sokurov offers…
Filmmaker, artist, and animator Virgilio Villoresi’s first feature, Orfeo, made after years of directing short films, advertisements, and music videos, is a whimsical, finely crafted…
Aquatic and crispy shades of green, ochre, and blue dominate Park Sye-young’s apocalyptic The Fin. The title serves a double-entendre, referring not only to the…
The canary, a songbird of the finch family, occupies an eminent place in avian symbolism, not least for its melodious birdsong, which in turn underscores…
Unlike the big three international film festivals (Cannes, Venice, and Berlin), Locarno does not traditionally feel an obligation to elevate domestic product into its competition.…
Tamara Stepanyan’s film In the Land of Arto begins with a service interruption that functions as a metaphor. Céline (Camille Cottin) is traveling by train…
Delicately unfurling as an introductory vocabulary lesson, one informed by the portraiture at the film’s core — that of the formidable Thi Hau Cao, a…
In her first feature-length, solo directorial outing, Maureen Fazendeiro poses one of the most fundamental cinematic questions: how can we depict time? In 2021’s The…
Credit where it’s due: Dane Komljen is one uncompromising director. After his debut feature, 2016’s All the Cities of the North, enjoyed widespread acclaim from…
Contrary to its name, the attention economy thrives not on attention, but on precisely that gray zone between awareness and unconsciousness which brings forth the…
Taking place within Argentina’s great depression in 2001, Laura Casabé’s The Virgin of the Quarry Lake is an intriguing effort at blending various styles, themes,…
A hero’s journey holds appeal not just to the outsiders who chronicle it, but also to the hero himself, for whom narration imparts structure and…
Setting one’s low-budget genre film in a single setting is a time-honored tradition, a money-saving maneuver that makes for a simple calling-card exercise but which…
What proves fascinating about horror beyond its jumps and scares is a creeping sense of unknowability, a sense which violates our morals as much as…
Much like two recent films by major Japanese horror auteurs — Takashi Shimizu’s Sana (2023) and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Chime (2024) — South Korean filmmaker Kim…
If anyone can make a great Cancel Culture movie, it would have to be Takashi Miike, right? Sham is based on a true story, a…
The shadow of Alex Honnold looms large. As the most famous rock climber in the world, and the undeniable face of the sport to those…
It all begins as a ghost story in Portuguese filmmaker João Rosas’ feature debut The Luminous Life. Said ghost is a nameless woman who, as…