Orphea is as scattershot a film as one would expect from the unlikely artistic duo of Alexander Kluge and Khavn De La Cruz. The two…
40 years after his film Grand Opera debuted as part of the Berlinale lineup, legendary avant-garde filmmaker James Benning returns with a personal, strangely hypnotic…
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 problem…
Shot between August 2016 and January 2017 in the Dom Pedro Hotel in the slums of Sao Paulo, Brazilian filmmaker Maíra Bühler’s Let it Burn is…
When we open our eyes, what is it that we first see? There’s inanimate objects that we can recognize, but that requires several steps beyond…
The Neighboring Sounds festival booklet describes Private Fiction as Argentinean filmmaker Andres Di Tella charting a turbulent 20th Century romance through archival photos and letters from his parents,…
David Zonana’s Workforce possesses lofty artistic ambitions for a debut: it apes Bresson rather liberally, utilizing somber diegetic music cues, mostly non-professional actors, a relatively…
Marcelo Gomes’ Waiting for the Carnival unfolds in the village of Toritama, the self-proclaimed “capital of jeans,” in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco. Though it…
Miguel Hilari’s Compania is a small, modest gem of a film, a poetic evocation of mystical and religious ceremonies juxtaposed with the natural beauty of the agrarian…
Situated in a tent camp within Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley, Bitter Bread follows a number of Syrian refugees, separated from their homes by war and snow-capped…
Although it’s ostensibly science-fiction, The Tree House is a film grounded in the past, present and future — or perhaps it occupies the gaps in…
For the past 55 years, Michael Apted has embarked on a project that is both a landmark documentary film series and the ultimate reality TV…
Following the success of Ilo Ilo, which won the Camera d’Or at Cannes in 2013, Anthony Chen has made a significant comeback with his sophomore…
In the aptly-titled Instinct, the one thing that Helina Reijn’s heavy, but hugely rewarding film seems to have a clear view on is that you…
Federico Veiroj’s The Moneychanger is a mess — an overly familiar rise-and-fall narrative that’s been stripped of all meaningful detail and specificity, with a sketchy…
The scene is set. By arrangement, five wronged strangers convene for dinner at a high-rise apartment in Paris, all with an axe to grind against…
At his best, Arnaud Desplechin is a mad tinkerer, creating weird, expansive narratives that follow dysfunctional people through the vicissitudes of every day life. He’s…
Somewhere in the Algerian portion of the Sahara desert lives Malika, the sole proprietor of a lonely café situated by the side of a road…
The instinct to gather ’round a fire and share stories is as ancient as human urges get. The impulse to make movies in which the…
Gael Garcia Bernal’s Chicuarotes tries to defy expectations for a film in which the actor-director himself plays a performer, committing itself to an exploration of…
Paula Hernandez’s The Sleepwalkers begins with the sounds of a ticking clock and running water over a black screen. The noises increase in intensity until…