The titular ‘land’ that’s ‘imagined’ in Yeo Siew Hua’s Golden Leopard-winning debut film manifests in two different ways, one explicitly physical (the ever-expanding continent of Singapore,…
Frequently inscrutable and often enveloped in literal darkness, Andrea Bussmann’s Fausto offers the latest (cinematic) rumination on the foundational myth of man’s dealings with the…
Director Mark Jenkin’s Bait is a fascinating curiosity. As a drama, it’s fairly basic, but also mostly effective: Martin & Steven Ward (Edward Rowe &…
Belonging opens with a voice-over delivering an admission of guilt, one coldly articulated by Onur (Çaglar Yalçinkaya), as he hastily divulges the details surrounding the…
God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya operates as a harsh critique of a deeply misogynist world. Teona Strugar Mitrevska’s understated Macedonian satire — often more brutal than…
In Dan Sallitt’s new film, focus is put on personal, rather than systemic, emotional responsibility. Fourteen is about an unbalanced friendship, one that might look…
Originally conceived of as a gallery performance, Albert Serra’s Roi Soleil is more than a filmed theatre piece or a mere record of a performance (although…
These days, Taiwanese master Tsai Ming-liang seems deeply interested in the tiny variations of approach available to him in presenting the images of his subjects…
Jia Zhang-ke has long been a master of conflating the personal and the political, charting large societal upheavals with a surprising intimacy. Ash Is Purest…
Based on a pair of memoirs, authored by father and son David and Nic Sheff — which detail the latter’s meth addiction and general self-destructive…
L. Cohen, the latest from American avant-garde director James Benning (and also a tribute to the late Canadian singer-songwriter), is a work of rare beauty —…
It’s not until around the 20-minute mark that Mori, the Artist’s Habitat fleetingly entertains a notion of conflict. An inn manager begs famed oil painter…
Charting the emotional whiplash experienced by a young girl as she develops a crush on a classmate who subsequently gets together with her high school…
In attempting to navigate some difficult familial terrain in a similar vein as her contemporary, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Yukiko Mishima ultimately fails to escape rote contrivance…
Sunny Chan’s debut film, Men on the Dragon, is about four middle-aged men who work at a Hong Kong telecommunications company and signed up for a dragon…
Chinese cinematographer-turned-director Dong Yue’s very, very rainy neo-noir The Looming Storm seems, for a while, like it may be doing something pretty impressive. While the film…
The visual style of young Taiwanese director Huang Xi’s debut film, Missing Johnny, bears resemblance to the once-prominent New Wave movement established by his countrymen…
Jeong Ga-young’s Hit the Night has drawn comparisons to the films of Hong Sang-soo, likely because it features a lot of drinking, even more talking,…
Using the classic yakuza crime-thriller Battles Without Honor and Humanity as a key text of inspiration, The Blood of Wolves tries to peddle tired cliches…
A transfer student targeted by classmates in her small, rural town exacts hyperbolically gory vengeance in Liverleaf, Eisuke Naito’s adaptation of a cult-horror manga by…
Jeon Go-woon’s debut feature Microhabitat offers a conceptually ambitious and thematically rich premise: a young woman named Miso (Esom) — who leads a simple, balanced…