If there’s one noticeable (and troubling) trend in this year’s ND/NF , it’s a pointless rigor exerted in an effort to appear more “serious.” Case in point, Zhang…
With Maliglitut, which literally translates to “the followers,” director Zacharius Kunuk embarks on an approximate remake of John Ford’s The Searchers, relocating the action to…
Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman and Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation navigate similar thematic territory—that of patriarchs finding their ethical boundaries pushed when their self-perceived altruistic defense of family becomes distorted—…
When her son is killed in Nagasaki by the atomic bomb that ended World War II, Nobuko (Sayuri Yoshinaga), an elderly midwife faces life alone—that…
The most bluntly political of Japanese filmmakers, Masao Adachi returns to a comfortable controversy with his latest, The Artist of Fasting. Loosely based on a Franz…
Ryosuke Hashiguchi’s filmography represents various generations’ desires for individual expression in a repressed Japanese society. His 1993 debut, A Touch of Fever, follows two rent…
Sourcing material from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anthony Doerr certainly lends Yoshifumi Tsubota’s second film a certain pedigree—and indeed, The Shell Collector looks as if it may…
Kako: My Sullen Past is a film that tells you life is boring. Even with the numerous odd events taking place, our titular character (Fumi Nikaido)…
Set in low-income housing and offering glimpses into the hardships of the working class—the central couple’s son was killed by an overworked truck driver—Junji Sakamoto’s…
“Filmmaking is a battle we can’t lose,” says a possible investor to director Tetsuo (Kiyohiko Shibukawa) in Lowlife Love. If that’s the case, then call…
A film about the love affair between an anthropomorphized goldfish (Fumi Nikaidô) and an aging writer (Ren Ôshugi), Gakuryû Ishii’s Bitter Honey is less surprising…
Love in the Buff screenwriter Luk Yee-sum aspires to normalize the conversation around young, female sexuality through a recognition that, as with any other interaction, the healthiest…