Last year at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Estonian art film 8 Views of Lake Biwa translated a Japanese storytelling tradition of “eight…
As loglines go, a Chloë Sevigny-narrated, archive-heavy documentary about an infamous, largely discredited dolphin scientist has a kind of whimsical ring to it. And…
The first shot of Julian Chou’s film Blind Love is both jarring and literal: a closeup of a doctor draining a cyst under a…
“Is what you’re doing worth a child’s tears?” a stranger asked Georgian filmmaker Nutsa Gogoberidze as she was heading off to make her film…
There are few rings of cinematic hell worse than bad broad comedies. Watching Rasmus Merivoo’s Alien 2 or: The Return of Valdis in 17…
Arriving at the Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) in Estonia this year, I found myself witness to a brewing controversy. Deaf Lovers, a new…
“This city takes time away from you,” says one of the seven disembodied voices introducing us to the wide-awake-at-night Mumbai city in the lyrical…
Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn’s (L for Leisure, Two Plains & a Fancy) new film Dream Team boasts two assets not often paired together…
“There is no dead matter,” the narrator’s father proselytizes in Bruno Schulz’s 1937 book Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, “lifelessness is only…
While the experimental “sidebar” screenings at larger film festivals receive more than their share of critical attention, they only have so many slots to…
The Gloria of your Imagination, the new experimental feature from Jennifer Reeves, arrives at a moment when the future of women’s autonomy is an…
While the bibliographic career of Michel Houellebecq has never failed to court intrigue, praise, and rancor, his filmed performances have garnered relatively little attention.…
Favoriten (2024), Ruth Beckermann’s latest, rolls production titles over a series of children’s drawings of buildings. Following a nigh universal youthful design scheme, the…
Noémie Merlant’s The Balconettes begins with a corker of an opening shot. Predominantly taking place at adjoining apartment complexes in Marseille separated by a courtyard, the…
Entering Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie, one is immediately faced with a decision. It’s a decision of considerable importance. Standing in the rotunda, one may either go…
Why is it that in the nation of Spain, a nation whose siestas evince a clear cultural supremacy over their efficiency-imprisoned neighbors, regularly invites…
“Our dominance is supreme and our isolation is profound.” These words, taken from N. Scott Momaday’s essay, “A Storyteller and His Art,” pronounce the…
“There comes a time when the only way you can make a statement is to pick up a gun.” When Sara Jane Moore attempted…