The historical biopic is a cinematic genre defined more by its pitfalls than its merits, laden as these films can be with historical revisionism, unintended…
Of Living Without Illusion A long take is a relationship. It looks still and it contains and collides all its insides. Details from earlier —…
New Directors/New Films takes a certain amount of pride in the names they’ve launched, and it’s not unjustified: any festival that can boast Hou Hsiao-Hsien,…
A long take is a relationship. It looks still and it contains and collides all its insides. Details from earlier — in the film, from…
In his book Codes For North, filmmaker and film historian Stephen Broomer posits a history of experimental film as an “art that is a contest…
There’s really nothing wrong with The Permanent Picture, the debut feature from Catalan director Laura Ferrés. It features two skillful lead performances, is exceedingly well…
The sophomore film from Brazilian director André Novais Oliveira is a charming cinematic miniature that observes the unfolding of an ordinary day that potentially evolves…
David Depesseville’s debut feature, Astrakan, is a film that is at once deeply humanist and utterly pitiless. Essentially a character study, the film depicts the…
Umut Subaşı’s debut feature, Almost Entirely a Slight Disaster, is a curious beast. In many regards, it’s quite accomplished, and displays some very decisive stylistic…
Even for those who haven’t seen Alena Lodkina’s first feature, 2017’s Strange Colours, given the quality of her new film, Petrol, it should be abundantly…
“Dostoyevsky Iranian style,” reads one positive review of Leila’s Brothers, the third feature film by Saeed Roustaee, and in a way that writer has a…
Argentinian filmmaker Melisa Liebenthal’s 2019 short film, Aquí y Allá (“Here and There”), utilized Google Earth, in-film, to pinpoint the exact location where it was…
Ariadine Zampaulo’s Maputo Nakuzandza begins with a distressingly bleak sequence: a group of boys approach an open car and peer inside, commenting on an unseen…
The Apartment with Two Women Post-Dardenne social realism all too often functions as safe-enough filler material for international film fest lineups, but director Kim Se-in…
The Innocents When the director of an arthouse horror film about supernatural children readily admits he was inspired by his own experiences of first-time parenthood,…
Robe of Gems Already an acclaimed editor on films such as Carlos Reygadas’ Silent Light & Post Tenebras Lux and Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja, as well…
Onoda, 10,000 Nights in the Jungle Every pronouncement that points to a Second Coming ruptures the human sense of linear temporal experience, pulling one out…
Heaven Reaches Down to Earth Tebogo Malebogo’s Heaven Reaches Down to Earth begins with red embers dancing. Their subtle flickers, alongside the pulsing buzz of…
Dark Red Forest Spiritual faith, by virtue of its abstract and elusive qualities, rarely translates well to the visual medium, if indeed it can be…
El Planeta This year, New Directors/New Films opens with Amalia Ulman’s debut feature film El Planeta, a cool choice for MoMA and Film at Lincoln…
It’s been only a short four months since the postponed 2020 edition of New Directors/New Films wrapped up, but the fest is back on schedule…