Agnès Varda’s new film, which not only won Venice’s Golden Lion but the awards of the international critics as well, has echoes of her earlier work, Cleo from 5 to 7 and also recalls Alain Tanner’s superb Messidor. Its central character, beautifully played by Sandrine Bonnaire, is a young drop-out who roams a wintry south […]
For photographer Kwame Brathwaite, the camera served as an instrument of love for his people. From capturing the mirth flowing through the streets of 1960s Harlem to following the Jackson 5 on a tour of Africa, Brathwaite chronicled Black America in all its glory. It was Brathwaite along with his brother Elombe Brath who coined […]
Academy Award®–winning director Daniel Roher (Navalny, Festival 2022) makes a striking leap into narrative filmmaking with this stylish, genre-bending thriller. Leo Woodall plays Niki, a meticulous piano tuner whose hypersensitive hearing makes the world painfully loud—but also gives him an uncanny ability to detect the inner workings of locks. His quiet life tuning pianos across […]
An abandoned telephone booth calls out to 10-year-old Risa. After a tragic fire devastates their small town, residents take to calling the dead on an out-of-order telephone high atop a hill. But only Risa can hear the voices from the other side. Hoping to finally contact her mysterious father somewhere in this crowd of impatient […]
Ambitious and emotionally potent, Cyril Aris’s drama explores one couple’s romantic travails with three tumultuous decades of Lebanese history as the backdrop. Since childhood, Nino and Yasmina have had a connection. The former loses his parents to a car accident while the latter feels her world shaken by the separation of hers. Flash forward, and […]
Tangled networks spread through the forest floor, connecting plants, humans, and fungi in an inseparable web of coexistence. In the forests of Mexico, mycologists Eliseete and Julieta are working to document and preserve their communities’ long-held symbiosis with the mushrooms that grow around them, a project grown more urgent in the face of continued environmental […]
For over a decade, SFFILM mainstay Sam Green (Utopia in Four Movements, Festival 2010; 32 Sounds, Festival 2022) tenaciously documents the world’s oldest person, as determined by the Guinness Book of World Records. Traveling the globe, Green interviews each new record holder as the title passes. What begins as a simple premise evolves into a […]
Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason faces an unthinkable task: composing the eulogy for Okjökull, the first glacier declared dead due to climate change. In Sara Dosa’s (Fire of Love, Festival 2022) luminous documentary, Magnason confronts the disappearance of his country’s ice while preserving the stories of his grandparents, intertwining personal history with vanishing landscapes. Drawing […]
In the Polish seaside town of Łeba, a kingdom rests upon plates of smoked cod, mackerel, halibut, and salmon. The picturesque beaches are one tourist draw; the town’s smokehouse is another, overseen by Leba’s undisputed queen, Meicia. This delightful documentary follows her as she spends her summer days managing her business, serving her customers, and […]
A yearling polar bear is smart enough to beat a bear trap, but is he wise enough to survive the world of humans? That is a question that hovers over this Sundance grand jury documentary prize winner that follows the animal between Churchill, Manitoba, and Arviat, Nunavut. The small communities depend on bears like the […]
On the cusp of the Covid-19 pandemic, Tony (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), a Hong Kong neuroscientist conducting research at a German university, observes a botanical garden’s ancient gingko tree one lonesome and chilly evening. The mysterious arboreal entity enchants him, leading him to a synthesis between scientific pursuit and the beauty of nature. Tony is not […]
Boisterous, mischievous, and seemingly unassailable, Lee Joo-in is the master of her world. Whether dancing with classmates, sparring with her charismatic brother and devoted mother (Parasite’s Jang Hye-jin), or sharing tender moments with her boyfriend, Joo-in’s life appears in harmony. That balance shatters after a public confrontation and a series of unsettling anonymous messages compel […]
