A masterful debut, this depiction of a young girl whose family is contending with a challenging older sibling weaves autobiographical and documentary elements seamlessly into a singularly poignant package. Sasha’s family emigrated from Hungary to Vancouver Island in the 1990s. Life there is pretty bucolic—outdoor swims, watching cartoons—but there are outbursts of increasingly odd, antisocial […]
Nine-year-old Somira and her younger brother Shafi are the focus of this moving drama that follows the Rohingya siblings as they journey from a refugee camp in Bangladesh to a relative’s home in Malaysia. By boat, in trucks, and on foot, the children and their family along with other refugees face smugglers’ extortionate demands, natural […]
Cronos is a vampire movie with a Latin American twist as director/writer Guillermo del Toro gets to the heart of the eternal myth in Mexican style. The tale begins in 1536, when an alchemist, fleeing the Inquisition, arrives in Veracruz with a fantastic invention that prolongs and regenerates life. Almost 500 years later, the Cronos […]
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 […]
The Arch is reminiscent of a classical story in the Ibsen or Jamesian mode—in an 18th-century village, a proud widow, Madam Tung, has allowed herself to be treated almost as a deity because of her virtuous behavior. When a troop of soldiers arrive to protect the farmers from bandits, the villagers believe this is a […]
British writer/director Stroma Cairns makes a resonant feature debut with this coming-of-age drama focused on a young man trying to find his place in the world. The film is a family affair as Cairns collaborated on the screenplay with her mother Imogen West and cast as the tempestuous protagonist her brother Jonah West. In his […]
Below the levee, the Bathtub exists as a tightknit community unto itself, practically a separate nation from Louisiana and the rest of the United States. There, six-year-old Hushpuppy (Oscar® Best Actress nominee Quvenzhané Wallis) lives a hardscrabble existence with her ill, alcoholic father Wink (Dwight Henry). When Katrina hits, the rising waters engulf the Bathtub […]
“Where are you from?” That question asked of native-born Argentinian teenager Lila (Anita B. Queen), whose parents immigrated from Korea, hovers over Cecilia Kang’s remarkable drama inspired by her own family’s story. The documentary director’s first narrative feature unfolds in three parts as Lila and her taciturn father Antonio (Chang Sung Kim) join a reunion […]
Three protagonists and their quietly courageous gestures of resilience weave together a cinematic journey across the world. Documenting a father’s struggle in Palestine, a woman’s fateful return to Iran, and the quotidian experiences of Pakistani diaspora, this trio of films raises essential questions about proximity to cruelty, colonialism’s lasting impacts, and what it means to […]
Winner of the Berlinale’s Silver Bear, Emin Alper’s (Frenzy, Festival 2016) electrifying drama of power struggles in a Turkish mountain village exposes the chaos that erupts when territorialism takes root. In the unnamed community, two tribes clash over land and the right to harvest it. Mesut, haunted by troubling dreams he believes are prophetic, stakes […]
Family separation defined the childhood of filmmaker Carolina Gonzalez Valencia, whose mother Beatriz moved to the US from Colombia to provide for her children by working as a domestic house cleaner. Years later, when Gonzalez Valencia tries to make a film about her parent, she discovers it is easier to resort to playful conversations and […]
Pressure builds quietly before it breaks. Across cultures, five individuals confront the forces pressing in on their lives, reflecting the fault lines shaping women’s place in the world today. A Portuguese mother struggles beneath the invisible mental load of an uneven household, while a daughter in rural Taiwan navigates tradition during a funeral rite. A […]
