Cannes etc.

“Paweł Pawlikowski’s love letter to his parents is a sweeping tale of passion and politics set in the shadow of the Iron Curtain. Paweł Pawlikowski won the best director award at Cannes in May for this sweepingly intimate love story about a star-crossed couple falling together and apart through the Iron Curtain of postwar Europe. [...]

“In the 70s, as the American youth embraces hippie culture, a marijuana bonanza hits Colombia, quickly turning farmers into seasoned businessmen. In the Guajira desert, a Wayuu indigenous family takes a leading role in this new venture, and discovers the perks of wealth and power. But when greed, passion, and honour blend together, a fratricidal [...]

“Casablanca. While at lunch with her family, Sofia experiences violent stomach cramps. Her cousin Lena, a medical student, quickly examines her. Suddenly, water starts running down Sofia’s thighs: she’s about to give birth. Sofia is in pregnancy denial. Using a trip to the pharmacy as a pretext, Lena takes Sofia to the hospital. With the [...]

“The Wild Pear Tree is a gentle, humane, beautifully made and magnificently acted movie from the Turkish filmmaker and former Palme winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan: garrulous, humorous and lugubrious in his unmistakable and very engaging style. It’s an unhurried, elegiac address to the idea of childhood and your home town – and how returning to [...]

“The film starts with the audacious, hooky premise of a young boy who sues his parents for having him, and over the course of its two hours, it makes its case relentlessly, devastatingly, and uncompromisingly. (...) In the slums of Beirut that Labaki’s characters inhabit, people, especially children, come to be a part of that [...]

“The famous actress Behnaz Jafari has no idea what to do when she receives a video in which a young girl is begging for help after her family did not allow her to study at Tehran Theatrical University. Behnaz abandons her shoot and turns to the director Jafar Panahi so that they can help the [...]

“This 3D movie with a 55-minute-long take is the revelation of this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The Chinese director’s sophomore effort is a fascinating application of filmmaking innovation toward expressionistic ends. It follows up on the promise of his 40-minute long take in Kaili Blues with an even longer one, in 3D, set within the [...]

“Male rage blazes a chilling trail on the Korean border. Sex, envy and pyromania make for a riveting mystery in Lee Chang-dong’s masterfully crafted Murakami adaptation. Lee Chang-dong’s Burning is a superbly shot and sensuously scored movie, a mystery thriller about obsessive love taken from a short story by Haruki Murakami. It’s a psychological drama [...]

“Do you still remember how long ago we trained our thoughts? Most often we’d start from a dream… We wondered how, in total darkness colours of such intensity could emerge within us. In a soft low voice Saying great things, Surprising, deep and accurate matters. Like a bad dream written on a stormy night Under [...]

„Good Kenyan girls become good Kenyan wives” – at a young age Kena learns what is expected of girls and women in her country: to behave and to obey the orders of men. Or she will end up like her single-mother, who finds herself taking the blame for the separation from her husband, who has [...]