Karlovy Vary 2020: We live in an age of creative awakening. This is the flipside, the upside of ‘post-truth times.’ We know not where this leads but it behoves us to make the best of the journey. The alternative is dystopia – and we all know what that is like!
KVIFF 2022: The truth about ‘girls on film’ according to director Nina Menkes.
Cannes 2022: It feels so apt that Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli, on stage in a crisp suit at Cannes and wresting the spotlight away from Thierry Fremaux himself, called his feature debut Sick of Myself a ”toast to the assholes”.
Today, as we watch in awe her fellow Ukrainians’ bravery and refusal to relent, The Ascent, and Shepitko’s life, may give us a clue as to what is worth fighting for.
A film of wanderings and street-level epiphanies, a romantic comedy ending in stripped-down tragedy, a portrait of the future artist as a young woman.
Is Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush (1925) modern? Who cares! Like any true masterpiece, it transcends the confines of any epoch.
«Europe has a tendency to wake up and find itself different in the immediate aftermath of the Berlinale, from all the way back in 2014 with the Maidan protests, and indelibly more so now with a full-blown invasion and war in Ukraine. Through no fault of the films themselves, history is speeding up and finding us responding to constantly outdated upheavals.»
Although not strictly a found footage film itself, The Visit is commenting upon, and at times even satirising, the ingredients of the genre. Bonus: references to other Shyamalan films.
“You have to laugh to keep the deep darkies in a cave.” Shyamalan’s most audacious film presents a bizarre mix of knowing irony, youthful naivete, mental illness, comedic horror and tonal shifts, yet everything seamlessly works.
Lana Wachowski’s solo Matrix effort is very uneven, but especially the first act is hugely impressive, marked by precision-point filmmaking and mirror poetry.
«The images, the sounds, and the emotions of this film are all in me, mind and body, and will stay with me, not just as a favourite among Trier’s films, but as a favourite film.»
Joachim Trier’s second film is more realistic and less playful than his debut Reprise. This exploration of the film’s form still reveals many memorable devices and discreet touches.