Like a black and white Amelie (2001) without the whimsy, French director and graphic novelist Nine Antico’s first feature tracks the travails of hapless Sophie (Sara Forestier) as she searches for love.
Continue readingPlaylist (2021)
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Girls/Museum (2020)
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Director Shelly Silver takes a simple premise – to interview young women about the art they are seeing in a gallery – and creates an absorbing commentary on female representation and its effects.
Continue readingRiders of Justice (Retfærdighedens Ryttere) (2021)
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A surprisingly wholesome, bloody revenge movie that sees a father’s suppressed rage wreak havoc when he thinks his wife’s death was part of an assassination plot.
Continue readingPreparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (2020)
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Full of slow twists and turns and existential ruminations on the intersections of physiology, memory and personality, Lili Horvát’s enigmatic drama gives us no easy answers.
Continue readingSmooth Talk (1985)
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Beginning as a familiar story of a rebellious teenager pushing against the confines of her family, Joyce Chopra takes us down a dark path that perfectly captures the strength and vulnerability of a young woman.
Continue readingNew Order (Nuevo Orden) (2020)
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I wanted to like this confronting, dystopian thriller but it is so unrelentingly cynical and brutal that it felt it had nothing new to say.
Continue readingChess of the Wind (1976)
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A glimpse into Iran between two revolutions, Mohammad Reza Aslani’s long-lost first feature manages to meld Vermeer-like drawing-room drama with gothic horror.
Continue readingMadalena (2021)
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A worthy but meandering elegy to the many transgender people murdered in Brazil, the highest per capita in the world, according to the end credits.
Continue readingDear Comrades! (Dorogie tovarishchi) (2020)
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In carefully composed black and white imagery, we watch the Soviet propaganda machine go into overdrive to cover up 1960s labour strikes and a subsequent, ill-advised massacre.
Continue readingBallad of a White Cow (2021)
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Reminiscent of an early Asghar Farhadi film, this tense and elegant drama by partners Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghadam explores the complexities of sacrifice and atonement in contemporary Iran.
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