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I wasn’t expecting to be charmed by Christian Petzold’s inventive rethinking of a well-worn World War II movie trope. To all intents and purposes, it is a period drama akin to Casablanca, complete with third-person narration, a mysterious dame and uniformed guards with dogs. However, the backdrop is inexplicably and unapologetically modern day France. Continue reading
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Okay, a confession up front; I micro-napped throughout this film. It’s tempting to think this is why I have no idea of the storyline but I suspect that wide-eyed wakefulness wouldn’t have helped all that much. Continue reading
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Usually, you going to a heist movie expecting tension, action and a black-and-white resolution – capture or escape. Don’t expect this from Alonso Ruizpalacios’s Museum, loosely based on the real life theft of Mayan antiquities from the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City in the 1980s. Continue reading
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I love MIFF for the chance to experience or revisit important pieces of filmmaking and Witches, Faggots, Dykes and Poofters is a great example of this. Continue reading
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Although unalike in style and purpose, this inventive blend of animation, interviews and live footage reminds me of Laurie Anderson’s Heart of a Dog in its approach to subjective documentary. Filmmaker and animator Anja Kofmel creates a story around her cousin Christian Würtenberg, who was a journalist and sometime mercenary, killed under mysterious circumstances in Croatia in the early 90s. Continue reading
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Based on the 2014 Israeli film of the same name (originally titled Haganenet) by Nadav Lapid, director Sara Colangelo casts Maggie Gyllenhaal as the eponymous teacher, Lisa, whose life changes when she hears a child in her class recite poetry. Continue reading
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British TV director Michael Pearce does a more than decent job with his first feature. Like the best of British crime dramas, it takes its time to build the characters and the premise, has some top-notch actors, makes good use of the Jersey landscape and genuinely keeps you guessing right up until the end. Continue reading
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If you are a fan of the films of Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer), you’ll know what to expect from this structured and sobering feature from Babis Makridis. Co-written by Lanthimos collaborator Efthymis Filippou, it has a similar sensibility and intensity. Continue reading
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Director Pooya Badkoobeh’s first feature is an absorbing coming-of-age story about a complacent teenager who, like a fine dressage horse, has been protected from the realities of life. Continue reading
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It is the unflinchingly scrutiny of the doleful Sofia’s face that made this film for me. Behind that impassive mask, that became animated only at certain moments, I could see the naivete that had brought Sofia to this untenable point in her life. Continue reading
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