2010s

An operative for an elite private intelligence firm finds her priorities changing dramatically after she is tasked with infiltrating an anarchist group known for executing covert attacks upon major corporations.Read More »

ALL ART IS PROPAGANDA. George Orwell …AND ALL PROPAGANDA IS ART. Laibach 

Under the loving but firm guidance of an old fan turned director and cultural diplomat and to the surprise of a whole world, the ex-Yugoslavian cult band Laibach becomes the first foreign rock group ever to perform in the fortress state of North Korea. Confronting strict ideology and cultural differences, the band struggles to get their songs through the needle’s eye of censorship before they can be unleashed on an audience never before exposed to alternative rock’n’roll. Meanwhile, propaganda loudspeakers are being set up at the border between the two Koreas and a countdown to war is announced. The hills are alive…with the sound of music.Read More »

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Interracial love, religious cults, hi-so culture (Thai high society) and an appetite for raw offal enrich and distract Thai auteur Pen-ek Rataranuang’s classic noir about a marriage turned murderous. Mystery and danger percolate in “Samui Song” all the way till the elliptical ending, which leaves audiences with a sense of lingering disquiet. However, there’s a certain spark missing both from the characters and the overall muffled tone. Heading to Toronto after opening the Venice Days section, the film should pique buyer interest based on the enduring popularity of the writer-director’s mid-career work, “Last Life in the Universe” and “Invisible Waves.”Read More »

Natalia Nikolaevna lives 400 km from Havana, in the city where the first nuclear power plant would be built in Cuba. He arrived 20 years ago from the USSR, to be reunited with her husband and work as an opera singer. In 1992, he began the great crisis, known as the Special Period. Natalia divorced, and rooted in the place gradually discovered him as the most hostile of spaces. Single mother without job opportunities, invented their own stage-a park-, their own -the spectators tourists- and their own livelihood: what gave him for his arias.Read More »

Imdb:
Ewa returns to her village after a hospital stay. She works on a plantation that grows wild roses. While Ewa was away her mother has been taking care of her children Marysia and Jas. Ewa’s husband Andrzej also returns home after working for months in Norway. The time apart has created distance between them. During Marysia’s first communion, Ewa starts to feel ill. Her friend Basia drives her home. Basia admits that she leaked the gossip to Andrzej about Ewa’s affair with Marcel, a local high school boy. Ewa meets Marcel on the rose plantation. She says that their relationship is over. After Marcel leaves, Marta realizes that Jas, her 2-year-old son, has disappeared. The search begins. After hours a policeman appears and says that Jas has been found. Marta and Andrzej go to the next village and pick up Jas. Ewa returns to the hospital she left a few days before. We discover that Ewa had given birth to a child and put it up for adoption. Ewa wants her child back.Read More »

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A woman lives alone on the outskirts of a village in Russia. One day she receives a parcel she sent to her incarcerated husband, marked ‘return to sender’. Shocked and confused, the woman has no choice but to travel to the prison in a remote region of the country in search of an explanation. So begins the story of a battle against this impenetrable fortress, the prison where the forces of social evil are constantly at work. Braving violence and humiliation, in the face of all opposition, our protagonist embarks on a blind quest for justice.Read More »

In a neighborhood rife with racial tension, a local girl falls for a recent immigrant who is the victim of prejudice and shame.

“Emulsa of IMW London” wrote:

Balcony, the Iris Prize Winner of the Cardiff-based international LGBTQ short film festival, is a confounding 17-minute drama set in an estate of high rise flats and features two girls in a hostile environment. Tina is a lonely teenager who finds herself drawn to Dana, from Afghanistan, who lives with her father and does not mix with the rest of the kids.

“The problem about being surrounded by bad things is you get the urge to destroy anything good,” Tina shares with the viewer after we see her take a photo with Dana.Read More »

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A young woman stares across a table at the judge who is reviewing her case. Her gaze is both searingly intense and curiously blank. Holding herself preternaturally still, muscles tensed against the turmoil of emotions, she pleads to see the two-year-old daughter who has been removed from her care. “Not all the time, I accept that. But just to change her diaper, to love her.” If there’s a more achingly sad moment in any film of the 2017 Cannes film festival, it’s hard to imagine what it could be. For 12 Jours, veteran documentarian Raymond Depardon (Modern Life, Journal de France) turns his lens on to the desperate, broken souls of the patients who have been involuntarily committed into the care of a Lyon psychiatric institution.Read More »

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As we follow a mother (Jennifer Connelly) and her son (Cillian Murphy), we delve into a past marred by an accident that tears them apart. She will become a renowned artist and healer, and he will grow into his own as a peculiar falconer who bears the marks of a double absence. In the present, a young journalist (Mélanie Laurent) will bring about an encounter between the two that puts the very meaning of life and art into question, so that we may contemplate the possibility of living life to its fullest, despite the uncertainties littering our paths.Read More »