The City and the City – Berlinale 2022 Review Alex Goldstein February 15, 2022 Reviews Thessaloniki has one of the oldest Jewish communities in Greece—but a lengthy presence doesn’t guarantee a safe one. The City and the City blends re-enactment and documentary techniques in a series of...
Mr Bachmann and His Class – Berlinale 2021 Review Carmen Paddock March 7, 2021 Reviews A three-and-a-half-hour documentary could feel like a school assignment, but director Maria Speth and subject Dieter Bachmann make spending time with one teacher and his diverse class a leisurely joy. Mr...
Tzarevna Scaling – Berlinale 2021 Review Carmen Paddock March 7, 2021 Reviews Polina (Alina Korol) works at her father’s fish shop. She sleeps poorly worrying about her family, and when an eccentric woman claims to be selling a tea to cure insomnia she buys some, half curious and half...
North by Current – Berlinale 2021 Review Rafaela Sales Ross March 6, 2021 Reviews “Do you want to hear about the other kid we lost? We had a little girl named Angela, she was quite the character…”, says Angelo’s dad as his son sits in front of him, camera in hand, as he attempts to...
Limbo – Berlinale 2021 Review Carmen Paddock March 6, 2021 Reviews There are a couple of 2021 releases titled Limbo, and Soi Cheang’s gritty serial killer drama distinguishes itself with its relentless nastiness. Its cops and criminals use anything they can find as...
Nelly Rapp: Monster Agent – Berlinale 2021 Review Josefine Algieri March 6, 2021 Reviews Nelly (Matilda Gross) is different, that much is clear from the opening scenes of Amanda Adolfsson’s Nelly Rapp: Monster Agent. In front of an audience of fellow school children, she stages an elaborate...
Ninja Baby – Berlinale 2021 Review Rafaela Sales Ross March 6, 2021 Reviews Rakel (Kristine Kujath Thorp) and Ingrid (Tora Christine Dietrichson) are at a locker room getting ready for an aikido class, one of the many spontaneous activities the roommates take part in together when the...
Who We Were – Berlinale 2021 Review Carmen Paddock March 5, 2021 Reviews Who We Were (Wir wer waren) switches the question of ecological destruction to one of identity, calling on experts including astronauts, marine biologists, economists, feminist scholars, social scientists, and...
What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? – Berlinale 2021 Review Carmen Paddock March 5, 2021 Reviews Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love, and they set up a date before knowing the other’s name. Viewers know them as Giorgi (Giorgi Ambroladze) and Lisa (Oliko Barbakadze). Lisa walks home alone, and...
Drift Away (Albatros) – Berlinale 2021 Review Carmen Paddock March 4, 2021 Reviews Sometimes, a story is less about whether someone is guilty or innocent than it is about the pressures and perceptions surrounding and following an ambiguous action. The local police chief, Laurent (Jérémie...
The World After Us – Berlinale 2021 Review Carmen Paddock March 3, 2021 Reviews In Louda Ben Salah-Cazanas’ portrait of an artist as a young man, migration, love, art, and family variously take centre stage. Young Parisian Labidi declares that he wants to write his first novel for...
Night Raiders – Berlinale 2021 Review Josefine Algieri March 3, 2021 Reviews Night Raiders begins with a prophecy, narrated in Cree over the images of sweeping North American forests. It tells of a swarm of giant mosquitoes and a saviour coming from the North to guide their people to...
Wood and Water – Berlinale 2021 Review Carmen Paddock March 3, 2021 Reviews Jonas Bak’s feature grows from the intimate domestic sphere to the overwhelming grandeur of world stages without ever losing sight of its central figure. In Germany’s Black Forest region, Anke is fresh...
Introduction – Berlinale 2021 Review Carmen Paddock March 3, 2021 Reviews At 66 minutes, Hong Sangsoo’s latest film is a masterclass in trimming fat from narrative bones. Introduction immediately pulls viewers into its lovable characters’ world, where their family- and...
Tabija – Berlinale 2021 Review Carmen Paddock March 2, 2021 Reviews Faruk is stuck. The teenager’s family lives among Sarajevo’s poorest, and he strikes out with older family members’ semi-legal dealings in an attempt to inject some excitement, if not escape, into his...