Author Carmen Paddock

PhD candidate Sarah (Mensah) sees her young adult life opening up before her. She’s successful in academia - a place she has forged her own path away from her Ghanian, and very Christian, immigrant family....

Absurdity and verisimilitude underpin Neus Ballús’ slice of life comedy following three repairmen on a week of assignments across Barcelona. These run the gamut from mundane to just strange enough to be...

As soon as Richard and Linda arrive at a small middle American church, it is painfully obvious that neither they nor the couple they are meeting (Jay and Gail, who have circled the block a few times) will find...

With prison reform and abolition hot - and necessary - topics today, Antony Spina’s short film imagines a coldly efficient worst case scenario. As the United States prison system reaches capacity, an...

Misery loves company, and this adage holds true in art. While sometimes there is catharsis to be found in a good tragedy, sometimes exploring the ways something or someone can go terribly, irrevocably wrong -...

Ali is a small-time hustler, earning commission every time he brings a big spender to a nightclub, and Lana is the daughter of the most respected stylist - and single mother - in east Amman. But this modern...

A cursory google reveals that the real Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) and Rufus Buck (Idris Elba) were very different figures than those who make hyper-dramatic first impressions in Jeymes Samuel’s...

From its title, 100 Minutes would seem to condense the concept of Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (the film’s Russian title makes this connection more explicit). Instead,...

The greatest strength and weakness of Monte Verità - Stefan Jäger’s Swiss historical drama set in 1906 Locarno - is the fact that it so excellently, yet uncritically, evokes its time. Modern art, dance,...

Nélie (Lyna Khoudri) sees no future for herself on the streets of 1914 Paris. A chance encounter with a Red Cross nurse, however, seems a ticket out of prostitution, and her resourceful work on the front...

This film was previously reviewed in March 2021 as part of our Berlinale coverage. Cuneiform expert Alma works at Berlin’s prestigious Pergamon Museum, but like most academics she needs that last bit of...

This film was previously reviewed in February 2020 as part of our Berlinale coverage. The titular Wildland evoked by Jeanette Nordahl’s feature is both the expansive Danish scenery and the inner workings...

The unlicensed fisherman of Ostrov, an island in the Caspian Sea, often see themselves against the world. Left to their own devices after the breakup of the Soviet Union, local patriarch Ivan cannot help but...

Cinema’s love affairs with seemingly endless, carefree summers is given a rude awakening in Emilie Aussel's short drama. As a bunch of French teenagers gather to celebrate the end of exams and the start of...

There are faint echoes of Hans Christian Andersen’s classic tale The Snow Queen in Natalya Kudryashova’s second feature, but this modern Russian fairytale finds its nature magic up against dreary...