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...
Social Hygiene – Berlinale 2021 Review Carmen Paddock March 2, 2021 Reviews Denis Côté has embraced the challenge of pandemic cinema with a socially distanced look at the sound, fury, and nothingness of words. Social Hygiene plays out in five scenes, all centred around the writer...
Language Lessons – Berlinale 2021 Review Josefine Algieri March 2, 2021 Reviews In times of a global pandemic, the film industry necessarily has to adapt. Productions face greater hurdles than before, and while these surely seem insurmountable to some, they inspire others to find...
The First 54 Years – An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation – Berlinale 2021 Review Carmen Paddock March 2, 2021 Reviews As its title suggests, Avi Mograbi’s documentary presents like a textbook: with the director as narrator and guide, speaking directly into camera like a lecturer, the film interpolates talking heads from...
Memory Box – Berlinale 2021 Review Josefine Algieri March 2, 2021 Reviews Memory requires active cultivation to exist: what we remember depends on the narratives we tell ourselves and others. Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige’s Memory Box is a beautifully textured ode to the...
Ste. Anne – Berlinale 2021 Review Carmen Paddock March 1, 2021 Reviews Rhayne Vermette’s feature is deeply embedded in family and place. The director plays Renée, a woman returning to her rural family home in the Métis Nation, and the community welcomes her back with lively...
Beans – Berlinale 2021 Review Josefine Algieri February 28, 2021 Reviews In 1990, a land dispute between the Mohawk people and the Canadian government caused an armed stand-off between the two parties. Writer-director Tracey Deer witnessed the so-called Oka Crisis and weaves her...
All the Dead Ones – Review Carmen Paddock February 18, 2021 Reviews This film was previously reviewed in February 2021 as part of our Berlinale Film Festival coverage. Brazil, 1899. Slavery has been abolished for 11 years. The women of the Soares family find their old...
Uppercase Print – Review Carmen Paddock February 17, 2021 Reviews This film was previously reviewed in February 2020 as part of our Berlinale Film Festival coverage. Hybrid documentaries often use their newly-filmed footage to advance narrative drama in the absence of its...
The Twentieth Century – Review Carmen Paddock February 15, 2021 Reviews This film was previously reviewed in February 2020 as part of our Berlinale coverage. As the title suggests, The Twentieth Century opens at the close of the previous one. A young elite is groomed and ready...
Pinocchio – Review Josefine Algieri December 10, 2020 Reviews This film was previously reviewed in February 2020 as part of our Berlinale Film Festival coverage. While it may seem like Matteo Garrone is independently hopping on the recent live action Disney remakes...
Shirley – Review Josefine Algieri October 29, 2020 Reviews This film was previously reviewed in February 2020 as part of our Berlinale coverage. The incandescent Madeline’s Madeline still fresh in our memories, Josephine Decker returns to the screen with Shirley....
The Ground Beneath My Feet – Review Carmen Paddock September 26, 2020 Reviews This film was previously reviewed in February 2019 as part of our Berlinale Film Festival coverage. Austrian drama The Ground Beneath My Feet (Der Boden unter den Füßen) explores the cracks in a...
The Roads Not Taken – Review Josefine Algieri September 10, 2020 Reviews This film was previously reviewed in February 2020 as part of our Berlinale Film Festival coverage. The gradual loss of a person to dementia is an incredibly painful process to witness; Sally Potter draws...