Category: Film Festivals

Director Tiffany Paulsen introduced the Tribeca Festival screening of WINTER SPRING SUMMER OR FALL. Jenna Ortega and Percy Hynes White are very charming in this late high school/early college romance. The Talking Heads-led soundtrack is full of catchy tunes. The film’s budgetary limitations are reflected in some scenes, but that can be overlooked thanks to […]

Vera Brunner-Sung’s BITTERROOT is a slow burn indie with a mostly Hmong American cast set in rural Montana. Wa Yang gives a subdued performance as Lue, a janitor who gets laid off from his job shortly after his wife leaves him. He takes care of his ailing mother, works their stand at the farmer’s market, […]

Folk horror fans should keep Thordur Palsson’s THE DAMNED on their radar. In a 19th century Icelandic fishing community, the residents’ inability or even willingness to rescue the survivors of a sinking ship puts a curse on them. Odessa Young is perfectly cast as the widow, the lone female in the village. There are many […]

Rachel Wolther’s THE FRENCH ITALIAN starts out as a traditional NYC couple comedy with millennials, which I was all eyes and ears for. Then the main revenge prank plot kicked in and my interest started fading. Catherine Cohen and Aristotle Athari are both funny and believable in their roles and whenever the script steered away […]

Federico Luis’ debut feature SIMON OF THE MOUNTAIN, which just won the Grand Prix at Cannes’ Critics Week, has an interesting starting point and appears to have a lot to say about disability, but it left me puzzled. Lorenzo Ferro, who was excellent in Luis Ortega’s 2018 Cannes selection El Angel, shows his versatility here […]

Louise Courvoisier’s debut feature HOLY COW, which screened at the Un Certain Regard section of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, is a tender coming-of-age film set in the French countryside. Its pleasurable story with themes of family, friendship, and infatuation is enhanced by natural performances from the non-professional actors, a vivid color palette, and some […]

What a gorgeous and poignant film Rúnar Rúnarsson’s WHEN THE LIGHT BREAKS is! I don’t think anything else I have seen got under my skin this way since Aftersun. Taking place over the course of a single day, Cannes Un Certain Regard opening film follows Una as she tries to cope with an unexpected tragedy […]

Quirky comedy meets Iranian cinema in Matthew Rankin’s delightfully absurd Universal Language. Setting his film in a fictional Canada, where the national language is Farsi, Rankin combines elements from a variety of his influences, the most obvious ones being Kiarostami, Tati, and Wes Anderson, into something that is his own. In this Winnipeg, there are […]

The Story of Souleymane is a heartbreaking one. Boris Lojkine’s social realist thriller from Un Certain Regard lineup at Cannes is anxiety-inducing and not for the faint of heart. It chronicles two nights and two days in the life of an undocumented Guinean immigrant in Paris, who has a grueling job doing food deliveries on […]

In Jonas Trueba’s separation dramedy, Ale, a director, and Alex, an actor, decide to throw a party to commemorate the occasion. The talkative film was co-written by Trueba and his two leads and is clearly influenced by Bergman and Allen. Bergman and Liv Ullmann’s personal and artistic relationship might have actually been an inspiration for […]