Film-Forward

About Kent Turner

Kent Turner, the editor of Film-Forward, learned the ropes of the festival circuit at the San Francisco International Film Festival and has worked in film production and acquisition in Los Angeles. He is currently the director of programming at the Monmouth Film Festival.

We Have a Pope

Directed by Nanni Moretti
Produced by Moretti & Domenico Procacci
Written by Moretti, Francesco Piccolo & Federica Pontremoli
Released by Sundance Selects
Italian with English subtitles.
Italy/France. 104 min. Not rated
With Michel Piccoli, Jerzy Stuhr, Renato Scarpa, Franco Graziosi, Camillo Milli, Roberto Nobile, Ulrich von Dobschütz, Gianluca Gobbi & Margherita Buy
What if the 180-member College of Cardinals held a papal […]

By |April 6th, 2012|Comedy, Foreign|0 Comments

New Directors/New Films 2012

 

This year, New Directors/New Films shakes up its usual art house lineup a little bit. The 41st edition jumps on the animated 3D bandwagon with The Rabbi’s Cat and steps into the grindhouse with a kill-a-thon from Indonesia, The Raid: Redemption. In what is another first, a surprise selection closes the series on April 1, […]

By |March 23rd, 2012|Festivals|Comments Off on New Directors/New Films 2012

The Kid With a Bike

Written & Directed by Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
Produced by the Dardennes & Denis Frey
Released by Sundance Selects
French with English subtitles
Belgium/France/Italy. 87 min. Rated PG-13
With Cécile de France, Thomas Doret, Jérémie Renier, Fabrizio Rongione & Egon Di Mateo
In an act of grand thievery, debut child actor Thomas Doret makes off with The Kid With a Bike. […]

By |March 16th, 2012|Drama, French|0 Comments

Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2012

You can talk all you want about the director as the film’s main auteur, but casting remains paramount to a film’s success in most of the entries in New York’s annual Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Unifrance. A film series like this offers a glimpse into a […]

By |March 7th, 2012|Festivals, French|0 Comments

Santa Barbara International Film Festival

 

For those outside of Southern California, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival is a well-kept secret. Sorry to blow it.  Though popular on the weekends (it’s an easy daytrip from Los Angeles), there was plenty of ticket availability during the week. An added screening of the Oscar-nominated Bullhead was held in the cavernous 1931 movie […]

By |February 22nd, 2012|Festivals|0 Comments

Declaration of War

Directed by Valérie Donzelli
Produced by Edouard Weil
Written by Donzelli & Jérémie Elkaïm
Released by Sundance Selects.
French with English subtitles.
France. 100 min. Not rated
With Valérie Donzelli, Jérémie Elkaïm, César Desseix, Brigitte Sy, Elina Lowensohn, Michèle Moretti & Philippe Laudenbach
Whatever direction Valérie Donzelli takes in her second feature film, she goes all out. That all of her narrative […]

By |January 29th, 2012|Drama, French|2 Comments

Miss Bala

Edited & Directed by Gerardo Naranjo
Written by Naranjo & Mauricio Katz
Produced by Pablo Cruz
Released by Fox International Productions
Spanish, with English subtitles
Mexico. 113 min. Rated R
With Stephanie Sigman, Noe Hernández & Lakshmi Picazo
Is nothing sacred? In Gerardo Naranjo’s Mexico of Miss Bala, the answer is a blunt no. Drug trafficking has infiltrated all spheres of society; […]

By |January 20th, 2012|Crime, Top Picks|0 Comments

The Iron Lady

Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
Produced by Damian Jones
Written by Abi Morgan
Released by the Weinstein Company
UK/France. 105 min. Rated PG-13
With Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Olivia Colman, Alexandra Roach, Harry Lloyd, Roger Allam, Iain Glen, Richard E. Grant & Anthony Head
In a recent New York Times interview, Meryl Streep admitted she couldn’t resist playing Margaret Thatcher, the first […]

By |January 13th, 2012|Biopic|0 Comments

Lula, Son of Brazil

Directed by Fábio Barreto
Produced by Luiz Carlos Barreto & Paula Barreto
Written by Daniel Tendler, Denise Paraná & Fernando Bonassi, based on the book by Paraná Released by New Yorker Films
Portuguese with English subtitles
Brazil. 128 min. Not rated
With Rui Ricardo Diaz, Felipe Falanga, Guilherme Tortolio, Glória Pires, Cléo Pires, Juliana Baroni, Milhem Cortaz & Sóstenes Vidal
Even […]

By |January 13th, 2012|Biopic, DVD/Streaming/On Demand, Foreign|0 Comments