In the awards competition at the Cannes Film Festival, two films rejuvenated the often clunky genre of the biopic. Mike Leigh, whose films have won many honors here, offered something of a departure from his previous output. Mr. Turner, appropriately his most picturesque film yet, explores the later years of pre-Impressionistic, pre-rebel chic painter J.M.W. […]
Brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne were definitely overlooked, if not slighted, by the awards jury at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, coming away empty handed, perhaps because the directing team has previously won so many awards there and they don’t break thematic or narrative ground in the new Two Days, One Night. The long takes […]
The Directors’ Fortnights at the Cannes Film Festival was established in 1969 as an alternative to the official selection, as a way of opening the door to “free and adventurous cinema” (per its program guide) and promoting new directors. It has since become a showcase for the up-and-coming, spotlighting Martin Scorsese, Michael Haneke, Werner Herzog, […]
One of the top films at Cannes this year—and one of the most shocking and brutal—was The Tribe, from the Ukraine. It was also the most ambitious, dangerous, and accomplished by a debut filmmaker. No subtitles were necessary. It has no spoken dialogue and no translation of any kind; it’s all told through sign language. […]
The New Directors/New Films series at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art is a terrific New York City showcase for creative cinema. Not all the best in the 43rd edition of this international feast have yet been picked up for commercial distribution, but nevertheless they deserve to be seen […]
Two films in this year’s New Directors/New Films program represent the breed of hybrid blending of fact and fiction that both of its sponsoring institutions are also championing in separate annual series, the Museum of Modern Art in its just completed Documentary Fortnight International Festival of Nonfiction Film and Media and the Film Society of […]
If you’re lucky enough to see only a handful of what the mini-festival Rendez-Vous with French Cinema has to offer, you’re likely to have a sense of déjà vu, or at least left wondering, strange, I’ve seen that face before. One of the resulting pleasure of this annual series—23 features this year—is that in a […]
Film Comment Selects, the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s self-described “essential and eclectic feast of cinephilia,” will run its 14th edition from February 17-27. Organized by the editors of Film Comment, the organization’s house magazine, this series once again offers filmgoers many different stripes, genres, and modes of expression, culled from festivals all over the […]
Claire Stewart’s second year at the London Film Festival helm set sail with the European premiere of Paul Greengrass’s Captain Philips and ended with the world premiere of John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr. Banks, both beamed simultaneously by satellite to 30 towns and cities across the UK and Ireland. At the closing press conference, Tom […]