Film-Forward

South American

Shine Your Eyes

The journey is more important than the destination in a musician’s quest to find his older brother.

Days of the Whale

The debut by Colombian filmmaker Catalina Arroyave refreshingly has a female character at the heart of its crime story.

La Flor

The question about watching La Flor, one of the more exceptional films in recent South American cinema, shouldn’t be if but when.

Rojo

Rojo intentionally mimics the look and grammar of cinema from the 1970s and looks amazingly retro, but it’s much more than a movie that emulates a certain way of filmmaking and storytelling.

The Heiresses

After a rough beginning, what follows is a lovely character study of a lonely woman who hesitantly steps out into the world.

Vazante

Part 19th-century family drama, part frontier epic, and all spellbindingly atmospheric.

Aquarius | NYFF 2016

Writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s highly observant film follows Sonia Braga in a tour de force performance.

Embrace of the Serpent

Peter Matthiessen’s 1978 novel The Snow Leopard recounts his journey through the Himalayas with a team of Sherpas as guides. Among them was Tukten, for whom Matthiessen felt a particular reverence, often referring to him as a “shaman” for an unnamable, soulful quality, despite a tendency toward unreliability and pesky behavior. Tukten teaches one of […]

The Club

Talk about your tough sell. Critics have their work cut out for them when discussing well-made but audience-repelling films. For example, Room, centered on a mother and her five-year-old son kept captive in a shed for years on end, is one of the lowest grossing films to be nominated for the best picture Oscar. The Auschwitz-set Son of Saul has earned wide acclaim, but it […]