Dreamlike and deeply sensual, The Summer of Sangaile relies primarily on evocative imagery to relate its story of first love and self-discovery. The film opens at an air show with 17-year-old Sangaile (Julija Steponaityte) watching in fearful longing as stunt planes perform vertical climbs, loops, and dangerous plunging dives. Auste (Aiste Dirziute) works the show […]

Imagine you have a young friend from conservative rural Turkey. Funny that, because her modishly off-kilter beauty looks more like what you’d see in a Paris modeling studio. Your friend is flirty and flighty, but she conceals something that you’d never mess with: stone courage and a will of fine metal. Does she tell fibs? […]

Based on real events, the story portrayed in this layered film occurs in 1996 in Ethiopia, just three years after women were granted equal rights under the law. In the capitol city of Addis Ababa, social services have been established to assist women and girls, including free legal aid. Meaza Ashenafi (Meron Getnet) heads the […]

There is a lot to learn from Malala Yousafzai. Three years ago in her Swat Valley village in Northwestern Pakistan, the Taliban shot Malala, then 15, for daring to speak out in favor of girls’ education. Rather than let that stop her, Malala has grown into a world leader and the youngest Nobel Peace Prize […]

If you’ve seen one movie about teenagers, have you seen ’em all? The rituals of youth flouting authority, wallowing in angst, and struggling to appease frustrated sex drives can all start to look the same after a while, but directors can’t stay away from them. Michel Gondry is one auteur with a fixation on adolescence, […]

In Ashby, clichés and tongue-in-cheek quips abound. Set in a high school where students strictly adhere to stereotypes, the jocks and the geeks keep to themselves. But lo, one Very Special Boy (Nat Wolff) has just enrolled. Will he be doomed to geekdom forever or will he man up and ascend the high school social […]

For director Morgan Matthews’s first feature film, he drew upon a documentary he produced and directed about the selection and training of the British team for the 2006 International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO), titled Brilliant Young Minds (2007). Many of the young competitors had a form of autism, which that film linked to their mathematical ability. […]

She’s your best friend. Your cruelest enemy. Sexier than you. Cooler. No one makes you feel as alive as she does. And no one knows better how to make you feel so small. She stole your boyfriend. Turned your girlfriends against you. But you’ll do anything to be around her. You love her. You hate […]

Written and Directed by Rick Famuyiwa Produced by Forest Whitaker and Nina Yang Bongiovi Released by Open Road Films USA. 105 min. Rated R With Shameik Moore, Kimberly Elise, Chanel Iman, Diggy, Jib, Roger Guenveur Smith, Forest Whitaker, Blake Anderson, Quincy Brown, Zoë Kravitz, and ASAP Rocky This Sundance darling is being praised as fresh […]