Of Alibis and Shields: Rhetorical Filmmaking and the Role of Criticism

Everyone who has experienced the atmosphere of a major film festival in recent years can testify: rhetoric is all over the place. We can...

By Victor Guimarães

on February 19, 2019 14:28

Call Me By My Body

“One of the most challenging misconceptions that thwarts filmmakers from being able to portray female desire in a way that is seeped in...

By Poulomi Das

on February 19, 2019 14:27

The Rise and Fall of Intentions

Since the birth of the first moving images, filmmaking and intention were linked to each other. First there was the intention to capture...

By Narjes Torchani

on February 19, 2019 14:26

Disarming Manhood, Raising Men: Toxic Masculinities in MONOS and PIRANHAS

Wars do not simply claim lives – they also create new ones that are integral to their continuation. This lesson is not lost on Colombian-Ecuadorian Alejandro Landes’ MONOS...

By Leonardo Goi

on February 19, 2019 14:26

Filming the Objects of Memory

“There is no archive fever without the threat of [the] death drive,” wrote French philosopher Jacques Derrida. The act of archiving is a response to our fear of death; it is...

By Devika Girish

on February 19, 2019 14:24

Doing It Ourselves: Possibilities of Alternative Media Circulation

Pioneer feminist video activists Carole Roussopoulos and Delphine Seyrig only had a domestic video camera. Chilean queer artist Pedro Lemebel did not even have a camera, just...

By Andrea Guzmán

on February 19, 2019 14:18

Alibis

Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s first feature-length essay film MOTHER, I AM SUFFOCATING. THIS IS MY LAST FILM ABOUT YOU (Lesotho/Qatar), part of this year’s Berlinale Forum, creates...

By Victor Guimarães

on February 13, 2019 17:46

Intimate Dialogues at Berlinale Talents

The filmography of Argentinian director Manuel Abramovich has been quite a journey. The “Better be careful: Intimate Dialogues” session of the Berlinale, moderated by Dutch film...

By Narjes Torchani

on February 13, 2019 17:45

Confinements of Perspective

Russian director Alexander Gorchilin captures the aimlessness and alienation of Russian youth, but offers a too limited perspective to lead the way himself. At its best,...

By Hugo Emmerzael

on February 13, 2019 17:42

Muses of Disobedience

Delphine Seyrig may be best known as a Nouvelle Vague acting icon or for her signature role as the subversive housewife-sex worker Jeanne Dielman. Nevertheless, Seyrig was a...

By Andrea Guzmán

on February 13, 2019 17:41

Sympathy for Failure

From the credits, the dispositif of Jean Gabriel Périot’s OUR DEFEATS (NOS DÉFAITES, France) is explicit: in Ivry-sur-Seine, the suburbs of Paris, exactly fifty years after May...

By Victor Guimarães

on February 11, 2019 14:49

The Unbearable Intimacy of Being

The disappearance of a father is like an apocalypse. You walk through a new life, unknown, and your old life is gone forever. The hell of grief has somehow also been a heaven...

By Narjes Torchani

on February 11, 2019 14:45

Pedro Lemebel, the Mare of the Apocalypse

Although he is established as one of the best-known Latin American writers, Pedro Lemebel was a provocative Chilean countercultural icon that caused a lot of trouble and...

By Andrea Guzmán

on February 11, 2019 14:41

Exhuming the Past

As a student of Russian auteur Alexander Sokurov, Alexander Zolotukhin employs some of his mentor’s strategies in this harrowing, essayistic and critical debut about the worth...

By Hugo Emmerzael

on February 11, 2019 14:21

The Role and Challenges of a Film Critic

The role of a film critic is to guide the reader through the movie: its narrative and cinematography, the different layers of its characters, and to underline why it is an...

By Narjes Torchani

on February 4, 2019 19:09

Growing Old and Staying Hungry: a Chance-Meeting at an Industry Party

I was making my way to the bar with some American film critics, during an industry party at the Cairo International Film Festival, when we ran into the International Director of...

By Hugo Emmerzael

on February 4, 2019 19:06

Notes from the In-Between: An Indian Critic in the States

I was born and raised in Nagpur, a small city in central India, and I moved to the United States six years ago to study film and semiotics in college. Since then, I’ve been...

By Devika Girish

on February 4, 2019 19:05

The Highly Contagious Syndrome Called Cinephilia

I landed my first gig as a film critic as a middle schooler, in the back seat of my mother’s car, outside my hometown’s only cinema. As the son of a hardcore cinephile who’d...

By Leonardo Goi

on February 4, 2019 19:00

A small note about memory

In the dictionary, memory is described as the preservation of ideas and images by the imaginarium. The imaginarium rekindles the real. May it be to keep us alert, or to find...

Mariana Souza

on November 6, 2018 11:13

Clementina: a way back

"Clementina de Jesus is, anthropologically, the link between Brazil and its African ancestry", it is stated, at a given moment, in the documentary by Ana Rieper. It seems that...

Leonel Matusse Jr.

on November 6, 2018 11:11

Spike Lee and the strategic simplicity

With BlacKkKlansman, Spike Lee takes a double path while approaching American racism: on the one hand, he showcases his filmic language mastery, noticeable in the careful...

Susy Freitas

on November 6, 2018 11:10

Becoming Yourself

Judging by its rich prize harvest, a cinematic direction which embraces corporality and incites the public towards an empathic scan of the human body is riding high. Take a film...

Victor Morozov

on September 12, 2018 10:38

Berlinale’s Favorite Is in Fear to Be Seen

Romanian director Adina Pintilie’s first feature TOUCH ME NOT (2018) won the Golden Bear at Berlinale, which is not a surprise, since it could not have arrived at a better time....

Nadina Štefančič

on September 12, 2018 10:35

Everybody Knows That You Love Me, Baby

In a recent TED talk cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky explained how language shapes the way we think. Speaking in a foreign language thus might have an effect on the way we...

Mirela Vasileva

on September 12, 2018 10:33

The Wild Pear Tree

“Everything is too far” – says one character in THE WILD PEAR TREE / AHLAT AĞACI (2018), the latest film of celebrated Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan. This sentence reflects...

Jovan Marković

on September 12, 2018 10:27

Once Upon a Time There Was a Journalist…

CHRIS THE SWISS (2018), directed by Anja Kofmel, is a hybrid documentary that makes great use of archival footage and animated images while telling the story of a young Swiss...

Barbara Majsa

on September 12, 2018 10:23

The Florida Project

Catalogue Text North American filmmaker Sean Baker has a particular sensibility for character portrayals. Despite how dark their circumstances may be, Baker approaches his...

by Daniela Kozak

on June 20, 2018 16:53

The Death of Thought

In an extravagant exercise of alternative history, REVOLVER MIND imagines a time when Mario Aburto, convicted of the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio...

Samuel Lagunas

on March 14, 2018 12:57

A Political Shot in the Air

“Of all the arts, for us cinema is the most important,” Lenin once said, emphasizing the scope and the power that a film can have. The big screen exhausts itself, however, if...

Kattia Barrientos

on March 14, 2018 12:51

The Paradise Offered by Sebastián Hofmann

When we think of paradise, we imagine a vast pleasant place, full of energy and color. We know, however, that these images are part of an ephemeral existence that disappears as...

Edgar Aldape Morales

on March 14, 2018 11:14

Jerking Off as a Political Act

We are all condemned to existing within a body: an apparently arbitrary space which, from the point of gestation, predetermines the possibilities open to each one of us....

Alonso Aguilar

on March 14, 2018 11:12

When Hope Needs to be Anchored

ANCHOR AND HOPE (2017), by Spanish director Carlos Marqués-Marcet, tells the story of a couple made up of Eva (Oona Chaplin) and Kat (Natalia Tena), who lead an easygoing life...

Kattia Barrientos

on March 12, 2018 12:26

Waters of Dissatisfaction

As if it were an extension of their lives, the London canal on which Kat and Eva travel in their picturesque houseboat seems to change as their romance does. At the beginning,...

Edgar Aldape Morales

on March 12, 2018 12:22

Beyond the Frame: On the Phantom Presence of Documentarians Within Their Work

Artist, filmmaker and activist Jasmina Metwaly, whose solo exhibition WE ARE NOT WORRIED IN THE LEAST is currently showing at Savvy Contemporary as part of Berlinale Forum...

By Yasmine Zohdi

on February 26, 2018 11:00

It’s Political to Love Yourself

In a dimly lit room, Pedro’s body is barely visible. Especially when captured by the grainy image of a webcam. But as he pops open a bottle of bright paint and seductively...

By Kennith Rosario

on February 26, 2018 10:55

Breaking Through the Screen – Opening Spaces of Political Resistance at the Berlinale

The year is 2018. The city is Berlin and its streets are crowded. Someone wants to enter Hallesches Tor metro station, but it is closed. Outside, the police intervenes in the...

By Iván Zgaib

on February 26, 2018 10:50

THE POWER OF INVISIBLE TIES

“Secrets”, this year’s theme for Berlinale Talents, is a perfect fit for film narrative. The act of keeping and revealing secrets from the spectator, or even between characters,...

By Domoina Ratsara

on February 26, 2018 10:37

Deconstructing the Entebbe Myth

On June 27, 1976, two members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and two German members of the left-wing extremist group Revolutionary Cells teamed up...

By Domoina Ratsara

on February 21, 2018 15:57

Fewer Taboos, More Opportunities - An interview with Gus van Sant

He has some of Hollywood’s best-known titles under his belt, including GOOD WILL HUNTING and MILK, and also counts amongst the cult art-house film directors with MY OWN PRIVATE...

By Lilla Puskas

on February 21, 2018 15:52

Rio de Janeiro as a Transvestite

Showing in the Panorama section, OBSCURO BARROCO (France, Greece) is a documentary on various kinds of metamorphosis: from nature to civilisation, male to female bodies,...

By Kennith Rosario

on February 21, 2018 15:48

Against the Teenage Wasteland

Claire Simon’s Panorama film PREMIERES SOLITUDES begins with a sympathetic act: the camera accompanies some lonely teenagers on their walk to school. This caring effort is...

By Iván Zgaib

on February 21, 2018 15:42

The Eternal Transit Space

Christian Petzold’s new feature, TRANSIT, shown in competition at the 68th Berlinale, is a truly peculiar work. Although it is based on a book first released in 1944 – Anna...

By Domoina Ratsara

on February 19, 2018 15:10

Because There’s No Silver Lining to Poverty: The Conceptual Flaws of WHAT COMES AROUND

“Egyptians will always dance, no matter how poor or hungry they are,” says one character in Reem Saleh’s WHAT COMES AROUND (Al Gam’iya, Egypt), as she watches two neighborhood...

By Yasmine Zohdi

on February 19, 2018 15:03

The Unintentional Allegory of Our Times

Two years ago, when American filmmaker Wes Anderson started making ISLE OF DOGS (United Kingdon, Germany), he didn’t intend to make an allegorical film on the current times. “I...

By Kennith Rosario

on February 19, 2018 14:57

How to Stage Colonialism

A black woman stares straight into the camera. “I’ve been whitewashed,” she says dramatically. So WE LIVE IN SILENCE: CHAPTERS 1-7 (Berlinale Forum Expanded) opens, and artist...

By Iván Zgaib

on February 19, 2018 14:46

Be Curious and Always Be Prepared for Changes

While receiving a good grounding in film history and art theory in Budapest, I also started visiting A-list film festivals, in order to indulge my curiosity about the latest...

By Lilla Puskas, Hungary

on February 6, 2018 15:18

Cinema and Criticism in Egypt: On Restrictive Binaries and Seeking the Space Beyond

It is a recurrent question in Egyptian film circles whether the lack of serious film criticism has contributed to the decline of the Egyptian film industry in recent years, or...

By Yasmine Zohdi

on February 6, 2018 13:53

Bottle Messages from Argentina’s Twilight Zone

1. I write this with a tingling sense of fear. Every time I face an empty page or an unseen film, I feel this way: bubbly anxiety is awaken by the unexpected. It’s a...

By Iván Zgaib, Argentina

on February 6, 2018 13:44

It’s Just Like in the Movies (the Romanian Ones, That Is)

Being a film critic is more or less the consequence of several coincidences in my life. I chose to do a major in journalism as a confused teenager, thinking I would try out to...

By Flavia Dima, Romania

on February 6, 2018 13:39

Review: DIRECTIONS / POSOKI

Even though DIRECTIONS / POSOKI (2017) takes place in the specific world of Bulgarian cab drivers, it offers a broader picture on Europe’s present-day situation with regard...

By Mónika Bajnóczi

on October 10, 2017 12:32

Review: HAPPY END

After premiering at this year’s Cannes Film Festival , Haneke’s new film HAPPY END (2017) was screened as part of the Kinoscope line-up at the 23 rd   Sarajevo Film...

By Mina Stanikić

on October 10, 2017 12:31

Review: HOSTAGES / MDZEVLEBI

Tragic, at moments beautiful, sometimes absurd, HOSTAGES / MDZEVLEBI (2017) shows us the real-life events surrounding an airplane hijacking that took place on an Aeroflot...

By Lana Mihailović

on October 10, 2017 12:29

Review: DIRECTIONS / POSOKI

Stephan Komandarev’s newest feature is a crowning achievement of cinema: stellar performances, flowing (and, at times, gravity-defying) cinematography and brilliant script...

By Flavia Dima

on October 10, 2017 12:28

Review: HOSTAGES / MDZEVLEBI

“No amount of freedom equals a human’s life”, tells Anna in tears during her defense in court, “I don’t know what else to say.” HOSTAGES / MDZEVLEBI (2017), a Georgian...

By Aslı Ildır

on October 10, 2017 12:27

Review: GRAIN / BUĞDAY

"How can you stand that which you do not comprehend?" Quran, The Cave / verse 68 Semih Kaplanoğlu, the Turkish director best known for his Yusuf trilogy, had the honor...

By Arman Fatić

on October 10, 2017 12:25

A foreigner’s frightened look

PARIS SQUARE goes from drama to suspense and highlight irreconcilable differences between the protagonists. To the sound of fado, PARIS SQUARE begins in a serene Portuguese...

By Felipe Ribeiro

on October 17, 2017 17:32

The Good Neighbor Policy

IN THE NAME OF AMERICA investigates the presence of American volunteers in the Brazilian Northeast during the decade of the 1960s. IN THE NAME OF AMERICA depicts the presence...

By Sérgio Raimundo

on October 17, 2017 17:16

The stock jokes illusion

10 DAYS WITHOUT MOM reinforces stereotypes and moves away from criticizing the conservative family. With a little more than an hour and a half, 10 DAYS WITHOUT MOM is a type...

By Thayná Almeida

on October 17, 2017 15:26

A woman against the machine

A GENTLE CREATURE, by Sergei Loznitsa, unravels the trajectory of a character facing Kafkaesque events. What can totalitarian states do? Based on the homonymous tale by...

By Alexandra João Martins

on October 17, 2017 15:10

Journalism and film

In PIAZZA VITTORIO, "punk" filmmaker Abel Ferrara’s humanist camera plunges into a convulsed Europe Only the most oblivious will ignore that, underneath all the violence...

By Francisco Noronha

on October 13, 2017 13:49

Sang-soo, the unshaken

In Claire’s Camera , the Korean filmmaker continues a process of stylistic refinement. "If I take your picture, you won’t be the same person anymore", a French teacher says...

By Alexandra João Martins

on October 13, 2017 13:43

The Limits of Choice

TORQUATO NETO – TODAS AS HORAS DO FIM (Every Hour of the End) is an account of the life, work and death of the Piauían poet, but lacks acuity and endurance in the present. At...

By Francisco Noronha

on October 10, 2017 12:43

Women, let’s do this ourselves

Globally, only 7% of the top 250 films of 2016 were directed by women. Of the top 100 films of the same year, barely 30% of all protagonists were female. That’s where women in...

By Djia Mambu, Nthabiseng Mosieane, Wilfred Okiche and Domoina Ratsara

on August 16, 2017 13:21

Childhood journeys: growing up under adverse circumstances

A PLACE FOR MYSELF Directed by Marie Clémentine Dusabejambo Rating: 4/5 stars This standout short film tells the story of an albino girl in an environment where her...

By Djia Mambu and Domoina Ratsara

on August 15, 2017 15:31

Hot Potato: Interview with OC UKEJE and SHIRLEY FRIMPONG-MANSO

The Nigerian-Ghanaian comedy POTATO POTAHTO is about a divorced couple who must share a house – but can’t stand one another – and it’s a hit at the Durban International Film...

By Wilfred Okiche

on August 15, 2017 15:06

#ThatsNotOk report: Women are not safe in South African film and TV industry

A new report being prepared by women working in film and television in South Africa has been the talk of the 38th Durban International Film Festival this week. It reveals an...

By Djia Mambu

on August 15, 2017 14:51

Log #7

21 April. 2 pm. We are getting ready for another conference at Talents. Judging by the rumours and by what has been read read, I have the feeling that now is our turn to meet...

by PABLO Roldán

on June 8, 2017 14:56

Log #5

“Power is a central issue when making a documentary: we must be clear about the fact that it is the director who has the power. There is a power relationship in every...

by Andrés D’Avenia

on May 31, 2017 10:43

Log # 3

The Talents BA experience appears, at least these days, strange to me. After a series of bilingual and rather bureaucratic presentations, I realize that the cosmopolitan – not...

by Lautaro García

on May 31, 2017 10:33

Log # 1

More than 18 years after I left Buenos Aires with a strange taste, I returned under a totally different scenario, on a plane which arrived 15 minutes before schedule in contrast...

by Aldo Padilla

on April 27, 2017 09:55

A Simple Encounter: SANTA AND ANDRÉS

The new feature film by Cuban director Carlos Lechuga, SANTA AND ANDRÉS, is a critical commentary on totalitarian Cuba after the revolution. However, the treatment of characters...

By Carlos Armenta

on March 21, 2017 13:21

Giving New Life to a Classic: MEMORIAS DEL SUBDESARROLLO

Almost fifty years ago, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s film MEMORIAS DEL SUBDESARROLLO, based on Edmundo Desnoes’ novel of the same name, was first seen on screen. Since its debut and...

By Carlos Armenta

on March 20, 2017 16:07

Mist in Berlin: BRUMA

In the closing of BRUMA by Mexico resident and Uruguayan director Max Zunino, the viewer is informed that the recently watched film was performed using improvisation techniques....

By Hammurabi Hernández

on March 20, 2017 15:47

Interchangeable terms: A commentary on Max Zunino’s BRUMA

Filming is not an event limited to the technological field. It is not a product of a materialistic historical development nor is it only related with capturing reality from an...

By Rafael Guilhem

on March 13, 2017 13:26

Negotiating a Reel Appreciation of History

Whenever the word “history” is mentioned, it tends to conjure an image of depressive black and white images fleeting across the screen, voiced-over by an equally dismal...

By Adefoyeke Ajao

on February 21, 2017 18:09

SUBVERTING THE GENRE

Representing political trauma is a hard task, especially for an artist who is depicting it while simultaneously experiencing it. This challenge is often met most effectively...

By Aslı Ildır

on February 21, 2017 18:07

You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks

Some of the films in the 67th Berlinale seem like a direct response to the current global preoccupations with security and border protection. Aki Kaurismäki’s THE OTHER SIDE OF...

By Héctor Oyarzún

on February 21, 2017 18:05

People in Peril

In Michael Rabiger’s book, “Directing the Documentary” (Focal Press, 1987), he writes: “Documentaries make human issues palpable in order to exercise the hearts and minds of an...

By Richard Bolisay

on February 21, 2017 18:04

Editing as an Act of Killing

Before starting her talk, director and editor Susan Korda asks the audience about their backgrounds. It is a crowd made up of producers, directors, writers, cinematographers,...

By Richard Bolisay

on February 15, 2017 15:28

The Courage to Fail

FOR AHKEEM, a documentary by Jeremy S. Levine and Landon Van Soest, having its world premiere in the Berlinale Forum, tells the tale of what it's like to be young, gifted, and...

By Petra Meterc

on February 15, 2017 15:27

Pictures From the Revolutions

Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a French anarchist and arguably one of the most prominent public speakers to emerge during the Paris students movement of May 1968, becomes a strange locus...

By Christopher Small

on February 13, 2017 17:09

Footage Rights

Kevin B. Lee is a filmmaker, film critic and one of the most prolific video-essayists, with more than 300 works under his name. His “desktop documentary” TRANSFORMERS: THE...

By Héctor Oyarzún

on February 13, 2017 16:22

Open Wound

Filmmaker John Trengove does not believe in comfortable resolutions. And after watching his debut film, THE WOUND (which opened the Panorama section), one begins to see why....

By Archana Nathan

on February 11, 2017 20:02

Freedom oasis

“Casa Roshell” is a real club in Mexico City where Roshell Terranova gives “personality lessons”. Men who are afraid of showing themselves publicly as transvestites learn how to...

By Héctor Oyarzún

on February 11, 2017 19:58

THE ENEMY IMPERFECT

One of East Germany’s hidden treasures, EOLOMEA (Herrmann Zschoche, East Germany) is part of the 67th Berlinale Retrospektive programme “Future Imperfect,” a wide selection of...

By Aslı Ildır

on February 11, 2017 20:00

Before the World Ends

“The designers of the first atomic bomb were concerned that a nuclear detonation might ignite the earth’s atmosphere and kill every living thing on earth. They went ahead and...

By Richard Bolisay

on February 11, 2017 19:58

One needn't have the last word as a critic

India is and has been a cinema-crazy country for years. Whether it is the elaborate rituals that are performed in parts of the country before the release of a film each week,...

By Archana Nathan

on February 10, 2017 13:43

The self-invention of the non-existent profession

It was always about the storytelling. From early visits to the local library as well as the local video shop, the urge to discover different realities through media has stayed...

By Petra Meterc

on February 10, 2017 13:46

Being a Film Critic from the Philippines

I live in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, a country whose historical and cultural richness and diversity offer countless stories to its artists. Burdened by centuries of...

By Richard Bolisay

on February 10, 2017 13:45

Press Pass, Limited Access

While growing up, I was endeared to film criticism by the cheeky but fair reviews that I read in the British tabloids my father brought home. They made me realise that movies...

By Adefoyeke Ajao

on February 10, 2017 13:43

The Sexy Vampirism in The Hunger

The Hunger (1983) is one of those movies that needs a future. Tony Scott’s commercial objectives permeate this, his first feature film. The result is such a product of its...

by Sabrina D. Marques

on October 14, 2016 17:49

João Pedro Rodrigues and the Birds that See Everything

A snippet of a memory: a silhouette of a dog in the foreground of Phantom ( O fantasma , 2000). Sixteen years later, nothing seems random about that four-legged figure with...

by Aisha Rahim

on October 14, 2016 17:42

Dying to Live

I died. I don’t know exactly when but one day I woke up and was dead. What did I do next? The film by Bia Lessa opens with a dead body with gray hair and wrinkled skin. It is...

by Eliana Nzualo

on October 12, 2016 12:59

Running to Find Time

The documentary Cinema Novo , by Eryk Rocha, juxtaposes several works that came out of the movement in film of the same name during the 1960s. The film, in black and white...

by Eliana Nzualo

on October 12, 2016 12:42

Eveything Solid Disintegrates into Thin Air

A train crosses the city. "It’s already the second time", says the woman who is watching a group of barefoot children play soccer in the cobblestone street outside her window....

by Renato Guimarães

on October 12, 2016 12:45

Before the Storm

Fox (2016) may be a short film concerning its length, but as far as the plot is concerned, the skilful structure of the narrative line and the manipulating of time, it feels...

written by Petra Meterc

on August 24, 2016 15:44

Playing through the Trauma – The Short Films of Petra Szőcs

Dealing with personal and socio-political traumas is at the core of the films of the young Hungarian film director and screenwriter Petra Szőcs (1981). In her previous short...

written by Janka Pozsonyi

on August 24, 2016 13:41

Toni Erdmann – The screwballs and everyone else

Everyone has their own way of dealing with existential tedium and loneliness. The all-so-likeable classical Hollywood 30’s screwball characters’ way of freeing themselves from...

written by Andreea Mihalcea

on August 24, 2016 13:35

Toni Erdman is an Antidepressant

An eccentric father is lightening up his serious businesswoman daughter in the quite enjoyable and insightful German feature Toni Erdmann . It is Maren Ade’s third feature...

written by Katerina Lambrinova

on August 24, 2016 16:12

Review: 4:15 P.M. The End of the World

Romanian duo Cătălin Rotaru and Gabi Virginia Şargă add to a countless series of apocalyptic films with their relatively subdued and understated short 4:15 P.M. THE END OF THE...

written by Emre Çağlayan

on August 24, 2016 16:07

Review: Cameraperson

Kirsten Johnson’s CAMERAPERSON (2016) offers an intimate insight on contemporary issues from around the world by putting together the scenes that marked the author through her...

written by Andreea Pătru

on August 24, 2016 16:02

Argentine Short Films Competition: four reviews

Los días felices by Agostina Guala (First Prize) The beginning of the year seems ideal: a family day at the countryside, sun, a barbecue next to the lake and zero concerns....

By Laslo Rojas

on May 12, 2016 17:34

Review of El Tila: fragmentos de un psicópata directed by Alejandro Torres Contreras (Latin American Competition)

The main problem one can find in this Chilean film is that it is based on actual events and is thus forced to follow the beat of these famous events through those who have been...

by Jaime Grijalba Chile

on April 29, 2016 10:42

Las lindas

What is beauty? What defines feminine appeal? What makes a woman pretty? A smile? A slender body? Long hair? A sexy voice? A stylish dress? Melisa Liebenthal’s debut poses...

by Laslo Rojas

on April 21, 2016 17:58

Talents Buenos Aires 2016

Talents Buenos Aires is proud to present and celebrate, together with the 66 selected participants from 10 different Latin American countries, the eleventh edition "Sin techo ni...

by Mariángela Martínez Restrepo / Talent Press BsAs Coordinator

on April 18, 2016 17:47

At 40 years of Canoa

Every human act is a decision that reveals an ideological posture, and cinema, even the mainstream one, complies with this. The long feature Canoa (1976) by Felipe Cazals became...

by Yoshua Oviedo Ugalde

on March 15, 2016 16:58

The gimmick of appearances

How difficult when a film arouses mixed feelings Ciudades desiertas (España-Brasil-Canadá /2016), certainly does it. The third feature film by the director Robert Sneider,...

by Karina Paz Ernand

on March 11, 2016 15:00

Nosotras:Ellas

"Hell is other people", said Sartre as a synthesis of a unique perspective about the subjectiveness and his existentialist posture. The idea of othering is reduced to that...

by Pedro Emilio Segura

on March 11, 2016 14:55

Of winged steeds and other dreams. Three glances on Boi Neon

Of winged steeds and other dreams. In regards to Boi Neon Yelsy Hernández Zamora Brazil's northeastern landscape. Dust, cattle; the dormant erotism of the daily bus...

on March 9, 2016 11:53

Yelsy Hernández Zamora

Cuban, graduated in Art History at the Faculty of Arts and Letters of the University of Havana, where she works as a teacher of arts. She has been editor of ICAIC and the...

on March 1, 2016 17:21

Karina Paz

Lives and works in Cuba. Graduate in Art History. She worked for 11 years in the Cuban Arts and Film Industry Institute and is a professor of Audiovisual at the Faculty of Arts...

on March 1, 2016 17:20

Depiction of Cultural Relations on Screen

Rich in diversity and intercultural relations, three films at the 66th Berlinale program are metaphorical for their protagonist’s dilemmas and identity crises. Three young men...

Isabella Akinseye of the 2016 Talent Press analyses three protagonists from this year's Berlinale films that deal with issues of culture, ethnicity and traditions.

on February 18, 2016 13:09

In Search of El Dorado

“Shadow,“ said he, “Where can it be – This land of Eldorado?“ (Edgar Allan Poe, “Eldorado”, 1849) While critics mine film festivals for hidden or sometimes unattainable...

Ruben Demasure of the 2016 Talent Press analyses the motif of the mythical El Dorado in several Berlinale Forum films.

on February 18, 2016 13:21

Casting Directors, Career-Makers

Tell us about the importance of casting directors and what made you become one? Well, it happened by accident for me. I was a theater director and I was in Prague at a time...

Tara Karajica talked to Prague-based US casting director Nancy Bishop (THE NOVEMBER MAN, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 4) about the importance of a casting director, the difference between the casting process in Europe and Hollywood and between casting stars and younger actors at the beginning of their career.

on February 17, 2016 12:59

Music as a Trope of Palestinian Landscape

A MAGICAL SUBSTANCE FLOWS INTO ME (Palestinian Territories), showing in the Berlinale Forum, opens with a crackly recording of the voice of Robert Lachmann, the Jewish-German...

Sevara Pan of the 2016 Berlinale Talent Press reviews the Palestinian documentary A MAGICAL SUBSTANCE FLOWS INTO ME.

on February 15, 2016 12:45

The Man With A Movie Camera

“Open your mind and let the pictures out,” was the adage of William S. Burroughs. In 1983, Howard Brookner realized the only film about and with the cult writer. His nephew,...

Ruben Demasure of the 2016 Berlinale Talent Press reviews Aaron Brookner's Berlinale Panorama documentary UNCLE HOWARD.

on February 15, 2016 12:07

Depicting the Refugee Crisis

“It is hard to film these crises in cold blood as if it is a calm and ordinary situation”, said German filmmaker Philip Scheffner, one of the participants in the “No Time to...

Rasha Hosny of the 2016 Berlinale Talent Press reports from the panel No Time to Remember: Films on the Move.

on February 15, 2016 11:56

The Shape of Our Inner Fears

Structured in the style of a dream, DER NACHTMAHR (in the Lola @ Berlinale section) centers on teenage girl, Tina (portrayed brilliantly by Carolyn Genzkow), who stumbles upon a...

Elizabeth Chege of the 2016 Berlinale Talent Press reviews Akiz's film DER NACHTMAHR.

on February 15, 2016 11:49

Of Shiny New Cars and Modern Society

Based on the prize-winning semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by Kristian Lundberg, Berlinale Forum film THE YARD (Sweden/Germany) follows a single father and...

Tara Karajica of the Berlinale Talent Press reviews Måns Månsson's Berlinale Forum film THE YARD.

on February 14, 2016 14:26

No One Here Gets Out Alive... nor Dead

One can say that young Mexican filmmaker Joaquin del Paso knows what a dark comedy is. There’s a brief scene in his debut feature PANAMERICAN MACHINERY (Maquinaria Panamericana,...

Sergio Huidobro of the 2016 Berlinale Talent Press reviews Joaquin del Paso's debut feature PANAMERICAN MACHINERY.

on February 14, 2016 14:21

Through the Eyes of a Compatriot

The Berlinale Forum film PANAMERICAN MACHINERY (MAQUINARIA PANAMERICANA, Mexico/Poland) by Berlinale Talents alumnus Joaquín del Paso tells the story of the workers in a...

Isabella Akinseye interviews her Mexican Berlinale Talent Press co-participant Sergio Raúl Bárcenas Huidobro on Joaquín del Paso's Berlinale Forum film PANAMERICAN MACHINERY.

on February 14, 2016 13:13

Evading the Look

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, rethinking the socialist past seemed like an important chore the newly found states were compelled to perform as part of their...

By Sevara Pan (Uzbekistan)

on February 13, 2016 00:08

The Impact of Cinema in My Life

Sometimes, it’s necessary to go the long way round to find that thing that many describe as purpose. My journey into the world of film was such a case. After training as a...

By Elizabeth Chege (Kenya)

on February 13, 2016 00:07

The Young Dreamer and the Last of the Mohicans

When I told my friends about this article and that I had to discuss the situation of film criticism in Serbia and the state of national cinema there, they told me “But there is...

By Tara Karajica (Serbia)

on February 13, 2016 00:05

Breaking Into Nollywood the Write Way

My journey into cultural reportage started with books. During a gap year after my first year of university, I worked in a publishing firm in Nigeria. I went on to review books...

By Isabella Akinseye (Nigeria)

on February 13, 2016 00:03

A Call from the Future

A little girl receives a phone call from the distant future. The woman, whose voice lacks the slightest emotion, talks very formally, almost like a robot, turns out to be her...

by Lilla Puskás

on August 27, 2015 14:01

When is Mummy coming home?

Anna Muylaert’s latest feature,The Second Mother focuses largely on the social context of its setting, namely Brasil, where due to general unemployment problems many mothers...

by Lilla Puskás

on August 27, 2015 13:59

Short(s) take on big stories

Poison comes in small bottles. Carefully mixed to make your heart stop beating. It's not usual for major and important stories to be told in the form of a short film. Events...

by Ana Šturm

on August 27, 2015 13:57

The fault in our shooting stars

"Dead bodies!", she shouts. Visions of the future in the arts rarely ooze with optimism, but with an author as cynical as Don Hertzfeldt, one can be certain that the story will...

by Miro Frakić

on August 27, 2015 13:55

A VERY PROMISING SHORT DEBUT: THE CHICKEN

Among the short films screened within the framework of the 21st Sarajevo Film Festival, the début of the young Bosnian director Una Gunjak is very impressive. Her The Chicken...

by Gergana Doncheva

on August 27, 2015 13:53

Review: Boda Boda Theives

Boda Boda Thieves has been one of the most anticipated African films since its premiere in Berlin at the beginning of the year and sets out to illustrate the struggles of a...

by Andrew Kaggwa

on July 22, 2015 11:52

REVIEW: THE ACTOR

A WHITE mask; stained by a drop of blood. This was the opening shot of actor and director Aidan Whytock’s The Actor. And it’s significant for the motif of the movie – exploring...

by Isabella Akinseye

on July 22, 2015 11:47

REVIEW: WHEN VOICES MEET

When Voices Meet tells the story of how South Africa evolved into the ‘rainbow nation,’ through the dedication of Sharon Katz, pioneer of the Peace Train Project. In the early...

by Olawale Oluwadahunsi

on July 22, 2015 11:42

REVIEW: WHERE THE ROAD RUNS OUT

Rudolf Buitendach’s Where the Road Runs Out is an everyday story about how the legacies of our homeland must be built and upheld. George’s father’s legacy is a field station...

by Olawale Oluwadahunsi

on July 22, 2015 11:37

Review: Beats of the Antonov

Beats of the Antonov is a film that documents the Sudan – SRF conflicts in the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile. The film that’s directed and produced by Hajooj Kuka tends...

by Andrew Kaggwa

on July 22, 2015 11:26

Venecia, los miedos que reflejan los espejos (Venice, the fears the mirrors reflect)

In his poem, La isla en peso (The Island in Weight), the Cuban writer Virgilio Piñeira said that the cursed circumstances of having water everywhere forced him to sit on the...

by Mayté Madruga Hernández

on May 8, 2015 15:15

Exiliar de la memoria (Exiled from memory)

"For the men who will never be children. For the children who search for their father. For the parents who no longer know their children. For my future children I can finally...

by Jaqueline Avila

on May 8, 2015 15:12

Volcán (Volcano)

Mary wants to leave. She prepares her things, offers a bottle of alcohol and consumes her sexuality at the wrong time. Suddenly, the dreams of leaving her village in Guatemala...

By Arantxa Sánchez

on May 8, 2015 15:08

Poetry terrorists

Like poetic inspiration, violence is contagious. It is in the air: in the camera’s panoramas, in the dangerous proximity of certain bodies and objects, in the extravagance of...

By Antonia Giraldi The Kindergarten Teacher (Nadav Lapid, Israel, 2014)

on May 5, 2015 10:39

How to look from a position of silence - The Look of Silence by Joshua Oppenheimer

“It is not poetry that is impossible after Auschwitz, but rather prose” Slavoj Zizek It is usually believed that there is no way to create a story that can give, at...

By Eduardo Marun

on April 28, 2015 13:30

Ming of Harlem: Twenty One Storeys In The Air (Phillip Warnell)

A couple of months ago, after much hesitation, my girlfriend and I decided to adopt a little dog. A puppy, one of those terrible living beings that spend their time running from...

by Amadeo Gandolfo

on April 21, 2015 09:05

Talents Buenos Aires 2015 Begins!

With the background and experience of experts and mentors, selected talents were able to enrich their future to continue their own way. The experience of the past generation...

by Mariángela Martínez Restrepo / Talent Press BsAs Coordinator

on April 18, 2015 15:30

Life Behind the Camera

“The world within reach” was one of the first slogans used to promote moving pictures at their commercial debut in the late nineteenth century. Starting with the Lumière...

by Michael Guarneri

on February 12, 2015 15:19

Inner Realities/Outer Spaces in New German Cinema

Around the late 1960’s something happened in Germany. It happened along the droning sound of spinning celluloid and light turned into narratives that can divert or change their...

By Alonso Díaz de la Vega

on February 12, 2015 15:17

Delicate Issues, Unfulfilling Execution

Omar Zúñiga Hidalgo's Berlinale Shorts entry SAN CRISTÓBAL (Chile) has a concise decoupage, showing a competence that’s more than welcome in short narrative film. Hidalgo’s...

By Heitor Augusto

on February 10, 2015 15:30

FINDING THE SELF IN SPACE AND FORM

Directors Walter Salles and Sebastian Schipper discussed road movies, moderated by Peter Cowie. “The first road movies are documentaries like NANOOK OF THE NORTH,” said...

By Alonso Díaz de la Vega

on February 10, 2015 13:36

Trying to Stay Afloat

Where’s the fun in chasing a single ball along the ground? To ten-year-old Giovanni, football is boring. So is karate, unless "it involves murder". Instead, Giovanni has his...

By Monty Majeed

on February 10, 2015 13:53

Keeping It Simple

Joaquim Pinto's and Nuno Leonel's documentary on artisanal fishing manages to be more then a pure registry. FISH TAIL (RABO DE PEIXE, Portugal, Berlinale Forum), is a...

By Heitor Augusto

on February 10, 2015 13:48

Peter Zeitlinger: Dancing with the Camera

Cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger has been working with Werner Herzog since the 1995 TV documentary GESUALDO: DEATH FOR FIVE VOICES (Germany). "There actually is a clause in...

by Michael Guarneri

on February 10, 2015 13:35

LOVE IN THE TIME OF OPERA

His characters are African, poor, and one has a terminal disease. But—wonders!—they sing opera. Nevertheless, the heavier weight of the association of poverty with Africanness...

By Oris Aigbokhaevbolo

Arriving, perhaps unwittingly, to correct one stereotype and confirm another is the Berlinale Special film BREATHE UMPHEFUMLO, the fourth feature from director Mark Dornford-May.

on February 8, 2015 18:38

On a Quest for Black Gold

This sentence encompasses the true spirit of Turkish filmmaker Faruk Hacıhafızoğlu's debut feature SNOW PIRATES (KAR KORSANLARI, Turkey, 2014), part of this year’s Berlinale...

By Monty Majeed

"I wish I was an oven and you would heat me like coal," says 12-year-old Gurbuz, the chubby and mischievous back-bencher, to his classmate, the beautiful Ebru, in a love letter he writes to her.

on February 8, 2015 18:28

Dashboard Dispatches from Iran

The medium is the message as Panahi films the streets of Tehran in real time picking up a motley string of passengers along his way. These companions hold forth on an array of...

By Julia Cooper

If Sundance had TANGERINE, a fêted feature that caused a stir for having been filmed entirely on an iPhone 5S, then the Berlinale Competition has TAXI, a street film captured on Jafar Panahi’s dashboard camera.

on February 8, 2015 18:26

From the Ashes; Scotland’s art and culture flourish in times of hardship

These are hard times for the artistic community in Scotland, where the UK government has severely cut the Art Council’s budget. Fortunately, a nation’s creative minds are the...

by Oriana Franceschi Last year, the Glasgow School of Art’s landmark building designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh caught fire. I was on my way to work nearby and stopped when I saw the smoke. I stood in among the art students gathering on the pavement and found myself caught up in the grief of the crowd.

on February 6, 2015 18:43

Negotiating a role

Which is not to say, by any means, that the films that we've been making, and the reflections that have followed are not important. Not at all. But we must face this...

by Heitor Augusto Though it may sound too tough, a word that would represent, with some accuracy, the state of both local cinema and film criticism in Brazil is “irrelevant”. Nobody's life would stop if, all of a sudden, a catastrophic event decimated both our cinema and our attempts to reflect upon it.

on February 6, 2015 18:20

Je suis Cinéphile

I lost myself at the movies at the end of 2010. We organized International Student Film and Video Festival at our faculty. Filofest became the key college experience which...

by Ana Sturm Where did I come from? Cineplexx. Where am I? At Slovenian Cinematheque. Where am I going? To Cinema Dvor, and I must hurry, because I don't want to miss the last showing.

on February 6, 2015 18:35

A note from the margin

As for answering such a question, though, I must confess, that I lack Bazin's and other film theorists' certainty and self-confidence. Personally, I tend to agree with those who...

by Michael Guarneri André Bazin's “What is Cinema?” is probably the most influential collection of film-related writings ever published. I have always been fascinated by the bold simplicity of its title: which inherent, specific feature allows us to distinguish cinema from everything else?

on February 6, 2015 18:29

The simple secret to a great pitch

30 filmmakers and an introverted geek walked into a self-presentation workshop. The eager young filmmakers were fixed, with eyes open wide enough to absorb any scraps of...

Monica Obaga of the Talent Press Durban 2014 reports from a Durban Talents workshop, hosted by Neiloe Whitehead, Elizabeth Radshaw and Bongiwe Selane, abut the art of the movie pitch.

on August 28, 2014 12:26

Portrait of a Cinema Icon as a Young Woman

Frances Bodomo has a filmography of two short films, so why are we already obsessed? Her films' distinct aesthetics and point of view, enviable casts (including a historical...

Monica Obaga of the Talent Press Durban 2014 interviews Frances Bodomo, who shares her secret to securing funding and directing the youngest Oscar nominee in history.

on August 27, 2014 15:27

Women, Men and Vampires

Beti (Bethlehem) is a young woman living with her grandfather. Their shack is the only sign of life in the vast, desolate plains. Life is simple. Everyday, she walks to the...

Monica Obaga of the Talent Press Durban 2014 reviews the multi-faceted, multi-genre Ethiopian monster-and-war feature BETI AND AMARE, written and directed by Andy Siege.

on August 26, 2014 17:52

Africa Is My Priority

Thisiwe Ziqubu plays Skiets in HARD TO GET, the opening film for this year’s edition of Durban International Film Festival (DIFF). The actress, who came to the limelight in MAN...

Terh Agbedeh of the Talent Press Durban 2014 interviews actor Thisiwe Ziqubu about her rollercoaster ride to stardom.

on August 26, 2014 14:07

The Colombian film perspective

The Colombian cinema perspective by Andrés Rodelo The current state of Colombian cinema suggests a future marked by good vibrations. The strengthening of politics of...

Colombian cinema has grown rapidly in the last 10 years due to several factors which have favored the cinematic development and the upcoming industry.

on April 14, 2014 03:27

MAURO, by Hernán Rosselli

Mauro by Sebastián Rosal There are good, excellent and bad films. There are others which are indispensable or disposable. Mauro is a necessary film within the amorphous...

Sebastián Rosal of the Talent Press 2014, reviews about the Argentinian film "Mauro", by Hernán Rosselli

on April 9, 2014 01:01

To be out of place: Nouvelle Vague: the first kamikaze generation of cinema.

To be out of place: Nouvelle Vague: the first kamikaze generation of cinema. by Jaime Akamine They were not the first arrogant filmmakers in the history of cinema, but...

Jaime Akamine of the 2014 Talent Press reports from the panel "To be out of place: Nouvelle Vague: the first kamikaze generation of cinema" With the professional David Oubiña

on April 7, 2014 15:47

Talents Buenos Aires Begins!!!

Every year it is our tradition to propose a specific theme in order to place our activities within a framework. This year’s theme, under the title of “Youth on the March”, is...

Talents Buenos Aires Begins today!!! Check out our new edition

on April 4, 2014 18:49

Perpetual Sadness or The numb soul.

A plastic bag caught in a cactus, a town in the desert trapped on replay, in the recursive need to leave. The hope is a yellow Bug (VW sedan) that passes by from time to time at...

Amado Cabrales of the Guadalajara Talent Press reviews Jorge Pérez Solano's LA TIRISIA

on March 29, 2014 01:34

The mapping of memories

Third scene, the sea. We see a sunset; the clouds are tinged with orange and pink colors as the sun sets in a mountainous horizon, we can see the ripples of the tide in the...

Amado Cabrales of the Guadalajara Talent Press 2014 reviews Gabriela Rubalcava's LA DANZA DEL HIPOCAMPO.

on March 29, 2014 01:11

O Lobo atrás da porta, (A wolf at the door)

Fernando Coinbra´s first feature film O LOBO ATRÁS DA PORTA 2014 (A wolf at the door)) a part of the reconstruction of two testimonial paths on the lines of a love triangle. A...

Israel Luis Arreola from Guadalajara Talents Press 2014 review Fernando Coimbra's O LOBO ATRÁS DA PORTA

on March 28, 2014 23:36

LA TIRISIA

Amid abundant bushes and giant cacti bodies at the semiarid region of Zapotitlán, Puebla, LA TIRISIA (Mexico, 2013) takes place Jorge Pérez Solano´s second feature film from...

Israel Ruiz Arreola of the Talents Press 2014 reviews Jorge Pérez Solano's LA TIRISIA

on March 28, 2014 23:20

O LOBO ATRÁS DA PORTA

Making a film where the leitmotiv is a crime of passion, somehow leads the way towards a classic melodrama with excesses. Fernando Coimbra successfully has navigated this almost...

Jeyma Cruz Madruga from Guadalajara Talents Press 2014 review Fernando Coimbra's O LOBO ATRÁS DA PORTA

on March 28, 2014 21:04

When looks could be deceiving. About HOJE EU QUERO VOLTAR SOZINHO

Zenith overhead shot. Two bodies lie on the edge of the pool, bodies forming a cross that give us their back. Sweet vacation break, rest and dilated time. Still water. The...

Celía Rodriguez Tejuca of the 2014 Guadalajara Talent Press reviews Daniel Ribeiro's HOJE EU QUERO VOLTAR SOZINHO.

on March 27, 2014 01:06

More than Magic

One loose thread can easily unravel the whole. Before Satyajit Ray had the chance to demystify celebrity with a special screening of his film NAYAK (THE HERO, 1966) the magic of...

Tara Judah of the 2014 Talent Press reviews a screening of Satyajit Ray's NAYAK at the Berlinale Classics section.

on February 12, 2014 23:45

To Put Your Mind Into Something

"If you need distribution in place before you have the courage to make a movie then it’s not a movie worth making. There are many other ways to make money than making movies. If...

José Sarmiento of the 2014 Talent Press met up with Indian film director and screenwriter Ritesh Batra.

on February 12, 2014 23:33

Denis Côté Planets in Open Space

Canadian filmmaker, Denis Côté, winner of last year’s Berlinale Alfred Bauer prize for VIC AND FLO SAW A BEAR, grabs the nearest chair, and, wearing an unusual combination of...

Daria Lisitsina interviews Canadian director Denis Côté.

on February 12, 2014 23:21

Adolescence in a Small Town

THE THIRD SIDE OF THE RIVER, a film by Argentinian filmmaker Celina Murga, is a coming-of-age tale exploring the universal father-son relationship. A teenager hates his father,...

Claire Lee of the 2014 Talent Press reviews the Argentinian film THE THIRD SIDE OF THE RIVER, which was produced by Martin Scorsese and features in the Berlinale Competition.

on February 12, 2014 23:07

Reflection on Perception

This year, a fair part of Berlinale’s Forum Expanded section, devoted to innovative works of cinema and beyond, is dedicated to space, in the widest sense of the word. “What do...

Andrei Kartashov of the 2014 Talent Press reports from an exhibition of visual art in the St. Agnes church, at the fringes of the Berlinale.

on February 12, 2014 23:01

Confessions of the Sound-Obsessed

Academy Award-winning sound designer Eugene Gearty from the United States, best known for his collaboration with Martin Scorsese and Ang Lee, and British filmmaker Peter...

Karla Lončar of the 2014 Talent Press reports from the panel "The World of Shouts and Whispers" with sound designer Eugene Gearty and filmmaker Peter Strickland at Berlinale Talents.

on February 12, 2014 00:32

I want to be kidnapped!

When you make a comedy, half the battle is to choose a cast well. With Michel Houellebecq as a leading actor, the filmmakers didn't have to struggle much to absorb the viewers...

Ewa Wildner of the 2014 Talent Press reviews the mockumentary THE KIDNAPPING OF MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ, which features in the Berlinale Forum section.

on February 12, 2014 00:07

Professional Intimacy

German-American director Anja Marquardt premiered her debut feature film, SHE'S LOST CONTROL in this year's Berlinale Forum. An alumna of Berlinale Talents, Marquardt used...

Christina Newland of the 2014 Talent Press in conversation with Anja Marquardt on her debut feature SHE'S LOST CONTROL, which features in the Berlinale Forum section.

on February 12, 2014 00:01

There Are No Rules Anymore

The well-known stereotype of struggling filmmakers bemoaning the death of the industry could be about to change. Beadie Finzi, one of four directors from BRITDOC, talked...

Tara Judah of the 2014 Talent Press attended a Meet the Expert session with Adriek van Nieuwenhuyzen and Beadie Finzi at Berlinale Talents.

on February 10, 2014 23:37

Jack-in-the-box

Trying to explain in a word an experience which goes beyond expectations would be an impossible task for a reviewer. But I will use (and abuse) the term “surprise”, because...

José Sarmiento of the 2014 Talent Press reviews a retrospective of Jack Smith's unreleased material, which featured in the Berlinale Forum Expanded.

on February 10, 2014 23:32

Creating Characters

In the bubbly panel discussion “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown: Successful Screenwriting“, renowned screenwriters Claudia Llosa from Peru (ALOFT, THE MILK OF SORROW),...

Dasha Lisitsina of the 2014 Talent Press reports from the panel discussion Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown: Successful Screenwriting at Berlinale Talents.

on February 10, 2014 23:25

Searching for Beauty in the Dark

After learning that he’s been told a lie since a childhood incident left him blind, a young Chinese man, Xiao Ma (Huang Xuan) slits his throat. Blood spurts out like a shotgun...

Claire Lee of the Talent Press 2014 reviews the chinese drama drama BLIND MASSAGE, which features in the Berlinale Competition.

on February 10, 2014 23:18

Cinema of Attraction

THE IMAGONAUT venue is tucked away in an alley alongside the HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU1), one of the main venues of Berlinale Talents. In true Kreuzberg style, the curved 180°...

Christina Newland of the 2014 Talent Press reviews THE IMAGONAUT, a feature film shot for a 180° screen.

on February 10, 2014 23:10

The Matrioska Dilemma

52 TUESDAYS (Australia), running in Berlinale Generation, opens with a medium shot of Billie, a 16-year old Australian girl, shooting the gender transition of her mother and...

José Sarmiento of the 2014 Talent Press reviews Sophie Hyde's 52 TUESDAYS, running in Berlinale Generation.

on February 9, 2014 23:41

James Schamus Answers Ang Lee's Big Question

Academy Award-nominated screenwriter James Schamus, best known for his work with Ang Lee, took the stage during the special session “Once Upon a Time: How to Start a Film“ for...

Claire Lee of the Talent Press 2014 reports from the panel "Once Upon A TIme: How To Start A Film", featuring Michel Gondry, James Schamus and Greta Gerwig.

on February 9, 2014 23:34

Faith/Off

It takes some audacity to make an adaptation of the New Testament. To parallel the story of a modern teenage girl to the life of Jesus takes even more. Dietrich Brüggemann's...

Andrei Kartashov of the 2014 Talent Press reviews Dietrich Brüggemann's drama of faith, youth and family STATIONS OF THE CROSS, which features in the Berlinale Competition.

on February 9, 2014 23:26

Soaring Past the Truth

Indulging in that taut space between biography and imagined history can easily seem ridiculous. But it doesn't seem to matter when it's as obviously tongue-in-cheek and...

Tara Judah of the 2014 Talent Press reviews Dominik Graf's period drama BELOVED SISTERS, which features in the Berlinale Competition.

on February 8, 2014 22:26

No Country for Re-Socialized Men

Often when the sun is setting in a Western, we can expect to see the good guys riding horses toward the horizon. In the Berlinale Competition film TWO MEN IN TOWN there are...

Ewa Wildner reviews Rachid Bouchareb’s iconoclastic crime drama TWO MEN IN TOWN, which features in the 2014 Berlinale Competition.

on February 8, 2014 22:16

Motherhood in Nazi Germany

No one has memories of the time before our lives. Yet our stories start before we were born, as our parents' stories – how they met and who they were – become our own. Helma...

Claire Lee reviews Helma Sanders-Brahms' family and war drama GERMANY, PALE MOTHER, hich features in the Berlinale Classic section.

on February 8, 2014 22:07

The Kid with the Binoculars

What happens when a 10-year-old-boy is forced to hit the road, when all he wants to do is go home? Edward Berger’s family drama in Berlinale Competition, JACK, tells the story...

Karla Lončar of the Talent Press 2014 reviews Edward Berger’s family drama JACK, that features in the Berlinale Competition.

on February 8, 2014 22:23

Shaking up the cinematic canon

With major cuts to the arts in the U.K., the film industry is in a tight spot. Funding is hard to come by across the board, but the more experimental projects lacking an...

on February 4, 2014 23:23

South Korean Cinema: Commercial Renaissance and Beyond

Last year the South Korean film industry set a milestone by selling more than 200 million tickets for the first time in history. Nine out of the year’s top 10 grossing films...

on February 4, 2014 23:33

Wider screen

While some insist these days that film criticism is dying, others argue that we're, in fact, facing its golden age. I'm not sure that we should necessarily adhere to any of the...

on February 4, 2014 23:20

Unraveling the layers of fiction

Narrative film, as an art form, has always interested me, and given the opportunity to study cinema at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, I had gained...

on February 4, 2014 23:38

No Rest for the Wicked

SOLDATE JEANETTE is a drama about two women's spiritual rebellion against the material world: Fanny escapes from a city to countryside, while Anna does the opposite. Fanny,...

Daniel Mandić of the 2013 Talent Press Sarajevo reviews Daniel Hoesl's debut SOLDATE JEANETTE.

on August 31, 2013 23:21

An Insect's Passing Fancy

Voicing a common contemporary fear about the future of cinema in the digital age (a fear that Leos Carax has also worriedly expressed in a recent interview), Corneliu...

Georgiana Madin of the 2013 Talent Press Sarajevo reviews Corneliu Porumboiu's film WHEN EVENING FALLS ON BUCHAREST OR METABOLISM.

on August 30, 2013 23:09

The Big Problem of the Little Room

During the 19th Sarajevo International Film Festival, the "Sarajevo City of Film" project presented three short films, including the British Council prize-winner: director...

Raffi Movsisyan of the 2013 Talent Press Sarajevo reviews Barbara Vekarić’s 15-minute film MY! MY! MY LITTLE ROOM!

on August 27, 2013 22:25

Structuring the Reality

It seems that language itself denotes a constant preoccupation for Corneliu Porumboiu, author of the two feature-length successes 12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST and POLICE, ADJECTIVE....

Karla Lončar of the 2013 Talent Press Sarajevo reviews Corneliu Porumboiu's latest work, the arthouse film about film WHEN EVENING FALLS ON BUCHAREST OR METABOLISM.

on August 25, 2013 17:47

Burning Money, Carving Cows

Daniel Hoesl's SOLDATE JEANETTE is a meditation on the value of money, as well as the courage to change ones lifestyle and socially constructed identity, done in the stylistic...

Ivan Velisaljević of the 2013 Talent Press Sarajevo reviews Daniel Hoesl's riveting feature debut about class and culture SOLDATE JEANETTE.

on August 25, 2013 01:02

Re-Educating the Public

It took Joao Viana five years to make his feature debut THE BATTLE OF TABATO, a film about music, magic and the post-colonial trouble of a village in Guinea Bissau. The film...

Aderinsola Ajao of the 2013 Talent Press Durban interviews Joao Viana, director of THE BATTLE OF TABATO.

on July 30, 2013 14:13

Talents Get Tips How To Be Great Actors

Three famous South African actors offered an inspirational lecture to Talent Campus participants at the ongoing 34th Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) last Monday 22th...

Polly Kamukama of the 2013 Talent Press Durban reports from the acting lecture Doing It All: Actors on Crossing Media.

on July 28, 2013 15:33

The Film Revolution Will Be Tweeted

Although traditional media still plays an important role in film promotion, industry professionals say one cannot dispute the power of 140 characters. Taking part in a panel...

Nosipho Mngoma of the 2013 Talent Press Durban reports from a Talent Campus Durban workshop about new and old forms of marketing films.

on July 24, 2013 23:09

The Sound Of Movies

Emotional engineering. That is how film score composer Zethu Mashika describes what he does. So when he studied engineering after high school, he was not too far off from his...

Nosipho Mngoma of the 2013 Talent Press Durban interviews Zethu Mashika, film score composer of ZAMA ZAMA which premiered last year at the DIFF.

on July 24, 2013 15:46

Great Expectations

By the second day of the Talent Campus Durban, the 37 participants, coming from all over Africa, has come to know each other better and are becoming a homogenous group. With...

Narjes Torchani of the 2013 Talent Press Durban meets some the Durban Talent Campus participants.

on July 22, 2013 22:22

Durban film feast begins!

South Africa’s longest running film festival, the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF), is back to serve up the 34th helping this year. The hosts, University of KwaZulu...

Nosipho Mngoma of the 2013 Talent Press Durban reports from the scandal-ridden opening night of the 34th Durban International Film Festival and gives a outlook of the coming programm.

on July 20, 2013 23:40

A World Of Images

The last session of the 8th Talent Campus Buenos Aires took place on Monday 15th, April. Its guest expert was artist Giselle Beiguelman, who spoke about the relationship between...

Priscila de Almeida Xavier of the 2013 Talent Press Buenos Aires reports from this Talent Campus Buenos Aires' last lecture, given by artist Giselle Beiguelman.

on April 22, 2013 22:49

New Ways of Understanding Art

In its penultimate day, the 8th Talent Campus Buenos Aires organized the conference Crossing Borders: Film In The Art Gallery, conducted by Gil Leung, distribution manager of...

Eddy Báez of the 2013 Talent Press Buenos Aires reports on the conference Crossing Borders: Film In The Art Gallery at the 2013 BAFICI.

on April 19, 2013 23:13

The tools of the cinema of the future

The panel titled How Freedom Is Found Or Lost With The New Technologies took place within the frame of the 8th Talent Campus Buenos Aires. Christoph Hochhäusler, German...

Sergio Mario López of the 2013 Talent Press Buenos Aires reports from the BAFICI panel discussing the freedom and restraints of digital filmmaking with German director Christoph Hochhäusler.

on April 16, 2013 11:38

Love As Artifice

It all begins when Spanish director Elías León Siminiani decides to direct a "diary film" and on April 16th, 2008 leaves for India to shoot his first feature film. It is there...

Eddy Báez of the 2013 Talent Press Buenos Aires reviews the romantic comedy MAPA, directed by León Siminiani.

on April 15, 2013 14:13

Genre and Avant-Garde

The Chilean film NO, chosen to start off another BAFICI, reinforces the impression of a festival which is following its usual direction but has made a slight change in its...

Santiago Gonzalez Cragnolino of the 2013 Talent Press Buenos Aires reviews the chilean movie NO by Pablo Larraín, which opened this year's BAFICI Film Festival.

on April 13, 2013 00:02

Ernestina and the people from the banks

Ernestina is going to die. Ernestina is going to die because people have left. Ernestina is going to die because the train station has no floor tile and the people from the...

Raciel del Toro of the 2013 Guadalajara Talent Press reviews Martín Benchimol's and Pablo Aparo's documentary LA GENTE DEL RIO.

on March 8, 2013 00:13

Family: a patient in a dark room

It is about a first love in the corrupted and violent environment of a dysfunctional family, the stagnation of a society which protects a woman in maturity process, the strain...

Marianela González of the 2013 Guadalajara Talent Press reviews two takes on the Latin American family drama: Carlos Cuarón's BESOS DE AZUCAR and Marcelo Gomes' ERASE UNA VEZ YO, VERONICA.

on March 7, 2013 21:09

The life and lives of Veronica

ERA UMA VEZ EU, VERONICA is not (just) a film. It is a manifest about the research of identity, a sensual testimony, a gender study, an introspection of the human soul, as well...

Lioman Lima Padrón of the 2013 Guadalajara Talent Press reviews Marcelo Gómes' poetic character drama ERA UMA VEZ EU, VERONICA.

on March 5, 2013 08:21

A FRANK AND ECONOMIC EPISODE

Danis Tanovic’s AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF AN IRON PICKER (EPIZODA U ZIVOTU BERACA ZELJEZA, Bosnia and Herzegovina) is a frank drama that transcends its swift production with an...

Danis Tanovic captures an intimate episode among a Roma family in Bosnia.

Restaging History

In 1965, Indonesian death squads exterminated more than one million alleged communists in one of the worst genocides in history. This is the main theme of Joshua Oppenheimer’s...

Joshua Oppenheimer discusses with the Talent Press the impact generated by his astonishing documentary, THE ACT OF KILLING.

The Landscape of Indigenous Cinema

The Berlinale this year has a special segment exclusively committed to indigenous cinema. Filmmakers from Alaska to New Zealand are represented. Beyond the features,...

“To what degree am I free to be a filmmaker and not an indigenous filmmaker?”, asks Andrew Okpeaha MacLean in the session “Indigenous Cinema: Beyond Tribe and Nation“.

HUNTING FOR GOOD ROLES

Since her first major role in the Coen brothers’ RAISING ARIZONA (1987), Holly Hunter has worked with filmmakers such as David Cronenberg, Jane Campion, James Brooks and Sydney...

Holly Hunter graced the Campus with her reflections on her impressive acting career.

BITE THE PILL

Ever since discovering digital filmmaking (and, ironically, after announcing his retirement), Steven Soderbergh seems to have been reborn. Making a film a year (if not more),...

Soderbergh’s latest is a tightly knit postmodern thriller.

“I LIKE DIGITAL AS LONG AS IT DOESN’T LOOK DIGITAL…”

In a filmmaking world that’s becoming increasingly digital, Matthew Libatique longs for the old ways. The 2010 Academy Award nominee for Best Cinematography admits that he tries...

Matthew Libatique, renowned for his cinematography in BLACK SWAN, in an interview about how digital technology has effected filmmaking.

SOUND, SILENCE & SHRIMPS

The Mantis Shrimp is perhaps one image that Campus participants did not expect to see when learning about sound and storytelling from Walter Murch. However, it is this luminous...

The master sound designer and film editor Walter Murch reveals the secrets of good sound.

Producing Films at the Berlinale

From developing filmmaking craft to tackling the business of filmmaking, the Berlinale Talent Campus in cooperation with the Berlinale Co-Production Market helps upcoming...

Talent Press meets a working producer and director, with a particularly personal project in the Berlinale Co-Production Market.

THE UNRELIABLE NARRATOR

Portuguese filmmaker Salomé Lamas shapes her documentary, NO MAN’S LAND (TERRA DE NINGUÉM, Portugal), into a radically sparse form of biography: one person sits in a chair in...

Talking-head documentary NO MAN’S LAND (Berlinale Forum) challenges traditional ways of turning outstanding life stories into history.

The Turbulence After the Storm

In CHILD'S POSE, a speeding BMW crashes into a boy crossing the freeway and kills him. When one of the eye-witnesses narrates the incident to the mother of the guilty driver, he...

Romanian drama CHILD'S POSE is a front-runner for the Golden Bear.

STUDIES IN CONTRAST

The homage to living legend Claude Lanzmann includes a complete retrospective of his work which examines World War II and the Nazi genocide. Two of his latest films, A VISITOR...

Two documentaries similar in form but completely different in effect are part of the Berlinale Homage to Claude Lanzmann.

Fighting Time with Paul Verhoeven

Known for his ultra-violent and satirical action films (ROBOCOP, STARSHIP TROOPERS) and wild Dutch films (SOLDIER OF ORANGE, TURKISH DELIGHT), Paul Verhoeven is renowned for his...

The provocative Dutch director talks to the Talent Press about reconciling art and entertainment.

Reality Meets Fiction

Over a coffee with Campus alumna Neus Ballús who made it to Berlinale Forum with her debut feature THE PLAGUE. For the first time in the history of the Berlinale Talent...

Over a coffee with Campus alumna Neus Ballús who made it to Berlinale Forum with her debut feature THE PLAGUE.

ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE

In films like THE STOLEN MAN (2007), EVERYBODY LIES (2009), and ROSALINDA (2010), Matías Piñeiro shows us a capsule world. The Argentinian director always shapes his stories...

What is being? Is it just another form of acting? As in a Shakespeare play, everybody could be anybody in VIOLA.

NOWHERE MAN

A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE (DOLGAYA SCHASTLIVAYA ZHIZN, Russia) is a film that centres on one character, Sasha, and his desperation to avoid the collapse of his life: his present...

Boris Khlebnikov tells the story of a rural man with a dilemma that turns into an existential tragedy.

A WONDERLAND AMONG THE WASTE

WASTELAND – SO THAT NO ONE BECOMES AWARE OF IT (ÖDLAND – DAMIT KEINER DAS SO MITBEMERKT, Germany) from Berlinale Generation meditates upon the rural ghettoization of asylum...

Anne Kodura’s meticulously composed documentary struggles to outgrow its childlike gaze.

“…BUT THEN I GOT LIGHTER.”

Matthew Porterfield has made a name for himself with his curious ability to create striking, improvisational fiction enhanced by documentary devices. With I USED TO BE DARKER,...

Matthew Porterfield’s third feature is a melancholy, sympathetic, but ultimately shaky step into full-fledged fiction filmmaking.

TALENT PRESS 2013: Višnja Pentić

As a film critic I try to put a spotlight on those films that expand our understanding of film language and offer an inspiring vision for perceiving the real. Two aspects of...

Film criticism in Croatia has an excellent tradition, providing an encouraging background for my activity. I try to put a spotlight on those films that expand our understanding of film language and offer an inspiring vision for perceiving the real.

TALENT PRESS 2013: Irina Trocan

In Romania, first came the valuable films, then came equally worthy criticism. The New Romanian Cinema has been touring film festivals worldwide since the 2001 success of Cristi...

There are many ways of understanding films beyond the aesthetic of the New Romanian Cinema, with its international acclaim and revolutionary aesthetic. My role as a critic is to recognize as many of these forms and be able to describe them eloquently.

TALENT PRESS 2013: Ariel Esteban Cayer

The idea that films can be shaped, broken down, (re)appropriated and/or elucidated by words is one of the main appeals to anyone willing to call themselves critics. Positioning...

I like the idea of a critic as a writing-inclined cinephile, using the exercise as an excuse to get smarter; to frame film consumption within a process of active investigation, research and potential (self-)discovery.

TALENT PRESS 2013: Tom Cottey

Writing film criticism is less a decision and more a reaction to my greatest obsession: cinema. I began writing about films while studying Film Studies, under the tutelage of...

Developing a career as a film critic in Britain is no mean feat. The competition is fierce, but becoming a film critic starts with assuming a vocation, rather than a job title.

Out of Africa

After eleven years working for DIFF, why did you move to Australia? It was something really exciting for me – a new festival with such a large audience – 122 000 people...

Claire Diao, participant of the 2012 Durban talent Press, interviews Nashen Moodley, who was the manager of the Durban International Film Festival for 11 years and is now the director of the Sydney Film Festival.

The family of world cinema

What inspired your story? My efforts to make two short films, but failing because they were considered too dark as well as sharing what happened in Rwanda. Tell me...

2012 Durban Talent Press participant Katarina Hedrén interviews Rwandan filmmaker Kivu Ruhorahoza, the director of GREY MATTERS, whose first short film CONFESSION (2006) won the City of Venice Award at the Milan African Film Festival.

Beasts and Bastards

One of the most beautiful terms to describe an awful reality of the human condition is "the winter of his life" - a poetic musing about the depletion of one's youth. Age is one...

Sihle Mthembu, participant of the Durban Talent Press, reviews Paddy Considine's TYRANNOSAUR at the Durban International Film Festival.

Mutoscope and computers

Ismail Xavier, from Brazil, and Eduardo Russo and Jorge La Ferla, from Argentina, great researchers of film in our continent, got together on Monday afternoon at Universidad del...

Natalia Barrenha reports from the lecture Found Footage and Editing: Structural Film and History in the Films of Carlos Adriano at the Talent Campus Buenos Aires.

The minimalism of hate

If Dumont declared that the power of cinema "lies in the return of man to the body" then this is, literally, his most powerful film. A combination of ORDET and HADEWIJCH, HORS...

Luciana Calcagno reviews Bruno Dumont's HORS SATAN, shown at the Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente.

A Cuban comedy of zombies in La Habana

La Habana in invaded by human flesh hungry zombies who infect the whole population with a bite. It has been said that the riot was started by American forces, but the alarm...

Talent Press Guadalajara participant Mayle González Mirabal reviews Alejandro Brugués' Cuban zombie parable JUAN OF THE DEAD at the Guadalajara Film Festival.

The 1930s, captured by film and piano

Even if we tried, we will never be able to repeat the experience of the first audience that faced a screen ever. We can imagine their surprise as the train approached them; that...

Talent Press Guadalajara participant José Juan Zapata Pacheco reports from the Michael Nyman Gala evening. where Nyman's Film WITNESS I (2008) was screened alongside Jean Vigo's À PROPOS DE NICE (1930).

One of the silent millions

PASSERBY shows us Exposito’s life; a 65 year-old pensioned man who has an awkward relationship with his urban environment. Through an interesting film exercise, the individual...

Talent Press Guadalajara participant Luis Vaca reviews Eryk Rocha's debut film PASSERBY.

What a waste of time and neurons

To what extent can two completely different individuals mix together? And, when love arises, what kind of things can we question about ourselves? Raul Fuentes raises some of...

Talent Press Guadalajara participant Jose Juan Zapata Pacheco reviews Raul Fuentes' debut film EVERYBODY'S GOT SOMEBODY... NOT ME.

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

Condemn the present, examine the past or escape to a better future? Three films at the 69th Berlinale reflect upon Russian youth culture and its sensitive relationship to the...

By Hugo Emmerzael

on February 19, 2019 14:25

Two Takes on THE PLAGIARISTS

As part of the Talent Press workshop all eight participants wrote a review about Peter Parlow’s Berlinale Forum contribution THE PLAGIARISTS. The whole group discussed the...

on February 19, 2019 14:19

Of Fathers and their Sons

In THE BOY WHO HARNESSED THE WIND, the stirring directorial debut by British-Nigerian actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, an interesting moment arrives in the final quarter when the hero,...

By Wilfred Okiche

on February 13, 2019 17:46

Vignettes of the Great Indian Romantic Hypocrisy

There is an inceptive sequence in Ritesh Batra’s PHOTOGRAPH that reproduces the chasm between force-feeding traditional biases and brandishing a somewhat performative modernism...

By Poulomi Das

on February 13, 2019 17:45

Lord of the Flies Redux: Alejandro Landes’ MONOS

The teens at the centre of Alejandro Landes’ electrifying survivalist saga MONOS live in a foggy landscape suspended above the Colombian Andes. They go by aliases that echo...

By Leonardo Goi

on February 13, 2019 17:44

Phantoms of Cinema Past

“There’s no space for liberty,” says filmmaker Suhaib Gasmelbari about the state of contemporary Sudanese cinema, as we chat over a cup of coffee on the fifth day of the...

By Devika Girish

on February 13, 2019 17:42

Sex and the City: Tamer Jandali’s EASY LOVE

Opening the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section of this year’s Berlinale, Tamer Jandali’s feature length debut, EASY LOVE, is a hybrid documentary-fiction experimental foray that...

by Wilfred Okiche

on February 11, 2019 14:52

Funeral for a Friendship

There is a scene late into Dan Salitt’s Berlinale Forum entry FOURTEEN (USA) where the film’s lead, Mara (Tallie Medel), recounts a bedtime story to her daughter, familiarising...

By Poulomi Das

on February 11, 2019 14:46

Shooting the Mafia, Out of Focus

Sicilian photographer Letizia Battaglia began photographing Mafia murders on her home turf in the 1970s. Nearly fifty years later, she becomes the subject of Kim Longinotto’s...

By Leonardo Goi

on February 11, 2019 14:42

Detours in the Steppe

In the haunting opening sequence of Wang Quan’an’s ÖNDÖG, a car stumbles upon a dead woman in the heart of the Mongolian steppe, its headlights eerily illuminating her naked...

By Devika Girish

on February 11, 2019 14:36

What Film Means to Me

There isn’t a time in my life that I haven’t been fascinated by moving pictures. This quietly morphed into a lifelong fixation with movies, and books, and movies about books,...

By Wilfred Okiche

on February 4, 2019 19:09

The Narrative Plurality of Indian Cinema

My mother-tongue is Bangla, an Indo-Aryan language that is the lingua franca of West Bengal, India’s fourth most populous state. It’s the language that I think in, although...

By Poulomi Das

on February 4, 2019 19:08

Film Criticism in Times of Disaster

It all started with an almost unconscious desire to continue the experience of films. It felt necessary to create short circuits in consumption, to keep some of the works alive...

By Victor Guimarães

on February 4, 2019 19:05

Healing Powers of Cinema: Brief Notes on the Trans-Andean Present

Although I always try to remain optimistic, I recognize that I do not write during a very encouraging moment in Latin-America, and more specifically, in both of my places of...

By Andrea Guzmán

on February 4, 2019 19:04

To those who will come after us

The first image: a finger pointing up. “Think with your hands”, says Godard’s fragile voice over the image. Not a just hand, but just a hand. The hand of St. John the Baptist,...

By Juliana Costa

on November 6, 2018 11:13

Grave of the fireflies

The choice of the plural form in the title of Beatriz Seigner’s film is not random; the silences that compose the work are disparate and diverse. As for the sound, speech and...

y Álvaro André Zeini Cruz

on November 6, 2018 11:12

History (un)defined

A camera films another camera; a tremulous voice; a tear trickling down the face; “people need to wake up”; a photograph slowly appears, submerged in liquid developer; a slow...

Ricardo Vieira Lisboa

on November 6, 2018 11:10

Future, Perfect

The Greek short film THE FOREST / TO DASOS (2018) by Lia Tsalta follows a group of tourists wandering about what appears to be a huge aseptic facility. They move across...

Victor Morozov

on September 12, 2018 10:39

Cecilia Ștefănescu’s Short Film Shows a Women’s Liberation Isn’t a Breeze

Some film characters seem to live in parallel universes, bumping into each other in the most unexpected places. It is a notion one might get when watching the short film MORSKI...

Nadina Štefančič

on September 12, 2018 10:37

Untravel

Ana Nedeljković and Nikola Majdak Jr.’s clay animation UNTRAVEL / NEPUTOVANJA (2018) is screened as part of the International Short Film Competition of the 24th Sarajevo Film...

Mirela Vasileva

on September 12, 2018 10:34

Through a Blurred Glass

In his directorial debut with the short movie BREATH / DAH (2018), the famous Bosnian actor Ermin Bravo creates an open metaphor. The minimalist narrative, adapted from a...

Jovan Marković

on September 12, 2018 10:31

The Kids Are Just Playing

For most of us, the idea that innocent souls such as children are capable of doing harm to one another on purpose is rather incomprehensible and unimaginable. Still, Croatian...

Barbara Majsa

on September 12, 2018 10:25

Cocote, reveals an unusual discovery

Catalogue text Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias’s film reveals an unusual discovery; perhaps the concrete manifestation of an unexpected proof: it is possible to tell a...

by Diego de Angelis

on June 20, 2018 17:00

Freedom or The way I like it Talent Press and Programmers

We are launching the 13th edition of Talents Buenos Aires by using two film titles from the region as our starting points. On one hand, La Libertad (Freedom), the highly...

on April 17, 2018 10:47

The Artificial Life of the Spirit

Sometimes the spirit dies before the body: it happens in wars, in genocides, in rapes. In IN A GLASS CAGE, the body of the German doctor Klaus (Günter Meisner) continues to...

Samuel Lagunas

on March 14, 2018 12:53

The Decadence of a Substitute Body

In cinema, decadence is often a gateway to transformation, both physical and psychological. The vulnerable thread unwound as a certain ending approaches is nuanced as a definite...

Edgar Aldape Morales

on March 14, 2018 11:16

Living in Difference

Simply as image ―visual image and sound image― cinema is a political act. Even if the possibility of political action is denied in the film itself, its very existence...

Eduardo Cruz

on March 14, 2018 11:13

The Possibility of a Family

In this new film by Catalan director Carlos Marqués-Marcet (10,000 km), a grieving Eva (Oona Chaplin) buries her cat in the backyard of the house of her mother Germaine...

Samuel Lagunas

on March 12, 2018 12:27

The Force of Concrete

In Carlos Marqués-Marcet’s 10,000 km (2014), the physical distance separating the characters operated as an element of third-party discord within a couple. In his most recent...

Eduardo Cruz

on March 12, 2018 12:25

Conventions of the Non-Traditional Family

A boat wanders about the picturesque canals of London. In it, Eva and Kat maintain a relationship that seems to flow with the calm of the lapping canal waters, until the death...

Alonso Aguilar

on March 12, 2018 12:20

Make-up as the Passport to Femininity

Enormous nail extensions, thick layers of powder and artificial eyelashes appear on the silver screen. Not a cis woman is wearing them; these are the accessories of a Brazilian...

By Lilla Puskas

on February 26, 2018 10:58

Reorientation: Secrets and Alternative Archives

Any archive, whatever its ostensible or official aim, can double as some sort of open secret. Historical but hidden, the material of any archive is activated though contemporary...

By Jesse Cumming

on February 26, 2018 10:53

On the Politics of Revealing

“My secret is to see competition as inspiration,” said programme manager Florian Weghorn at the Opening Ceremony of this year’s Berlinale Talents. “It’s not just about revealing...

By Flavia Dima

on February 26, 2018 10:42

CONCEALING TO REVEAL

When an eel gives birth, it immediately abandons her babies and dies in the ocean. This process is a recurring visual element in Laura Bispuri’s DAUGHTER OF MINE, set on a...

By Carolina Iacucci

on February 26, 2018 10:30

DAMSEL in Distress

Sibling directors David and Nathan Zellner bridge high and low in their quixotic western DAMSEL by messing with subgenre tropes and their sexist implications. They strive to...

By Carolina Iacucci

on February 21, 2018 15:55

Uprooted, Fenced-in

Narjis Nejjar’s APATRIDE (Bela Mawten, Morocco), which premiered in the Forum selection of this year’s Berlinale, is an evocative, visually stunning portrait of longing and...

By Yasmine Zohdi

on February 21, 2018 15:50

Linkswalzer: Ruth Beckermann on WALDHEIM’S WALTZ

“One dances the waltz to the right side,” Ruth Beckermann told me in a conversation about the title WALDHEIM’S WALTZ, her incisive and urgent Forum documentary about former...

By Jesse Cumming

on February 21, 2018 15:46

Timely Lessons on Feminist Dissidence

This year’s Berlinale Shorts Special Programme “1968 – Red Flags for Everyone” commemorates the 50th anniversary of the left-leaning activist movements that swept Europe at the...

By Flavia Dima

on February 21, 2018 15:39

What We Talk About When We Talk About Death

DIE TOMORROW by Thai filmmaker Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit combines essayistic inserts and episodes of ordinary life in order to both elegiacally and understatedly explore the...

By Carolina Iacucci

on February 19, 2018 15:07

Forced Out of the Box

Women’s fear of aging is deeply rooted in mass media representation of elderly female characters. They are often overlooked or tend to appear on screen as passive, unbalanced or...

By Lilla Puskas

on February 19, 2018 15:00

Carry-ons: Time and Reminiscences in Park Kiyong’s OLD LOVE

Despite a steady output of features and documentaries, Korean filmmaker Park Kiyong returns to the Berlinale with OLD LOVE, for the first time since CAMEL(S) in 2001, screening...

By Jesse Cumming

on February 19, 2018 14:51

A Fun Ride

Japan, 1994 – existential boredom plagues the lives of six angsty teenagers, whose own brand of “mal de siècle” implies bullying, bulimia or borderline psychopathy. Isao...

By Flavia Dima

on February 19, 2018 13:57

The Long and Tough Path to Established Film Criticism

I started getting involved in film criticism in 2010 when I participated for the first time in a film critic workshop run by professionals invited by the Malagasy Short Film...

By Domoina Ratsarahaingotiana, Madagascar

on February 6, 2018 15:12

Befriending the New

A queue without a source, a crowd spilling onto the streets, and a handful of people elbowing their way around to sell ‘black tickets’ long after a show has been sold out. Those...

By Kennith Rosario, India

on February 6, 2018 13:48

With Glowing Hearts: A Brief Note on Canada and Criticism

As a film critic from Canada, a relatively small country with a modest film industry, I’m interested in the question of critical communities: what films are discussed, how are...

By Jesse Cumming, Canada

on February 6, 2018 13:41

A Fragmentation of Cinematic Waves Is the Main Challenge of Italian Film Criticism

I am a classicist with a solid academic background in philological studies. Therefore, I consider films as coded visual texts needing to be unlocked. My aim is to detect and...

By Carolina Iacucci, Italy

on February 6, 2018 13:34

Review: THE PERFECT ORDER / SRULKOPILI SHEKVETA

In a day and age which uses more emojis than actual words, THE PERFECT ORDER / SRULKOPILI SHEKVETA (2017) examines a young adult’s alienation and the all so familiar feeling...

By Mónika Bajnóczi

on October 10, 2017 12:31

Review: PLAN A

Competing for the Heart of Sarajevo in the Shorts selection , PLAN A (2016) is a directing debut for the Croatian Tomislav Luetić, who has appeared so far in other shorts...

By Mina Stanikić

on October 10, 2017 12:30

Review: THE PERFECT ORDER / SRULKOPILI SHEKVETA

Is there a way to substitute real, organically formed relationships? This has become a popular topic in the past few years, with everything from the development of artificial...

By Lana Mihailović

on October 10, 2017 12:28

Review: INTO THE BLUE / U PLAVETNILO

Coming to Sarajevo Film Festival’s Short Film Competition after picking up the Special Jury Mention for Best Short Film in the Generation 14Plus section in Berlin...

By Flavia Dima

on October 10, 2017 12:27

Review: OUTSKIRTS / HİNTERLANT

OUTSKIRTS / HİNTERLANT (2017), the name of the short movie by the Turkish director Sinan Kesova, has been one of the most popular concepts used in Turkish cinema after the...

By Aslı Ildır

on October 10, 2017 12:26

Review: THE BLUE / U PLAVETNILO

INTO THE BLUE / U PLAVETNILO (2017), the latest work of Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, a Croatian director who started her film career 11 years ago at Talents Sarajevo , had...

By Arman Fatić

on October 10, 2017 12:22

A comedy of mistakes, New Hollywood style

The American brothers Ben and Josh Safdie’s fourth feature film, GOOD TIME, represents an affirmation of their cinema style within a visual, social and emotional reference of...

By Felipe André Silva

on October 17, 2017 17:26

A FACTORY DEVOTED TO THE PAST

In THE NOTHING FACTORY, the Portuguese director Pedro Pinho focuses on the dramatic transition from the manufacturing world to the technological world THE NOTHING FACTORY...

By Sérgio Raimundo

on October 17, 2017 15:30

The viewer launched into doubt

With pedophilia as the backdrop, LIQUID TRUTH, by Carolina Jabor, critically analyzes virtual lynching. To the sound of water and with underwater frames, LIQUID TRUTH...

By Felipe Ribeiro

on October 17, 2017 15:21

The fantastic real Brazil

Building on the popular imaginary, from the world of werewolves, Good Manners is an essay on human relationships. Good Manners , by Juliana Rojas and Marcos Dutra, resorts...

By Thayná Almeida

on October 13, 2017 13:53

The possibility of empathy

In The Florida Project , Sean Baker follows his project of filming marginalized people with affection and tenderness. The most captivating element of The Florida Project ,...

By Felipe André Silva

on October 13, 2017 13:47

Torquato Neto for Beginners

TORQUATO NETO – EVERY HOUR OF THE END relies on a didactic narrative that presents the poet to new generations, but doesn’t account for the complexities of his personality....

By Thayná Almeida

on October 10, 2017 12:52

The Wound: Compelling, controversial and queer

The film that really got the Talent Press team talking this year was the powerful Xhosa initiation story INXEBA (THE WOUND), which unpacks masculinity, tradition and queerness....

By Djia Mambu, Domoina Ratsara, Nthabiseng Mosieane and Wilfred Okiche

on August 16, 2017 13:36

The Wound's main actor on the film that set social media on fire

Singer-songwriter, novelist and actor Nakhane (he dropped the Touré) was asked to work on the music for the film INXEBA (THE WOUND). He ended up playing the lead. It’s an...

By Charl Blignaut

on August 15, 2017 15:20

Serpent: An artsy safari slasher

SERPENT Directed by: Amanda Evans Starring: Sarah Dumont, Tom Ainsley 2 out of 5 stars It was horror movie time in Durban last night and the first cold shudder struck...

By Charl Blignaut

on August 15, 2017 15:10

Petty yet pretty – Divorce antics in Potato Potahto

POTATO POTAHTO Directed by Shirley Frimpong-Manso Starring: OC Ukeje, Joselyn Dumas 3 out of 5 stars Towards the end of POTATO POTAHTO, the cantankerous lead couple...

By Wilfred Okiche

on August 15, 2017 14:58

Log #8

DEMONIOS TUS OJOS (YOUR DEMON EYES) Pablo Aguilera’s new film, Your demon eyes , arrives at BAFICI, in the Avant Garde & Genre section, after passing through Rotterdam....

by Pablo Roldán

on June 8, 2017 15:02

Log #6

We continue. Yesterday we were invited to a dialogue with the German magazine Revolver and its Argentine cousin, Las Naves . They both have a rather particular format and...

by Lautaro Garcia Candela

on June 8, 2017 14:46

Log #4

Life at Talents BA It is the day before last of events and the body is demanding a forceful break. These days have gone by amidst conferences and races to see many films....

by Pablo Roldán

on May 31, 2017 10:39

Log #2

You lose track of time. It’s been two days and it feels like a week. You return to the hostel and start to glimpse faces with names with countries with origins with stories...

by Andrés D’Avenia

on April 27, 2017 10:06

LAS DOS IRENES: The Triumph of Childhood

A girl in the process of becoming an adolescent discovers that her father has another family. In a nearby village in the Brazilian hills, he has another daughter with the same...

By Davo Valdés de la Campa

on March 21, 2017 13:31

A Cloak of Magic and Mysticism: SUEÑO EN OTRO IDIOMA

Like a lyrical dream, the Mexican rainforest opens as a backdrop in filmmaker Ernesto Concretas’ SUEÑO EN OTRO IDIOMA. Not surprisingly, this film won the Audience Award in the...

By Karly Gaitán Morales

on March 20, 2017 16:12

We Are Still the Same Species: LA LIBERTAD DEL DIABLO

The sixth documentary feature by Mexican Everardo González, LA LIBERTAD DEL DIABLO, starts with a voice-over that announces “we still are the same species.” It is under this...

By Carlos Armenta

on March 20, 2017 15:56

VERÓNICA and ANADINA: Won't You Buy Me a Marzipan?

One of the maxims in stories is that a tale contains a secret narrative. For Ricardo Piglia, the structure of a story “is constructed to artificially reveal something that was...

By Davo Valdés de la Campa

on March 20, 2017 15:32

Nonexistent Destination: TSCHICK

Known for addressing Eastern European cultural conflicts in his films, it is surprising that Turkish-German director Fatih Akin decided in his latest feature film to adapt "Why...

By Hammurabi Hernández

on March 13, 2017 13:19

IN THEIR SHOES

What does a love story between two young men of the Xhosa community in South Africa have in common with a documentary featuring 3,000 gay men aboard a week-long cruise on the...

By Archana Nathan

on February 21, 2017 18:08

SUPERCOLLIDERS AND BUILDING BLOCKS – GUADAGNINO VS. KAURISMÄKI

In subtle and surprising ways, Luca Guadagnino’s CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, the story of a relationship that develops between a 17-year old boy and his father’s academic resident, is...

By Christopher Small

on February 21, 2017 18:06

ALL YOUR CORPSES NOW BEGIN TO SPEAK – THROUGH FILM

“But all our phrasing – race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy – serves to obscure that racism is a visceral...

By Petra Meterc

on February 21, 2017 18:05

Political Cinema: The Past as a Provocation for the Present

“History repeats itself” is as common a belief as vegetables are good for you. Many states find themselves in recurring patterns, a consistent swinging between right and left...

By Rowan El Shimi

on February 21, 2017 18:04

Style Is the Answer

“Style Is the Answer”, is a song that Iranian-American director Ana Lily Amirpour has been listening to repeatedly for the past few weeks. Playing the song at her Berlinale...

By Aslı Ildır

on February 15, 2017 15:28

What an Empty Promise Feels Like

“Why do you want to enter the Police Academy?” “Because it sounds safe” This exchange between the police chief of Mei Chang, a small city in The People’s Republic of China and...

By Archana Nathan

on February 13, 2017 17:10

Political repression lies in people getting scared of a story

2034. This is the year Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov is scheduled to be released from Russian prison on charges of plotting terrorist acts. Throughout the...

By Rowan El Shimi

on February 13, 2017 17:08

Culture Will Not Be Circumcised

Two snips is all it takes to make a man within traditional Xhosa culture, if the male circumcision rites featured in John Trengove’s THE WOUND (Berlinale Panorama) are taken...

By Adefoyeke Ajao

on February 13, 2017 17:12

Evicting History

The architectural masterpieces that dot Abidjan’s landscape take centre stage in Laurence Bonvin’s AVANT L’ENVOL (BEFORE THE FLIGHT, Switzerland), selected for Berlinale Shorts....

By Adefoyeke Ajao

on February 11, 2017 20:01

Growing up in the Deep South

DAYVEON by American director-composer Amman Abbasi is screening in Berlinale Forum and is also cross-sectioned with Generation 14+. It seems as though the director himself...

By Petra Meterc

on February 11, 2017 20:02

Up Down Fragile

Laura Schroeder’s filmic approach in BARRAGE (Berlinale Forum) presents as many obstacles for the inquisitive viewer as it does open-doors and opportunities. Schroeder’s...

By Christopher Small

on February 11, 2017 19:59

Reconstructing memories

My decision to become a film critic was always driven by how I conceive cinema in my country. Chile had one of the most prolific cinematic movements between 1964 and 1973, but...

By Héctor Oyarzún

on February 10, 2017 13:46

Film criticism in Egypt: Observing blossom out of challenge

Egypt has a long standing cinema industry. It is one of the oldest in the world and is the oldest in the Arab region and Africa. While Egyptian cinema flourished in local and...

By Rowan Abdelrahman Ahmed Mahmoud El Shimi

on February 10, 2017 13:46

The State I am In

My country has been under the grip of austerity for more than six years. The UK Film Council was disassembled shortly after our centre-right government took the reigns of power....

By Christopher Small

on February 10, 2017 13:45

Writing About "A Hell of a Truth"

Talking about the national cinema and film criticism in one’s country to an outside audience has always felt impossible to me. Even though I accept a total subjectivity in my...

By Aslı Ildır

on February 10, 2017 13:44

Shakespeare in its richest film translation

Matias’ Pinheiro’s most recent feature is one of those rare new films that actually understands what it means to be new. Despite this being his fourth adaptation of the...

Filmmaker Matias Piñeiro takes a modern approach to the Bard’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

by Sabrina D. Marques

on October 19, 2016 10:47

A Modern Take on Classic Stories of Fatherhood

At first, Son of Joseph ( Le Fils de Joseph , 2016), directed by Eugène Green appeared to be yet another story about a boy in search of his father. In the first scenes, for...

by Alex França (Talent Press Rio)

on October 14, 2016 17:47

Born to Shine

“Being a diva is serious business. A diva is a diva.” This is how the transvestite Fujika de Halliday explains what it means to be a “diva”. Halliday is one of the characters in...

by Alex França

on October 12, 2016 13:01

Requiem for the city of Cairo, by Tamer El Said

In the Last Days of the City shows us a bleakness typical of a requiem. We don’t know who is infecting whom with the breath of death. Is it the city of Cairo which after 30...

by Aisha Rahim

on October 12, 2016 12:53

Terence Davies and his search for a soft touch

In Terence Davies’ film The Deep Blue Sea (2011), the image of Rachel Weisz lying on the floor awaiting death sets the stage for a series of observations about Great Britain...

by Cesar Castanha

on October 12, 2016 12:48

Cinema Novo or an Urgent Need for Memories

Eryk Rocha dedicated his 2002 film, Stones in the Sky , to his father filmmaker Glauber Rocha. Eryk Rocha again remembers his father’s in this documentary about the Brazilian...

by Aisha Rahim

on October 12, 2016 12:32

Toni Erdmann - The Magical Furry Man to the Rescue

A chubby man in disguise, with an awkward sense of humour - that needs accessories like fart cushions, wigs and fake teeth – trying to connect with his estranged daughter...

written by Janka Pozsonyi

on August 24, 2016 13:43

Mother Died Today

There are different ways to approach the subject of the death of a parent. Certainly Jacqueline Lentzou, writer and director of the short fiction Fox (Greece, 2016), has found...

written by Katerina Lambrinova

on August 24, 2016 13:38

Fox / Alepou

Facing the death of a loved one translates into an in-between moment that changes who we are, how we value the present and rethink the past. The strikingly bleak short film Fox...

written by Andreea Mihalcea

on August 24, 2016 13:30

Review: Evolution

What is at stake in certain films is less a comprehensible story involving a motivated character, an event, or an obstacle. These films can best be described as creating an...

written by Emre Çağlayan

on August 24, 2016 16:09

Review: Transition

Milica Tomović's TRANSITION / TRANZICIJA (2016) is about the changes and vulnerability of a woman who cannot identify with her assigned gender. The Serbian director focuses on...

written by Andreea Pătru

on August 24, 2016 16:04

Graduation: Eastern-European Cheating Games

When, last month, Melania Trump delivered a speech plagiarised from Michelle Obama, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago dr Monika Nalepa wrote...

written by Petra Meterc

on August 24, 2016 15:46

Review of Viviré con tu recuerdo, directed by Sergio Wolf (International Competition)

“I will remember, from your passion, the vastness. I will remember the faithful image that adored me. I will evoke, from the look in your eyes, your softness. And I will...

by Rodrigo Torrijos

on May 12, 2016 17:22

From the tutors words
Chronicle on The role of film criticism

To like a film is not enough, one must like it for the right reasons. After putting together all the ideas presented during the workshop, it became clear that film criticism...

by Marcia Moreira

on April 21, 2016 18:01

Chronicle of the session Sans Toit ni Loi with Agnès Varda

“Imagine you had to make Sans Toi ni Loi today. What kind of film do you think it would be?”, asks Roger Koza, programmer, critic and moderator of this session. In front of...

By Iván Zgaib | Argentina

on April 20, 2016 10:58

Canoa: the metaphor of an elusive Mexico

“We had the taken the formal decision of being witnesses of our time." This is how the Mexican director Felipe Cazals remembered the convulsive 70's epoch, during the Gala of...

by Karina Paz Ernand

on March 15, 2016 16:56

Canoa by Felipe Cazals

Towards the middle of the 70's the young vigour of the preceding decade in Mexico, was landing on a more fertile ground, although not without numerous burdens. In the...

by Julio César Durán

on March 15, 2016 16:44

Documentary or performance?

Watching the film Margarita (2016), by Bruno Santamaría Razo, prompts the necessary question: who directs who? The project formulates around the figure of 'Margarita', who the...

by Yoshua Oviedo Ugalde

on March 11, 2016 14:57

A fable on obesity

What is the distance between a person and the world that surrounds him? This is the question that Alejandro Guzmán attempts to answer with his first feature-film, Distancias...

by Yoshua Oviedo Ugalde

on March 11, 2016 14:50

Yoshua Oviedo

Costa Rican, he has a degree in psychology. In 2011, he created the VIVECINESCRÚPULOS project that promotes mental health through film, through appreciation workshops for the...

on March 1, 2016 17:22

Pedro Emilio Segura Bernal

Bachelor's degree in Communication Sciences, independent film critic since 2010. He has published in national platforms as CONFABULARIO, EL UNIVERSAL, BUTACA ANCHA and...

on March 1, 2016 17:21

Julio César Durán

Writer and film critic born in Mexico City, graduated from the Faculty of Arts of UNAM. He founded the online magazine F.I.L.M.E. in 2011, in which he is, to date, one of the...

on March 1, 2016 17:19

A Tale of Two Mexican Cinemas

In last year's Berlinale Competition film EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO (UK-Mexico, 2016), director Peter Greenaway recalls the ten day visit that Soviet film pioneer Sergei...

Sergio Huidobro of the 2016 Talent Press analyses the depiction of Mexico in historical and recent moviers, especially in three films of this year's Berlinale programme.

on February 18, 2016 13:43

We Are All Theatre

Following the principles of Augusto Boal’s “Theatre of the Oppressed,” BETWEEN FENCES (Israel/France, Berlinale Forum), directed by the great Israeli auteur Avi Mograbi and...

Sevara Pan of the 2016 Berlinale Talent Press reviews Avi Mograbi's and Chen Alon's Berlinale Forum film BETWEEN FENCES.

on February 17, 2016 12:33

The Vibrant Bunker

Colombia-raised and New York-based artist Mike Crane traveled to Lithuania and found a training camp that unemployed teenagers are sent to at the expenses of the European Union....

Xin Zhou of the 2016 Berlianle Talent Press Mike Crane’s film BUNKER DRAMA, which premiered in Berlinale Forum Expanded.

on February 15, 2016 12:48

The (Alien) Children Are Watching Us

Regarding his previous features, it’s clear that Jeff Nichols has some respect for seventies and eighties Hollywood mainstream classics. It’s also clear that he’s not going...

Sergio Huidobro of the 2016 Berlinale Talent Press reviews Jeff Nichols' fourth feature and his third premiere at the Berlinale, MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, which merges road movie formulas with a sci-fi plot.

on February 15, 2016 12:14

Digging the Past

“I’ve been picturing this place in my mind for years,” begins Burma-born and Taiwan-based filmmaker Midi Z in his documentary CITY OF JADE (FEI CUI ZHI CHENG, Taiwan/Myanmar)....

Ruben Demasure of the 2016 Berlinale Talent Press reviews the Midi Z's documentary CITY OF JADE.

on February 15, 2016 11:59

A Romanticized Attachment to Home

The Berlinale Competition film LETTERS FROM WAR (CARTAS DA GUERRA, Portugal) is based on a book by renowned Portuguese author António Lobo Antunes. The film focuses on the...

Isabella Akinseye of the 2016 Berlinale Talent Press reviews Ivo Ferreira’s Berlinale Competition entry LETTERS FROM WAR.

on February 15, 2016 11:53

On Location

On May 4th, 1970, in response to Richard Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia, four students at the Kent State University were murdered during the massive student protest in the United...

Xin Zhou of the 2016 Berlinale Talent Press reviews Claudrena N. Harold's and Kevin Jerome Everson's Forum Expanded short documentary WE DEMAND.

on February 14, 2016 14:33

Insight from the Balcony

HOUSES WITHOUT DOORS (Manazil Bela Abwab, Syria-Lebanon, 2016) by Avo Kapealian is a documentary in the Berlinale Forum about the refugees in Aleppo, a city that sheltered...

Rasha Hosny of the 2016 Berlinale Talent Press reviews Avo Kapealian's documentary HOUSES WITHOUT DOORS, which premiered in the Berlinale Forum section.

on February 14, 2016 14:08

The Portuguese Take over the Berlinale

Berlinale Talent and Portuguese producer Pedro Fernandes Duarte has a cameo in his compatriot, Gabriel Abrantes’ film FREUD AND FRIENDS. Screening in Berlinale Shorts, the film...

Ruben Demasure of the 2016 Berlinale Talent Press interviews Portuguese producer Pedro Fernandes.

on February 14, 2016 14:13

On the Language of Trauma in Differing Cultural Contexts

After an epic journey to Berlinale 2016 consisting of three separate flights and an eight hour car journey, it was a privilege to speak to Hajooj Kuka who almost couldn’t make...

Berlinale Talent Press participant Liz Chege interviews Hajooj Kuka about his film BEATS OF THE ANTONOV.

on February 14, 2016 13:27

The Great Challenges

It is great to be a film critic but it is so difficult to be a good one. The challenge is how to make your work noticed. Cinema: watching, reading and writing about it; this is...

By Rasha Hosny (Egypt)

on February 13, 2016 00:07

Footnotes to Flemish Film Criticism and Culture

“Film criticism in Flanders is nonexistent.” This remark, made at a recent debate, is part of three anecdotes from the past three months that allow me to sketch film criticism,...

By Ruben Demasure (Belgium)

on February 13, 2016 00:06

Learning to See

People say nowadays, that Mexican films are exploding worldwide – that they’re revolutionary, courageous and sometimes too graphic. Even as a Mexican film critic, I can’t say if...

By Sergio Huidobro (Mexico)

on February 13, 2016 00:04

Mao Was A Film Critic

Mao was a film critic in China, among many other positions he occupied. His review of The Life of Wu Xun (1951) in People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese...

By Xin Zhou (China)

on February 12, 2016 23:58

Viaje

Viaje, the second feature of young director Paz Fábrega, starts as a cute boy meets girl/road trip film with two characters, all shot beautifully in black and white as to...

by Andra Petrescu

on August 27, 2015 14:00

Wasting young years

A young director, a low budget, a small crew, and a take on the lives and relationships of twenty-something-year-olds who don't know how to behave like adults – or maybe don't...

by Ana Šturm

on August 27, 2015 13:58

Prends-moi

Directors Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette and André Turpin came up with the idea for the short Prends-moi after learning that in some centers for disabled people there are types of...

by Andra Petrescu

on August 27, 2015 13:56

Little entangling in overambitious Entanglement

Two brothers and one woman in a remote house. It might feel rather familiar, if not too familiar a set-up in Tunç Davut's Entanglement, that got its world première as part of...

by Miro Frakić

on August 27, 2015 13:53

AFERIM! – CONRAVERTIONS VERSUS FRESH PROVOCATIONS

In comparison with the two previous films made by Radu Jude - The Happiest Girl in the World (2009) and Everybody in Our Family (2012) - which focused on contemporary problems,...

by Gergana Doncheva

on August 27, 2015 13:52

Review: Wild Dog and Mrs Heart

In this new Riaan Hendricks documentary, Wild Dog and Mrs Heart, the relationship between man and animal comes to the fore. Shot mostly in black and white and in Afrikaans, we...

by Isabella Akinseye

on July 22, 2015 11:49

REVIEW: FADHMA N’SOUMER

THIS biopic of Algeria’s national hero is written and directed by Belkacem Hadjadj. It also won him FESPACO’s Silver Stallion honours for the second best film this year. He is...

by Isabella Akinseye

on July 22, 2015 11:45

REVIEW: PARABLE OF A RAILWAY STREET

Kamo Kwele’s Parable of the Railway Street is a minor-slice-of life look at the dashed hopes of two friends who find their dreams of a better education and their aspiration of...

A Lengthy Parable by Olawale Oluwadahunsi

on July 22, 2015 11:38

Review: Do I Sound Gay?

Do I sound gay? Umm that’s the question. In many African countries, where being gay has been criminalized, this is a question one would ask in a bid to save themselves. If...

by Andrew Kaggwa

on July 22, 2015 11:31

Cinematographic Hyperrealism: interview with Gabriel Ripstein

In “600 Millas” (600 Miles) by Gabriel Ripstein, Arnulfo Rubio, a young Mexican fellow, and a gringo that is a little older than he is, are employed by a family business that...

Interview by Jaqueline Avila

on May 8, 2015 15:17

La búsqueda de Venecia (The Search for Venice)

Immobility feeds the unease, the fears, and the traces of ghosts that wander around one beauty parlor afternoon in Cuba. Monica (Marybel Garcia), Violet (Claudia Muniz) and...

by Arantxa Sánchez

on May 8, 2015 15:14

Tiempo suspendido (Suspended Time)

What is the best way to forget? Laura Bonaparte might have asked herself this question over and over when three of her four children were devoured by the Argentine dictatorship...

By Arantxa Sánchez

on May 8, 2015 15:10

FICG2015: Gabriel Ripstein's 600 Millas (600 Miles)

A young American goes languidly into a store, walks around, heads for the weapons section. His Mexican friend waits for him in a pickup. He asks about prices and models in a...

By Jaqueline Avila

on May 8, 2015 15:05

The copied city

If in a brochure which promotes a Chinese pseudo-urban, pseudo-touristic project, Aryan and blond characters appear, then the question has been raised. Towards whom does China...

By Julieta Bilik From the film Double Happines by Ella Raidel

on May 5, 2015 10:36

Water as metaphor in El botón de nácar by Patricio Guzmán (2015)

“Chile is a country to roll up”, said Patricio Guzmán in the Argentinean premiere of his latest documentary El botón de nácar (awarded Best Screenplay at Berlinale). To...

By Libertad Gills

on April 28, 2015 13:26

Today Special screening celebrating our 10 years of Latinamerican views through Talents Buenos Aires!

We could start by describing what is the Talent Campus (now Talents Buenos Aires) or by listing the growth and development in recent years, mentioning the different activities,...

Mariángela Martínez Restrepo / Talent Press BsAs Coordinator

on April 20, 2015 09:39

Film landscapes

As we travel with Gertrude Bell, the protagonist of Werner Herzog's facile biopic QUEEN OF THE DESERT (USA/Morocco 2015), through the wide open, sun-dried Arabian desserts, our...

By Ana Šturm

on February 16, 2015 11:38

Short Films: The Challenges of Creative Freedom

How do short films address the question of contemporary narrative strategies in their construction? By incorporating elements from the other arts, many of them challenge our...

By Heitor Augusto

on February 12, 2015 15:18

Another Type of Arab Uprising

Over the past few years, sounds from Middle Eastern countries have been those of violent protestations. Against government, against injustice and for freedom, those sounds have...

By Oris Aigbokhaevbolo

on February 10, 2015 15:29

Sometimes Things Are just Bad

A toxic film monster that shows us a slowly degrading relationship between two long-time friends. If LISTEN UP PHILIP (USA 2014) was a dramatic comedy about two horrible men,...

By Ana Šturm

on February 10, 2015 13:47

A Tangled Web that Children Weave

The children in THE SPIDERWEBHOUSE (IM SPINNWEBHAUS; GERMANY) make their insect pets feel at home. They plant a stick in a saucepan of dirt and set little beetles free to roam...

by Oriana Franceschi

on February 10, 2015 13:55

Sex in Brooklyn: Joanna Arnow’s BAD AT DANCING

Does the world need another coming of age story? Maybe not, suggests Brooklyn filmmaker Joanna Arnow with her latest short film running in the Berlinale Shorts programme, BAD AT...

By Julia Cooper

on February 10, 2015 13:51

NOBODY WANTS THE NIGHT

Artistically empty and stereotypical portrait of naive female explorer. A delicate, pale face, covered with strange futuristic glasses, is wedged in a pile of furry animal...

By Ana Šturm

on February 10, 2015 13:44

Behind the Volcano

The earth around the volcano is thick and black. Seventeen-year-old María and her mother Juana kneel in it to pray, wrapped in colourful hand-me-down fabrics that extend...

By Oriana Franceschi

The earth around the volcano is thick and black. Seventeen-year-old María and her mother Juana kneel in it to pray, wrapped in colourful hand-me-down fabrics that extend intricately into their hair.

on February 8, 2015 18:34

Learning the Colour of Money

The Berlinale Panorama film HOW TO WIN AT CHECKERS (EVERY TIME), Josh Kim’s adaptation of Rattawut Lapcharoensap’s book, takes us back to that twilight period between Oat’s...

By Oriana Franceschi

Oat’s childhood is made up of baby-pinks and blues: a boat slipping down a still canal, flitting fish in a strip-lit tank, a sleepy Thai sun setting over the banana plants.

on February 8, 2015 18:29

Not your typical "portrait of the artist"

Leo is not interested in shooting a biopic or making a biographical documentary: he simply means to use images and sound to plunge the spectator into the magical world of...

By Michael Guarneri

If you're planning to watch Arvo Leo's FISH PLANE, HEART CLOCK (Canada, Switzerland) in the Berlinale Forum Expanded section hoping to learn about the late Inuit draftsman and painter Pudlo Pudlat, you're likely to be disappointed.

on February 8, 2015 18:27

Herzog in Love

Herzog has shown in the past a narcissistic romanticism when contemplating megalomaniacs like himself. From the optimistic Fitzcarraldo to the tragic Lope de Aguirre and Bruno...

By Alonso Díaz de la Vega

The idealism in Werner Herzog’s directing in Berlinale Competition film QUEEN OF THE DESERT (USA, Morocco) suggests something beyond its director’s lifelong identification with his main characters: his infatuation with this one.

on February 8, 2015 18:25

In search of a new perspective

From lungi-clad rickshaw drivers to housewives, students, senior citizens and businessmen, the fans of world cinema come together irrespective of differences in caste or color....

by Monty Majeed God's own country—that is what the state I was born in, Kerala, India, is popularly known as. Come December, and it transforms into 'Godard's own country', an indication that the international film festival held in the capital city, Thiruvananthapuram, has begun. The crowd that flocks to the cinema halls as delegates for this festival is, in itself, testimony to what cinema means to us as a nation.

on February 6, 2015 18:44

Feminist Cinemas and New Ways of Watching

Toronto, in particular, is #blessed with the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and Hot Docs, smaller scale screenings by MDFF, and whip-smart smart interviews and...

by Julia Cooper Canadian cinema does not want for talent or innovation. From directors Alanis Obomsawin, Sarah Polley, Guy Maddin, and Xavier Dolan, to actors Sarah Gadon and Ellen Page, and a documentary scene (The World Before Her, Stories We Tell, Watermark) that continues to thrive despite our conservative government’s continual slashing of arts funding, Canadian film is worth the price of admission.

on February 6, 2015 18:40

The Resistance

The human sense of importance is, of course, absurd, since it is artificial, but it is nonetheless our guiding light and it derives from truth, which exists outside our...

by Alonso Díaz de la Vega Film criticism wasn’t my dream. My dream was to make films —it still is— yet I do not treat my current profession as a step towards filmmaking, but as an independent exercise of imagination. Criticism is not, as many have deemed it, the ranting of the frustrated and the unaccomplished; it is rather a stand against triviality and irrelevance.

on February 6, 2015 18:33

Nigerian Cinema's Nominal Headache

For these newer filmmakers ‘Nollywood’ far from being just a name, represents a certain aesthetic—inclusive of, but unlimited to, melodrama, bare bones cinematography, and a...

by Oris Aigbokhaevbolo Nigerian cinema has moved so much in one direction that in the last few years, some filmmakers, new, young, at once freed and craving to be freed from their forebears, have begun to react to this seemingly inexorable movement. They push against it nominally and in practice, by rejecting the nomenclature Nollywood, and by adopting filmmaking techniques alien to Nigerian cinema.

on February 6, 2015 18:26

Hard to watch, hard not to watch

There is a beautifully shot scene in Abdelrahman Sissako's TIMBUKTU. A man has just shot another on the shores of a shallow river. As he walks across the river shuffling and...

Oris Aigbokhaevbolo of the Talent Press Durban 2014 reviews the beautiful, brutal but real drama TIMBUKTU.

on August 27, 2014 17:07

The Do Gooders Does Some Good

THE DO GOODERS is an odd couple adventure documentary, set in Palestine around the political world of foreign aid work. Chloe Ruthven is old enough to finally appreciate her...

Monica Obaga of the Talent Press Durban 2014 reviews THE DO GOODERS, a documentary on foreign aid in Palestine, that impresses by showing multiple perspectives, and prioritizing the locals.

on August 27, 2014 15:11

A New Take On Patriarchy

There is an unflinching consensus that change is the one constant thing. But it would seem that there are things in the culture of a people that would rather stay the same....

Terh Agbedeh of the Talent Press Durban 2014 reviews the Nigerian family drama B FOR BOY, written and directed by Chika Anadu.

on August 26, 2014 14:46

Great Talents Buenos Aires closure with the marvelous Jonas Mekas

Videoconference with Jonas Mekas by Sebastián Rosal It is difficult to write without some distance. It sounds strange to begin a chronicle on a videoconference like this,...

Another's year edition of the Talents Buenos Aires has come to an end with many encounters, experiences and activities that we have all shared during the last week. An on this occasion it was with great honor to close with the wonderful videoconference with the master of all generations Mr. Jonas Mekas. His words moved us all and his humbleness inspired us through his great experience. We would like to thank all 52 participants of this Talents Buenos Aires edition, you will always be very welcome!!

on April 15, 2014 07:11

Across a generation

Across a generation with Cao Guimaraes By José Francisco Peña Loyola It was the third day of conferences at Talents Buenos Aires, the second conference of the day. Some of...

José Francisco Peña of the 2014 Talent Press BA reports from the panel "Across a generation" given by the brasilian filmmaker Cao Guimaraes

on April 11, 2014 22:55

The state of film criticism in Latin America

Talent Press conference: State of film criticism in Latin America By Yuraima Herrera The Talent Press conference State of film criticism in Latin America presented some of...

Yuraima Herrera of the Talent Press 2014, reports from the panel "The state of film criticism in Latin America, with this year critics Diego Lerer, Diego Battle and Quintín

on April 9, 2014 00:20

ROLE MODEL

Role model by Andrés Rodelo If Tony Manero (2007), the film by Chilean Pablo Larraín, had as its epicenter the story of a man obsessed with winning a game show as and...

Andrés Rodelo of the Buenos Aires Talent Press, reviews Nicolás Videla y Camila Donoso film Naomi Campbel, which its part of the International Competition of the BAFICI, Independent Film Festival.

on April 7, 2014 18:08

Love grope achievements and setbacks of a film.

HOJE EU QUERO VOLTAR SOZINHO (I want to go alone 2014) Daniel Ribeiro´s opera prima has been labeled by several international film festivals as a gay affiliation film which...

Rubens Riol of the Guadalajara Talent Press 2014 reviews Daniel Ribeiro's HOJE EU QUERO VOLTAR SOZINHO.

on March 29, 2014 01:55

Bad Hair: the weight of difference

Pelo Malo (2013), third feature from Venezuelan director´s Mariana Rondon, presented in la Sección Oficial de Largometrajes Iberoamericanos de Ficción en el contexto del 29...

Celia Rodríguez Tejuca of Guadalajara Talent Press 2014 reviews Mariana Rendón's PELO MALO

on March 29, 2014 01:28

The deception of the eye or the relative truth of cinema.

Speaking about the work of this outstanding Brazilian documentary maker I wanted to remember one of his most interesting pieces, I am talking about JUEGOS DE ESCENA (Play scene...

Last monday, March 24th at the Degollado Hall of Guadalajara´s Expo took place the launch of the book Homenaje a Eduardo Coutinho (A tribute to Eduardo Coutinho) as one of the collateral events of the Festival Internacional de Cine de Guadalajara 2014.

on March 29, 2014 00:50

PERPETUAL SADNESS or the ravages of neglect

Perpetual sadness, abandonment and absence. In LA TIRISIA, Jorge Perez Solano´s second feature film, this disease of the soul that goes all over the mountains, roads,...

Orianna Calderón of the Guadalajara Talent Press 2014 reviews Jorge Perez Solano's LA TIRISIA

on March 28, 2014 23:29

Perpetual Sadness and the power of ambivalence.

Attempting to demystify our beliefs as a society is always a risky project, especially when the myth in question is motherhood. This was the purpose of LA TIRISIA, 2014...

Celia Rodríguez Tejuca of the Guadalajara Talent Press 2014 reviews Jorge Perez Solano's LA TIRISIA.

on March 28, 2014 21:25

HOJE EU QUERO VOLTAR SOZINHO: From blind loves, hidden, simplified

In his first feature film, HOY QUIERO VOLVER SOLO (Today I want to go alone) Daniel Ribeiro explores recurring themes in the teen cinema as the sexual awakening, the...

Orianna Calderón from Guadalajara Talent Press 2014, reviews Daniel Ribeiro's film HOJE EU QUERO VOLTAR SOZINHO.

on March 28, 2014 19:18

One film, two reviews: NUOC

**Centering Humanity** By Tara Judah Imagining what the world will look like, just sixteen years into the future, as the effects of global warming impress upon the...

Two opinions on a compelling Vietnamese global warming thriller from the Berlinale Panorama: NUOC by Nguyễn-Võ Nghiêm-Minh, watched and reviewed by two Talent Press critics.

on February 18, 2014 22:34

An outsider in a relationship with the audience

John Trengove is a promising filmmaker from South Africa, mostly known as the director of a TV miniseries, HOPEVILLE, which won the Rose d‘Or award for best drama, was nominated...

Karla Lončar of the 2014 Talent Press interviewed South Africa filmmaker John Trengove.

on February 12, 2014 23:40

Using controversy to build expectation

No paper bags, provocative T-shirts or storming out of the room: when producer Louise Vesth sat down to discuss one of the most talked-about titles of the year, there was no...

Ewa Wildner reports from the panel How To Sell Controversial Films, featuring NYMPHOMANIAC's producer Louise Vesth.

on February 12, 2014 23:24

Preaching to the Pulpit

John Michael McDonagh, renowned director Martin McDonagh's (IN BRUGES) sibling, is in some ways not doing himself any favours by working within the same genre of black comedy in...

Daria Lisitsina of the 2014 Talent Press reviews the black comedy CALVARY, which features in the Berlinale Panorama.

on February 12, 2014 23:16

Big Fish, Little Fish

STRATOS (TO MIKOS PSARI, Greece) is a steadily uncoiling noir drama with all the trappings of a genre film. As is often the case, this belies its intent, where a socioeconomic...

Christina Newland of the 2014 Talent Press reviews STRATOS, the noir-tinged Greek tale of a hitman living through the economic pinch. The film had its premiere in the Competition section at Berlinale this year.

on February 12, 2014 23:04

An Image Doesn't Have a Sex

The number of women working behind the camera has traditionally been very low, and in most countries it still is. But in France, things are more hopeful, and Agnès Godard, who...

Tara Judah of the 2014 Talent Press reports from the Berlinale Talents master class "Defining Distance: The Cinematography of Agnès Godard".

on February 12, 2014 00:35

Confusion will be my epitaph

“You're on earth. There's no cure for that.“ (Samuel Beckett) Here’s a lifesaver for you: grab on to the best film you’ve seen in the whole festival like it was the last day...

José Sarmiento of the 2014 Talent Press reviews the Estonian masterpiece FREE RANGE, which features in the Berlinale Forum section.

on February 12, 2014 00:15

In the Mood for Doyle

Many often ask cinematographer Christopher Doyle how he chooses his movies. His answer is simple: it’s always the people. “Why would you spend time with someone you don’t...

Claire Lee of the Talent Press 2014 interviews legendary director of photography Christopher Doyle at the Berlinale Talents summit 2014.

on February 12, 2014 00:04

Cinema of Thoughts and Feelings

The Norwegian director/screenwriter Eskil Vogt who participated in Berlinale Talents in 2003, returns to the Berlinale this year with his directorial debut BLIND. Vogt first...

Andrei Kartashov of the 2014 Talent Press reports from the Berlinale Talents Screening of Eskil Vogt's BLIND.

on February 11, 2014 23:57

No Woman, No Cry

NAGIMA, the latest film by the acclaimed Kazakh director Zhanna Issabayeva, takes a bleak view of the situation faced by single working-class women in patriarchal Kazakhstan....

Karla Lončar of the 2014 Talent Press reviews the Kazakh drama NAGIMA, which features in the Berlinale Forum.

on February 10, 2014 23:35

The Berlin School of Observation

­Complex characters, intimate dramas, beautiful surroundings – today’s German cinema is more concerned with observation than with action. On Monday, a Berlinale Talents talk...

Ewa Wildner of the 2014 Talent Press reports from the panel discussion New German Cinema: The Berlin School at Berlinale Talents.

on February 10, 2014 23:28

Overcooked Wiener Western

Deeply steeped in the traditions of the Western, Austrian director Andreas Prochaska's THE DARK VALLEY (Das finstere Tal) from Berlinale Special jumps from cliché to cliché...

Dasha Lisitsina of the Talent Press 2014 reviews the Austrian neo-western THE DARK VALLEY, which is presented in a Berlinale Special Gala.

on February 10, 2014 23:21

Smug Provocateur

Lars von Trier's uncut NYMPHOMANIAC VOL. 1 presents a plethora of questions about one's approach to film criticism, and the crossroads between moral and aesthetic judgment. With...

Christina Newland of the 2014 Talent Press reviews the uncut version of NYMPHOMANIAC VOL. 1, which is featured in the Berlinale Competition.

on February 10, 2014 23:15

This is not a film

Now that production and, especially, projection on 35mm has been almost completely abandoned – we sometimes have to generate such clumsy verbal monstrosities as “film shot on...

Andrei Kartashov of the 2014 Talent Press reviews Philippine-Canadian avant-garde collaboration LA ULTIMA PELICULA, which features i the Berlinale Forum Expanded.

on February 10, 2014 23:06

A Restoration of the Silent Film Pianist’s Art

On one side of Potsdamer Street people crowd in front of the hotel to see George Clooney walking out of the building. The red carpet nearby leads to Berlinale Palast, which...

Ewa Wildner watched a restored print of the silent film classic THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI at the Berlin Philharmonic.

on February 9, 2014 23:36

Sea Saw

Maximilian Leo and his production partner Jonas Katzenstein met at a festival five years ago and soon after began developing the script for MY BROTHER'S KEEPER. The first film...

Tara Judah of the 2014 attended a screening and discussion of Maximilian Leo's MY BROTHER'S KEEPER.

on February 10, 2014 00:05

Two Sides of the Same Euro

Benjamin Heisenberg, German director of internationally acclaimed dramas SLEEPER (SCHLÄFER, 2005) and THE ROBBER (DER RÄUBER, 2010), presents his latest feature film SUPEREGOS...

Karla Lončar of the 2014 Talent Press reviews Benjamin Heisenberg's farcical SUPEREGOS, which features in the Berlinale Panorama.

on February 10, 2014 00:02

Noam's Arch

Acclaimed French director Michel Gondry’s latest project may seem like a minor one, yet it is a significant primer on cultural and linguistic theory. His “animated...

Christina Newland of the Talent Press 2014 reviews Michel Gondry's new documentary essay about Noam Chomsky.

on February 8, 2014 22:02

Why the Tower of Babel Wasn't Finished

Icarus. A man flying towards the sun, turning into a soaring eagle, comes into view in the opening images of LAST HIJACK (Berlinale Panorama). Though perhaps this metaphor is...

José Sarmiento of the 2014 Talent Press reviews Tommy Pallotta's and Femke Wolting's take on Somalian piracy in LAST HIJACK, which features in the Berlinale Panorama.

on February 8, 2014 22:19

Hop to the Hub

The Berlinale Talents programme, bringing young filmmakers into the spotlight since 2003, has launched a new initiative this year. In addition to the Talent Project Market where...

Andrei Kartashov of the Talent Press 2014 visits the new Berlinale Talents stand at the European Film Market.

on February 8, 2014 21:56

Flying in the Face of Convention

Like thunder before lightning, we hear before we see and we see before our eyes focus. The opening shot: the sound of an oncoming train, a fuzzy image of a hill, into which a...

Daria Lisitsina reviews Lee Song Hee-il’s virtuosic second feature NIGHT FLIGHT.

on February 8, 2014 22:12

Beyond Looking

For a long time I thought there could be nothing greater than looking into another world. Then I read Laura Mulvey, B. Ruby Rich, Teresa de Lauretis, saw the films of Peter...

on February 4, 2014 23:34

American Film Criticism's Long Legacy

Good criticism strives to engage with and challenge an art form, to raise the seventh art to the level of literature and painting through salient analysis of the subject. It is...

on February 4, 2014 23:29

Lost for the real world

Do you rememeber ONLY GOD FORGIVES? I bet you do, Refn made sure that his latest film was a memorable experience. No matter if you included it in your 2013 top list or the top...

on February 4, 2014 23:17

The State of Things - Peru

I decided to write about films when I turned 21. And I never thought I would become a proper film critic. My preparations and studies were in advertising, and I’ve been...

on February 4, 2014 23:36

Facing Mirrors

MORNING PRAYERS is a short fiction film made within the Sarajevo City of Film project, which seeks to discover and promote authors from the "young" regional film scene. The...

Daniel Mandić of the 2013 Talent Press Sarajevo reviews the short film MORNING PRAYERS, directed by Konstantina Kotzamani and Katarina Stanković.

on August 31, 2013 22:54

The Bridge of Age

At the time when the low-pitched murmur of the morning escalates into full-blown bustle, a boy and a girl indecisively wander the streets of Sarajevo in search of tenderness. It...

Georgiana Madin of the 2013 Talent Press Sarajevo reviews the short film MORNING PRAYERS, directed by Konstantina Kotzamani and Katarina Stanković.

on August 30, 2013 23:00

Following the Sun

In the short but rich history of film there's a large number of movies about war. Especially in the contemporary cinema, where there are also lots of films that tell stories...

Raffi Movsisyan of the 2013 Talent Press Sarajevo reviews the impressive children refugee drama WHEN I SAW YOU by Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir.

on August 27, 2013 22:12

Eroding Youth

MORNING PRAYERS, a short film made as a part of the Sarajevo City of Film project, definitely shows that its directors (Konstantina Kotzamani and Katarina Stanković) have quite...

Karla Lončar of the 2013 Talent Press Sarajevo reviews the visually haunting short MORNING PRAYERS, set in Sarajevo and directed by Konstantina Kotzamani and Katarina Stanković.

on August 25, 2013 17:39

Exit Fuzzy Reality. Enter Naked Death.

MORNING PRAYERS is a short film made by the promising young filmmakers of the Sarajevo City of Film workshop, a project that connects talents from different South-Eastern...

Ivan Velisaljević of the 2013 Talent Press Sarajevo reviews the short film MORNING PRAYERS, directed by Konstantina Kotzamani and Katarina Stanković.

on August 25, 2013 00:53

Emperor. Spirit. Boy.

Twenty years after the death of his lead actor, River Phoenix, Dutch filmmaker George Sluizer managed to finish his movie Dark Blood, if only with voice overs and script...

Aderinsola Ajao of the 2013 Talent Press Durban reviews George Sluizer's finally released fragment DARK BLOOD, starring River Phoenix in his last role.

on July 28, 2013 15:59

Cameroonian Political Film Wows DIFF

Shot in a savvy style that combines realism and fiction, Jean-Pierre Bekolo's 65-minute feature THE PRESIDENT a satirical attack on President Paul Biya, whose 31-year reign has...

Polly Kamukama of the 2013 Talent Press Durban reviews Jean-Pierre Bekolo's political satire THE PRESIDENT.

on July 25, 2013 00:35

The World in Three Colours

In the aftermath of war, achieving peace becomes a communal effort. This comes to the fore in Joao Viana's unique, tri-colour world portrayed in THE BATTLE OF TABATO, shown in...

Aderinsola Ajao of the 2013 Talent Press Durban reviews Joao Viana's black and white feature debut THE BATTLE OF TABATO.

on July 24, 2013 23:15

An Editor's Inspiring Resilience

Even in developed film industries like Hollywood, female editors are still a rare species. But one Kenyan girl is determined to change the status quo. Principally known for...

Polly Kamukama of the 2013 Talent Press Durban interviews NAIROBI HALF LIFE's Kenyan editor Mkaiwawi Mwakaba, who is this year attending the Talent Campus Durban.

on July 22, 2013 21:56

Switching Roles

After charming audiences with his superb performance, NAIROBI HALF LIFE star Joseph Wairimu has got his mind set on bigger things – he wants to try out script-writing and...

Polly Kamukama of the 2013 Talent Press Durban interviews NAIROBI HALF LIFE star and last year's DIFF Best Actor Award winner Joseph Wairimu about his career and his directorial ambitions.

on July 21, 2013 12:39

A Forbidden Love in Malawi

Africa is still largely homophobic. Homosexuality is illegal in 37 of the 54 countries on the continent. The death penalty is imposed in two and punishable with life...

Nosipho Mngoma of the 2013 Talent Press Durban reviews the South African documentary TWO MEN AND A WEDDING, directed by Sara Blecher.

on July 20, 2013 23:34

Images Of Nostalgia

Even though no Bolivian films were programmed in this edition of BAFICI, there are two that indirectly speak about our country, more precisely about our seat of government....

Sebastián Morales of the 2013 Talent Press Buenos Aires reviews movies LA PAZ by Santiago Loza, and LA PAZ EN BUENOS AIRES by Marcelo Charrás.

on April 22, 2013 22:44

Kind Words From A Strict Thinker

Assistants to Talent Campus Buenos Aires 2013 had the opportunity of participating in a lecture given by Kent Jones titled How To Understand Contemporary Cinema. For those who...

Santiago Gonzalez Cragnolino of the 2013 Talent Press Buenos Aires saw a lecture of legendary film critic and programmer Kent Jones at the Talent Campus Buenos Aires.

on April 19, 2013 23:07

A New Humanistic Perspective On Chilean Cinema

On Friday 13th, during the 8th Talent Campus Buenos Aires, filmmaker Ignacio Agüero, producer Bruno Bettati and programmer Raúl Camargo gave a lecture on the present and future...

Lucía Salas of the 2013 Talent Press Buenos Aires reports from the BAFICI panel discussing the history, present and future of Chile's film industry.

on April 16, 2013 11:25

The Beginning Of The End

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Leviathan is a sea beast. In political philosophy, the Leviathan is associated with man as a wolf to man. LEVIATHAN is a film that suggests...

Lucía Salas of the 2013 Talent Press Buenos Aires reviews the LEVIATHAN by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel from the Avant-garde and Genre Section.

on April 14, 2013 13:19

The nightfall is also a goodbye

The night of the 19th August, 2011, Raúl Ruiz went out of the montage studio in his house in Paris to start an ultimate journey to death. His unfinished film project LA NOCHE DE...

Liomán Lima of the 2013 Guadalajara Talent Press reviews Raúl Ruiz' unfinished film project LA NOCHE DE ENFRENTE.

on March 8, 2013 23:13

Seven boxes for a Guarani dream

Now I can lie back in my seat, I’m definitely staying to watch this film. It is called 7 CAJAS and it is the most popular film in the history of Cinema of Paraguay. In a working...

Marianela González of the 2013 Guadalajara Talent Press reviews Juan Carlos Maneglia's and Tana Schembori's 7 CAJAS.

on March 7, 2013 21:19

The Uncertainty of the Synopsis

Even though Fernando Trueba categorically declared during the opening Master Class of the 5th Talent Campus Guadalajara, that in order to produce films nowadays, it was...

Raciel del Toro Hernández of the 2013 Guadalajara Talent Press reviews Patricia Correa's and Valentina Mac-Pherson's documentary LAS MUJERES DEL PASAJERO.

on March 5, 2013 08:22

BIG IN A SMALL WAY

The Berlinale Generation film STEPPING ON FLYING GRASS (CITA-CITAKU SETINGGI TANAH, Indonesia) revolves around Agus, a boy in Muntilan, Central Java. When his teacher asks the...

By celebrating the everyday over the epic, STEPPING ON FLYING GRASS becomes an epic in its own right.

on February 13, 2013 20:56

Spirits Leave Their Images Behind

What happens when film images don't move or gain another dimension, that of space for example? The answer to this question can be found in the surreal location of the former...

Spirits from LEVIATHAN are frozen in time on the walls of a crematorium.

Varying Approaches

In the Berlinale Talent Campus session dedicated to her career, Jane Campion shared the stage with screenwriter Gerard Lee, the co-writer of her debut feature, SWEETIE (1989),...

Jane Campion comments on her career with her usual modesty.

IDENTITY CRISES

On the heels of three successful premieres at the 63rd Berlinale, directors Salomé Lamas, Elina Psykou and Thanos Anastopoulos got together to discuss their work in the context...

Three filmmakers from Southern Europe report on their experiences making art in a time of crisis.

Acting on Instinct

Israeli director and Campus alumnus Tom Shoval’s debut feature YOUTH, which features in this year’s Berlinale Panorama, tells the story of twin brothers whose family is in...

Israeli director Tom Shoval talks about the relationship between film and viewer and the filmmaker’s means of controlling it.

REALITY NEVER STOPS

Martel is undoubtedly the best-known filmmaker of the Argentinian New Wave, with films like THE SWAMP, THE HOLY GIRL and more recently, THE HEADLESS WOMAN, all of which have...

Argentinian filmmaker Lucrecia Martel on the power of language and reality.

More than Meets the Eye

If we look at a face long enough does it get more or less familiar? Do we come closer to reality by keeping it at a distance? In what layer of the image does the truth reside?...

Legendary avant-garde playwright and theatre director Richard Foreman returns to filmmaking with the astounding ONCE EVERY DAY.

STRANGER IN PARADISE

Over the past year, Ulrich Seidl’s PARADISE trilogy has taken the festival world by storm. Its final installment, which premiered last Friday at the Berlinale, expectedly...

Ulrich Seidl sits down with Ariel Esteban Cayer to discuss PARADISE: HOPE.

Putting Ideology Aside

“I want to put my own story up there on the silver screen”, said Kenyan filmmaker Tosh Gitonga at the panel discussion “Set in the City: Depicting Urban Africa“ at this year’s...

African filmmakers discuss their urban realities in the Campus' “Set in the City“ session.

CREDIT AND CREDIBILITY

The title says it all. THE TROUBLE WITH MONEY (KOMEDIE OM GELD, Netherland), screening in Berlinale Retrospective, was indeed troubled with money. This Max Ophüls film cost...

Max Ophüls’ THE TROUBLE WITH MONEY might have failed at the box office, but certainly not on the artistic front. It’s a gem waiting to be rediscovered.

A HUMAN BESTIAIRE

Berlinale Competition film VIC + FLO SAW A BEAR (VIC + FLO ONT VU UN OURS, Canada) tells the story of Victoria, an ex-convict who tries to reestablish her life with her...

Denis Côté’s elegant film reveals unsuspected levels of cruelty in human nature.

Les Misérables: The Madness behind the Method

After earning eight Oscar nominations, LES MISÉRABLES, adapted from the long-running stage-musical based on Victor Hugo’s novel, had a triumphant screening at the Berlinale...

What made LES MISÉRABLES the trail-blazing musical it has become?

THE PUBLIC RESTRICTIONS ON PRIVATE LIFE

Shaun Kadlec and Deb Tullmann’s documentary BORN THIS WAY (Berlinale Panorama), borrowing its title from an album of eccentric pop singer Lady Gaga, reports on the prejudice...

Sexual minorities in Cameroon pour their hearts out to open-minded foreign audiences.

GOOD VIBRATIONS

A pounding rhythm and a swift, dynamic camera movement reveal Don Jon sitting at his computer, about to watch his more-than-daily dose of pornography. From the very first second...

The ever-charismatic Joseph Gordon-Levitt crafts an engaging and amusing directorial debut.

NOIR’S NOT DEAD

It’s never too late to discover, or rediscover, Orson Welles’ late studio film TOUCH OF EVIL (1958), screening this year at the Berlinale as part of the retrospective programme....

Orson Welles’ TOUCH OF EVIL treats moral uncertainty as a bleeding wound.

EAST SIDE STORIES

Another window of opportunity has just opened for Arab filmmakers looking for funds. At a presentation and screening in HAU 3 on February 8, Frank Albers, the programme manager...

Since 2005, the Robert Bosch Stiftung has been associated with Eastern Europe, this year its mission expands eastward to the Arab world.

Dreams Collapsed by Traditions

The Berlinale Forum film ELELWANI, based on a novel by Titus Maumela and directed by Ntshaveni wa Luruli brings to the forefront the classic conflict between the contemporary...

South African drama ELELWANI raises the pertinent argument of tradition versus modernism, but loses steam on the way.

Killing Him Softly

Indonesian writer-director Teddy Soeriaatmadja presents an inspiring take on the knight in shining armor-tale in his second self-financed feature film SOMETHING IN THE WAY...

Inspired low-budget filmmaking in this Berlinale Panorama entry: A knight in shining armor-story with a twist.

TALENT PRESS 2013: Ankur Pathak

Cinema is a celebratory wonder that not only fulfils the traditional purpose of entertainment, but in itself becomes a splendid chronicler of the times we live in, and often...

In India, film criticism in its strictest definition doesn’t adequately exist. But I’m very comfortable with the professional identity of a film critic, which is that of an opinion-shaper. I recognize the impactful nature of my writing, and the decisive role it plays in shaping the perspective of readers.

TALENT PRESS 2013: Adrian Jonathan Pasaribu

There are two different camps representing Indonesian cinema viewing. One is of all the works produced by Indonesian filmmakers, another is the films known and watched by the...

Public enlightenment is the name of the game now, and I certainly don’t want to be left out. Indonesian cinema desperately needs a second chance from its own public. I must contribute, one article at a time.

TALENT PRESS 2013: Juan Carlos Fangacio

Armando Robles Godoy, the most renowned filmmaker in Peru, who died at 87 a few years ago, said once that “If Peruvian cinema disappears, nothing happens”. This quote might...

The times are changing in Peru. Old and useless ideas have started to fade away and a new generation of filmmakers, producers, actors and critics are leading cinema in the country with things we had never seen before.

Make films, not yoghurt

While Alain Gomis's previous two features L'AFRANCA and ANDALUCIA, take place in Europe and deal with exile, TEY (Today) follows a Senegalese man in his hometown during the last...

Talent Press Durban 2012 perticipant Katarina Hedrén talks to Alain Gomis's about his latest film TEY, in which death is polite enough to announce its arrival.

Lost in Translation

This year, the Durban International Film Festival features a special focus on French cinema with an extensive programme of 14 feature films. Yamina Benguigui, French-Algerian...

Talent Press Durban 2012 participant Claire Diao shines a light on the polyinguistic nature of African cinema and the state of its film and festival landscape.

on August 16, 2012 12:24

The bitter seed of corporate greed

The average feature film at this year's Durban International Film Festival is around 90 minutes long. It's difficult to comprehend that, every 30 minutes, a farmer in India...

Durban talent Press 2012 participant Sihle Mthembu reviews Micha X Peled's latest documentary BITTER SEEDS, which explores the epidemic of farmer suicides in India.

It's too easy

Thursday, July the 19th, 2012. There is a brisk coldness in the air, a kind of wear-your-jacket warning. In the Suncoast cinema, located in a casino-stroke-mall, there is an...

Talent Press Durban participant Claire Diao reports from the opening ceremony of the 2012 Durban International Film Festival and reviews its opening film ELELWANI.

Celluloid Time Machine

"I’m not a specialist on film, I’m just a member of the audience and I aspire to be just a member of the audience”. These were Beatriz Sarlo’s introductory words in Universidad...

Fidel Intriago reports from the first lecture of the 2012 Buenos Aires Talent Campus: Beatriz Sarlo’s take on History and Film.

The Kids Are Alright

Celina Murga had always wanted to shoot a documentary. The tangible spirit of the observational documentary hung around her previous films – ANA Y LOS OTROS (2003) and UNA...

An interview with Celina Murga, whose documentary feature ESCUELA NORMAL is presented at a special screening at the Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente.

Homosexuality: Power and Abandonment

Raul Fuentes has tried to build an immaculate audiovisual text with a deep philosophical substratum in his first work; this can be inferred in every single line of the script...

Talent Press Guadalajara participantMabel Machado reviews Raul Fuentes' debut film EVERYBODY'S GOT SOMEBODY... NOT ME.

on March 21, 2012 23:14

Hope on the road of despair

“There is no more interesting spectacle in life than the spectacle of death.” Edmond Dantés INNER SPACE is a movie based on real facts. Played by actor Kuno Becker, the film...

Talent Press Guadalajara participant Luis Vaca reviews Kai Parlange's INNER SPACE (ESPACIO INTERIOR).

The Latin-American metaphor of the living dead.

For a better contextualization of the image of the zombie for the collective imagery, I will go back to the famous movie NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD by George A. Romero (1968)....

Talent Press Guadalajara participant Luis Vaca reviews Alejandro Brugués’ Cuban zombie parable JUAN OF THE DEAD.

A film about an anonymous man's footsteps

The story happens in Rio de Janeiro, “a city with more people than flies” as Rubem Fonseca once wrote. The nearly choreographical coming and going of pedestrians on the avenues...

Talent Press Guadalajara participant Mabel Machado reviews Eryk Rocha's laureate first film PASSERBY (TRANSEUNTE).