Swedish filmmaker Johannes Nyholm jumped into the limelight of the international arthouse circuit with both feet, sweeping audiences and awards with his feature debut The Giant. It was a touching dramedy, absolved of sentimentality, about an autistic boy separated from...
Yi Okseop’s debut film, Maggie, opens with the discovery of a salacious X-ray photograph at the Love of Maria hospital depicting an unknown couple having sex. This opening gag sets the stage for a series of randomly occurring bizarre events...
Two weeks ago, the 2019 International Film Festival in Rotterdam came to an end. Probably the largest cultural event in the Netherlands, with over 300,000 tickets sold each year, for me it's hard to believe it's already gone again. Time...
During her intro at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Polish director Jagoda Szelc stated that in her new feature film Monument, she doesn't try to tell a story. She asked the audience to watch the film with the idea that...
Starting her show business career while still a teenager, Han Ji-min quickly became a familiar face in South Korean television dramas and films, beloved by audiences for her sweet, wholesome image. Han turns that image on its head with her...
In 2015 I was quite taken by Julien Temple’s documentary, The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson, which set out to capture the literal farewell tour of the garage punk icon after he was diagnosed with a terminal illness that threatened to...
There is an ethereal, evanescent beauty to Anna Eborn's feature-length documentary Transnistra. Six teenagers casually frolic by the river banks in the heat of summer, skipping stones across the water, their silhouettes cast in the pinkish evening glow of the setting...
As a curator for Slamdance’s Department of Anarchy, I make a point of seeking out weird and wonderful films from around the world. One of my favorites from 2016 was Alice Waddington’s Disco Inferno. Even by our high standards, the...
Wu-Tang brought the mothafuckin’ ruckus to Park City, Utah last week, where the first two episodes of Sacha Jenkins’ ‘new American Classic’, Of Mics And Men, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Jenkins titled the film Of Mics and Men as a...
Climax, the latest film from the notorious Gasper Noé is making it's way back to Canadian cinemas starting on March 1st. If you missed any of its festival appearances our friends at Raven Banner Entertaiment pretty much have the country...
AMI is a new psychological thriller from director Rusty Nixon and IndustryWorks Studios, who is also handling international sales of the film at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival. A trailer has been released just in time for the market...
Back in 2017 one of my favorite pitches from the Frontieres coproduction market was for Jan van Gorkum's horror comedy The Cleaner. In the Dutch production The Cleaner, a dark comedy and horror flick, the central character Barry, a...
As anyone who's spent far too much time perusing the Internet for ancient photos of terrifying clowns genuinely intended to entertain children, as I have, can tell you, history had some confused notions of how best to delight youngsters. Take,...
If you're going to be in Austin for SXSW, you're going to have an amazing time, because this year's program --- the Midnighters in particular --- looks awesome. One of the films playing --- Girl on the Third Floor --- is the directing...
This year's Hivos Tiger Competition winner at the 2019 International Film Festival Rotterdam looks at the phenomenon of live streaming in contemporary Chinese society.
Genre fans will find a lot to like in the latest announcement from SXSW Film. As previously announced, Jordan Peele's Us will open the fest. Now, we've learned that Pet Sematary from Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer (Starry Eyes) will be the...
Last Friday, at the 2019 edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the audience award went to a film which managed to score an average of 4.8 out of 5. That film was writer-director Nadine Labaki's Capernaum, and while it...