Paris is hardly short of festivals, but on 24 and 25 October 2026, something rather different is taking shape at the Paris Event Center. The A Festival is setting out to bring several corners of Asian entertainment into the same space: K-pop and T-pop, P-pop, Japanese rock and pop, Chinese artists, Thai hip-hop, music from…
Summer IFF 2026: “Days of Being Wild” (1990) Review
It was 1990 when the director of As Tears Go By (1988) released his star-studded second feature. Much of that excitement came from the commercial and critical success of As Tears Go By, Wong Kar-wai’s kinetic yet tender gangster romance starring Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung and Jacky Cheung, and with Carina Lau, Leslie Cheung and…
Summer IFF (2026): “The Imp” (1981) Review
A cult film regarded as one of Hong Kong’s scariest, the restored The Imp (1981), directed by Dennis Yu, was screened at Summer IFF in the section “The Taste of Cult”, bringing an unsettling chill to Hong Kong’s midsummer. Like many fellow Hong Kong New Wave directors, Dennis Yu received part of his education overseas,…
Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF26): In Conversation with Miwa Nishikawa, Director of “Children Untold”
Miwa Nishikawa has spent more than two decades making films about people trying to find their place in a society that does not always know what to do with them. Born in Hiroshima and a graduate of Waseda University, she began her career working with Hirokazu Kore-eda before making her own directorial debut with Wild…
Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF26): “Head to Head” Review
Women do not experience oppression in exactly the same way and pretending otherwise helps nobody. Where we are born, the laws we live under, religion, family, money and social expectations can make the differences enormous, but across countries and cultures women still find themselves being told what is appropriate for them: how to dress, how…
Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF26): “Salvation” Review
Scotland is one of the most wonderful places in Europe, and one I always appreciate seeing on screen. Like anywhere else, people there struggle with money, work, family problems and the uncertainty of what comes next, but art remains very much alive, and Scottish cinema has produced filmmakers who have always understood that ordinary lives…
Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF26): “Children Untold” Review
We are taught when wars began and when they ended, who surrendered and who won, but rarely what happened to ordinary people the day after peace was declared. What happened to the children who had no parents to return to, no home, no money and, in many cases, nobody interested in whether they survived? Set…
Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF26): “The World Before” Review
I have always said to myself that not every film needs an extraordinary story. Korean independent cinema has repeatedly shown how much can be found in everyday lives, familiar places and experiences that might, at first, seem too small for the big screen. And, in all honesty, these films do not always have an easy…
83rd Venice Film Festival: “No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman” Review
“Only when we face death do we understand the value of life.” This line comes towards the end of Halkawt Mustafa’s No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman, and it stayed in my mind. Perhaps because most of us rarely think about life in those terms; we rush from one thing to another,…
83rd Venice Film Festival: “Lovers in the Blue Night” Review
Indian women filmmakers have been behind some truly remarkable independent films in recent years. The talent has always been there; the opportunities have not always followed quite so easily, especially when it comes to making that difficult second film. That is one of the reasons it is so exciting to see Anuparna Roy back at…
83rd Venice Film Festival: “One Minute to Midnight” Review
After I finished watching Nicolas Pariser’s One Minute to Midnight, one question popped into my head: what happens when a man reaches middle age and begins looking back at how he has treated women, loved them, misunderstood them, and perhaps taken certain things for granted? It is a subject worth exploring, especially at a time…
83rd Venice Film Festival: “What Belongs to Others” Review
Polish cinema has had a strong relationship with the Venice International Film Festival for decades, but its presence on the Lido has been noticeable in recent years. In 2022, Damian Kocur’s Bread and Salt (Chleb i sól) competed in Orizzonti and won the Special Jury Prize, with Kocur turning an ordinary summer in a small…
83rd Venice Film Festival: “Children of the Monkey” Review
Becoming a parent changes your life, but becoming the parent of a child with a disability can change it in ways nobody can fully prepare you for. There are appointments, routines, worries about the future and, depending on the child’s needs, a level of physical and emotional care that can continue for a long time….
83rd Venice Film Festival: “Diane in the Loop” Review
A mother wants to leave the past behind but her daughter wants to dig it back up. That difficult starting point is the premise of Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni’s Diane in the Loop. Diane (Ninon Borsei) learns that her mother (Sandrine Blancke) was raped three years before she was born. For Diane, discovering what…
Asian Cinema at the 70th BFI London Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival has unveiled the programme for its 70th edition, and Asian cinema will once again form an essential part of the celebration. From long-awaited works by some of the continent’s most respected filmmakers to daring debuts, intimate documentaries and large-scale genre spectacles, this year’s selection reflects the extraordinary breadth of filmmaking…
VIEW OF THE ARTS 