A former cult member Pinky (Luis Felipe Lozano) works at a sweatshop at an undisclosed location in Bogota, Colombia. Although there is nothing to provide a window into how he was indoctrinated into a cult, with a certain look of uncertainty about this world in his eyes one can imagine that he’d make the perfect…
Category: Film
“We Did Not See Her as an Icon or the Greatest Actress, to Us She Was Our Mum – In Conversation with Sean Hepburn Ferrer, Audrey Hepburn’s Son
Filmgoers know almost everything about the Hollywood icon Audrey Hepburn, but not many are familiar with the actress’ childhood and youth, and the impact it had on shaping her character as well as her adult life – growing up in occupied Netherlands during the World War II, her parents’ divorce, and moving countries while she…
70th Berlin International Film Festival: Jumbo Review
Machines have feelings just like us, or at least that’s what Zoé Wittock’s debut feature film Jumbo would have you believe. Centred on the love affair between Jeanne (A Portrait of a Lady on Fire’s Noémie Merlant) and a theme park ride she’s named Jumbo, this erotic drama, which is based on a ‘true’ story,…
70th Berlin International Film Festival: Yalda – A Night For Forgiveness Review
It took a while for Iranian cinema to come to light, nonetheless, this doesn’t mean that there haven’t been any works worth paying attention to. With Abbas Kiarostami, Rakhshān Banietemad, Bahram Beyzai, Dariush Mehrjui, and Asghar Farhadi paving the way for worldwide recognition, Iranian cinema became a frequent ‘guest’ at many prestigious film festivals. Although…
The Trouble with Nature Review
Awaking in a field of swaying lavender, famed philosopher Edmund Burke (Antony Langdon) jumps up – muttering under his breath, ‘this isn’t what I imagined at all – there’s nothing here except lavender and more lavender’. The reason for his peculiarly placed nap? To find out more about the ‘sublime’ – the very concept he…
70th Berlin International Film Festival: Curveball Review
Arndt Wolf (Sebastian Blomberg) is a bioweapons expert living and working in Berlin in the year 2000. A few years before, he spent months on end working in Iraq helping to search for anthrax production plants. It’s a trip he can’t get his mind off of. Despite his investigation in Iraq being shut down and…
To Celebrate the Release of Takashi Miike’s ‘First Love’, Here are Takashi Miike’s Top 5 Yakuza Films
Super-entertaining Takashi Miike crime thriller First Love is a Tarantino-beating bonanza that opens with a decapitated head rolling into the frame and doesn’t let up for 108 minutes. The Yakuza genre is one Miike delved into early on in his career with great success, and now he’s jumped back into the world of Tokyo gangsters in…
70th Berlin International Film Festival: Semina Il Vento Review
Nica (Yile Yara Vianello), a 21-year-old student, returns to Apulia to her parents’ home after being gone for three years. There, she finds that her father (Espedito Chionna) struggles with debts, the local workers are about to be laid off and her grandmother’s land and its olive trees are dying of an insect infestation. Deeply…
1917 Review
With no time to waste, 1917 dives headfirst into its protagonists’ terrifying venture into the heartland of German-occupied France. Somewhere along the north-eastern French trench lines in the midst of WWI, Lance Corporal Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Lance Corporal Schofield (George MacKay) are given orders to cross the frontlines through into German territory to find…
Brotherhood Review
Nominated for Best Live Action Short Film at the 92nd Oscar Awards, Meryam Joobeur’s Brotherhood is an emotive, discerning and complex look at ISIS’ effect locally on Tunisian families. Mohamed (Mohamed Grayaâ) and his wife, Salha (Salha Nasraoui), are devout Muslims living quiet lives as shepherds with two of their sons in rural Tunisia. A…
In Conversation with Lee Sang-geun, Director of ‘Exit’
Lee Sang-geun began his career as a filmmaker in 1999 by making short films. In 2006, Lee was awarded Best Film at the Mise-en-scène Short Film Festival and, a year later, he received the Grand Prix at the Daegu Short Film Festival for Mr. Self-Portrait. In addition to directing, Lee worked as a production assistant on 2008…
1st Austrian Film Festival: Welcome to Sodom Review
It’s no secret that modern technology is not meant to last the test of time. Apple and Samsung have both been fined for deliberately slowing down their devices after two years and everyone knows that whatever electronic device you bought five years ago won’t be able to compete with what’s available right now. So, with…
‘The Courier’ Director Zackary Adler on His Top Five Female Action Heroes
Get ready for full throttle thrills and intense action in Zackary Adler’s The Courier! Olga Kurylenko plays a tough motorbike courier whose delivery is interrupted when she discovers one of the packages she’s transporting is a bomb. The explosive device is set to kill the only witness able to testify in Washington DC against ruthless…
14th London Korean Film Festival: In Conversation with Lee Byeong-heon, Director of ‘Extreme Job’
Before moving behind a camera, Lee Byeong-heon worked as a writer, script editor and actor. He gained huge popularity in 2015 when he released Twenty, a coming-of-age film starring Kim Woo-bin, Lee Jun-ho, and Kang Ha-neul, the biggest stars of their generation. After Twenty, he went on to direct web drama Be Positive (2016) and…
