When on April 17th 1941, Kingdom of Yugoslavia fell under the Nazi Germany and its allies, the nearby Kingdom of Bulgaria and the lives of those living in the country were severely disrupted. Dušan Jovanović (Born 1939), a theatre director, essayist and playwright, used the aforementioned events as an interesting subject in his 1977 play…
Category: Foreign Films
The 25th Raindance Film Festival: Scaffolding Review
Matan Yair taught literature in Israel for almost a decade before he switched to film-making. While teaching the subject, he came across individuals from various backgrounds – including challenging youngsters. Matan Yair believed that he could inspire his pupils by letting them follow their own path of self-discovery. One of his students was Asher – his…
The 25th Raindance Film Festival: Siblings Review
There are over 11 million of unauthorised immigrants in the United States, including 5.6 million Mexicans who labour in fields, restaurant kitchens and factories. When not caught and sent to detention centres and courts, they try to survive under the radar, away from immigration officers while chasing their “American Dream”. The Founding Fathers may have…
The 74th Venice International Film Festival: Martyr Review
Mazen Khaled, with two features and four shorts under his belt, has already impressed critics with his promising film-making; seen as an art-house type of a director, his style undoubtedly aims at the niche market rather then at the mainstream audience. His new work, Martyr, was recognised by the Venice International Film Festival and presented…
Aldo Iuliano’s Penalty: Short Film Review
In the middle of nowhere, on a grass patch among scattered bushes, a group of younger men is playing a game of football. It looks innocent at first, with basically no audible dialogue. But there is a growing sense of desperation and aggression involved in the game, up until the moment when one of the…
Santiago Paladines’ The Fare: Short Film Review
Somewhere in the USA, the police comes into “a drop house” – a hideaway where illegal immigrants are being kept by traffickers before transporting them deeper into the country – and what they witness is a plastic rubbish bag, filled with human waste. In it, there is a man who is barely alive, and next…
A Taxi Driver Review
“As a journalist, you shouldn’t be in a place that’s too comfortable,” German reporter Jürgen Hinzpeter says to his colleagues as they discuss the civil unrest in Gwangju, South Korea. He craves an interesting story, a chance to uncover a hidden truth to the world so when he hears about what’s happening there, he knows he must go….
Project Itoh’s Genocidal Organ
A word, a whisper in a general’s ear, and just like that a nation will descend into chaos. Neighbour against neighbour, brother against brother, indiscriminate violence to the point where even the leaders forget exactly how it all began. How can something like this happen? And can it really be the work of one man?…
Pablo Larraín’s Neruda
The 2016 feature Neruda brings together two creators of the same (first) name – the character of the legendary Nobel prize winner and celebrated poet and political activist Pablo Neruda, whose original name was Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, serves as the center, the source material and the inspiration to Pablo Larraín, the barely 40-year-old…
Okja Review
There is no doubt that Bong Joon-ho is a visionary filmmaker. And with six features under his belt (Snowpiercer, Mother, The Host, Memory of Murder, Barking Dogs Never Bite), including his newest production, the Netflix original Okja, there is no sign of him slowing down. Okja premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival; it connects drama, family…
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