Now playing in UK cinemas, Cambodian-French filmmaker Davy Chou’s award-winning adoption drama, Return to Seoul, is a cathartic exploration of identity and one’s sense of place in the world. Beginning in medias res, the story introduces Freddie, a 25-year-old Korean-French woman who has ended up in Seoul after a logistical mishap. Given that she does…
Tag: Cannes Film Festival
75th Cannes Film Festival: “Metronom” Review
In the 70s, Romania was one of those places where being a free-spirited person was unwelcomed and dangerous. Any cultural activity had to pass through the sieve of harsh censorship, and the ubiquitous security services were eager to use their power to limit influence from the West. Romania was almost completely isolated from the world;…
75th Cannes Film Festival – “Les Pires” Review
Les Pires follows the story of film director Gabriel (Johan Heldenbergh) shooting his latest feature film in the impoverished suburbs of Boulogne-sur-Mer. His film – under the working title of ‘Pissing into the Northern Wind’ – follows the life of a young boy growing up in poverty. Aiming for realism, Gabriel and his team decided…
“My Films Are Never About the Past but They Are About the Way the Past Is Connected to the Present.” – In Conversation with Sergei Loznitsa, Director of “Babi Yar. Context”
Sergei Loznitsa, a Ukrainian filmmaker, has always been a regular at the Cannes Film Festival. He might not have been a frequent guest at BFI London Film Festival, however, whenever he attends the event, you know you will always be in for a treat with his new work. Sergei has been making films since 1996…
74th Cannes Film Festival: “Olga” Review
To this day, Ukraine pays for the Euromaidan protest and the Revolution of Dignity that took place in November of 2013 and February of 2014, respectively. Both ended with blood, lowering the standard of living of Ukrainian citizens and the loss of a part of the country’s territory. The first revolt began when President Viktor…
74th Cannes Film Festival: “La Traviata, My Brothers and I” Review
14-year-old Nour (Maël Rouin-Berrandou) trudges across his council estate, flip-flops smacking against the concrete as he struggles with a hefty laundry bag and a five-litre bottle of water. It’s the height of summer, and while other kids are out playing or attending summer camp, Nour spends his days either completing community service work or looking…
74th Cannes Film Festival: “I Comete – A Corsican Summer” Review
The feature debut of director and writer Pascal Tagnati, I Comete is a lulling but earnest exploration of the small town of Tolla situated in the very heart of the island. Examining romance, friendships, family conflicts, and everyday snippets of life – Tagnati samples cinéma vérité aesthetics and techniques to create a fictional, layered, and…
74th Cannes Film Festival: “Un Monde” Review
There’s no shortage of films that deal with the concept of childhood bullying, but very few document experiences that will ring true to anybody who has been through it. In recent years, bullying has been depicted in film almost exclusively as an online phenomenon, with all attempts to show the harrowing effects of cyberbullying falling…
74th Cannes Film Festival: “The Heroics” Review
In cinema, drug and alcohol addiction is often treated like the darkest iteration of Chekhov’s gun: if someone says they’re in recovery in the first act, expect them to relapse in the second. Because of this narrative cliche, very few films directly grapple with the realities of rehabilitation, and that rather than being an end…
74th Cannes Film Festival: “Bloody Oranges” Review
There’s a reason the “everything is connected” brand of big screen storytelling is widely mocked. Although the likes of Robert Altman’s Short Cuts and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia managed to find profundity in the semi-interlinking lives of vast ensembles, films such as Paul Haggis’ Crash and the collected works of Alejandro González Iñárritu have made…
Juris Kursietis’ Oleg Review
The decision to leave one’s home country is never easy and no one really knows what awaits them out there. Oleg by Juris Kursietis weaves its way along this line, painting a relatable immigrant story of Oleg (Valentin Novopolskij), a Latvian butcher who moves to Belgium in search of a better life. He gets a job…
72nd Cannes Film Festival: Nuestras Madres Review
Nuestras Madres – ‘Our Mothers’ in English – is a heart-rending and stirring uncovering of the trauma and anguish left behind by the Guatemalan civil war. César Díaz’s fiction-directorial debut focuses particularly on the stories of the many women survivors of the war. Everyone knows the effects of wars and the destruction they rage, but…
In Conversation with Steven Yeun of ‘Burning’
Steven Yeun greets me with a big smile and a warm handshake as we meet at the Mayfair hotel in London on a cold October morning. We sit down and chat about what it means to be a Korean-American, his latest production Burning, and working with Lee Chang-dong. Born in Seoul, South Korea and raised…
Lee Chang-dong’s Burning
The attempts to translate Haruki Murakami‘s prose into the cinematic language have so far mostly ended in spectacular disasters, or – in the best case – garnered mixed reviews, probably due to the specific style of the writer. But the fates have changed when Lee Chang-dong, the director of Poetry and Peppermint Candy, returned after 6 years of…
VIEW OF THE ARTS 