Yuen Woo-ping’s “Blades of the Guardians” Review

In Blades of the Guardians, director Yuen Woo-ping returns to the wuxia tradition with a film that emphasises the physical and moral foundations of the genre. Known internationally for influencing the style of cinematic combat – just look at The Matrix trilogy and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – Yuen treats the film as a way…

Pavel and Pooh at Milan Fashion Week: Thai Stars on Gucci, Tod’s, Italian Food and Their Next Big Chapter – Exclusive Interview

Milan Fashion Week has a particular kind of chaos. Not the stressful kind, but the cinematic kind – alright, maybe a little stressful too. The kind where the streets around Via Montenapoleone and Via della Spiga feel permanently gridlocked, where espresso becomes a survival strategy, where publicists murmur into headsets like air-traffic controllers, and where…

28th Far East Film Festival: The New Poster is Here!

For a few days each spring, Udine turns into the hub of Asian cinema. The premieres, the talks, the packed schedules, the chance encounters between artists and audiences. These are the visible mechanics of any festival. But what truly gives it meaning is something less tangible: the people. A festival audience is a living, breathing…

76th Berlin International Film Festival: “A Russian Winter” Review

Directed by Patric Chiha, A Russian Winter offers a necessary portrait of the post-2022 lives of Russians who chose exile. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian identity has often been flattened into a single political narrative, leaving little space for those who reject the regime, or for the difficult, uncertain process of…

76th Berlin International Film Festival: “Papaya” Review

A compact and light-hearted Brazilian animation, Papaya, screening at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival, feels exceptionally sincere and heartening as director Priscilla Kelle’s feature debut. Without dialogue, the constant adventure of the papaya seed reflects a teeming Amazonian forest landscape blazing with colours through its vitality and the complex interactions of plants coexisting within…

76th Berlin International Film Festival: “Iván & Hadoum” Review

Hadoum, a Moroccan woman, and Iván, a Spanish trans man, are colleagues in a greenhouse in southern Spain, where they fall in love. However, this love is tough. It has to face problems such as class and race, and, most practically, it interferes with Iván’s promotion. Behind it all lies the expectation of his entire…