It’s Carla Nowak’s (Leonie Benesch) first semester teaching within a school. Young and idealistic, she’s the type of teacher who greets her students with a good morning clap and chant routine, organises pop quizzes, and lends out Rubik’s cubes to kids who can’t afford their own. Carla is a teacher constantly on the go, so […]
For nearly a decade, on the 1st of June, Franky (Vicky Knight) has sent a vaguely threatening Facebook message to a figure from her past, asking for the true story about an event she is still physically scarred by to this day. It’s an anniversary that throws her life into turbulence every year, and director […]
24th Udine Far East Film Festival: In Conversation with Park Dae-min, Director of “Special Delivery”
It took a while for Park Dae-min to make his first film. Although he graduated with a degree in architecture, he found his passion for filmmaking back in 2002 when he directed a short film Hey, What Are You Looking For, which was invited to screen at the Busan International Short Film Festival. Park Dae-min […]
Taiwanese romantic comedies can touch one’s heart regardless of their Rotten Tomatoes rating or the narrative itself. And despite the genre, the country’s cinema has always highlighted its culture and people against the wonderful landscapes and pictorial compositions of local architecture. Although rom-coms are filled with cliches, some storylines make the audience analyse their own […]
There couldn’t have been a film less suited to this writer’s tastes than The Souvenir, Joanna Hogg’s semi-autobiographical 2019 drama about an aspiring filmmaker’s ill-fated romance with a drug addict. It was widely heralded as one of the best films of its year, although it proved hard to engage with due to its exploration of […]
After almost two years of not having proper film festivals in London, life in the capital is slowly coming back to normal, allowing many events to take place. Following the chaos caused by the pandemic, I have come to one conclusion: I can’t imagine my life without film festivals. Yes, it can get extremely busy […]
We watch a young boy wander along a windy shoreline in the middle of the night. With him, he’s got his dog, a backpack, and a torch which he shines out onto the sea. He’s looking for the mythical creature that supposedly lurks in these waters. This is the last time we (or anyone else) […]
One of the worst habits many film critics partake in at film festivals is firing off a tweet declaring that they need to let a film “marinate” after initially seeing it, so desperate to voice an immediate reaction even if they haven’t found the words to adequately describe their feelings. And yet, while watching Nadav […]
Stories about artificial intelligence in cinema are often told from a distinctly male point of view. From recent indie hits like Spike Jonze’s Her and Alex Garland’s Ex_Machina, to a history of more fantastical narratives like John Hughes’ Weird Science, films about AI always seem to posit a relationship between user and machine – the […]
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 […]
VIEW OF THE ARTS 