The thing that drifts away in Xavier Beauvois‘ ninth feature, Albatros, isn’t just its official English title, but also the film itself, especially in its final act. Set in a quiet, coastal town in Normandy, the film starts off as a low-key police procedural drama, with a sharp observation of everyday life and issues in…
Around International Film Festival is an independent cinematic awards event that is quickly catching attention for its one-of-a-kind structure and its immense support of independent cinema. Its four festivals in Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin, reunited under the same name, present competition categories among which Best Feature Film or Documentary, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best…
“If we’re still reporting this many cases, how are we ever gunna get off the ship?” HBO has revealed the official trailer for the documentary short The Last Cruise, which will be available to watch on HBO later this month. The Last Cruise is a 40 minute doc that’s premiering at the SXSW Film Festival…
Now in its third decade, the tumultuous breakdown between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow has been highly publicised and covered from just about every angle. The advent of #MeToo and Dylan Farrow‘s open letter in the New York Times has reignited what was a dormant issue. Yet now this sleeping giant of animosity has awoken…
This story is excerpted and adapted from Will Burrard-Lucas’s The Black Leopard: My Quest to Photograph One of Africa’s Most Elusive Big Cats, published in March 2021 by Chronicle Books. I set off at 5.30 a.m., aiming to get through the center of Nairobi before the terrible rush hour traffic could build up. Ahead of…
Just north of the town of Canoa, Ecuador is a development project called Monkey Beach. Local archeologists have recently taken notice of a series of semi-circular stone walls that jut out into the sea from the beaches, located just to the north and south of this development. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho…
For a second consecutive year, our longtime local film festival South by Southwest (SXSW) has gone virtual due to the ongoing global pandemic. For movie, music, and technology conference enthusiasts around the world who have never been able to attend in the past, this actually works out nicely. For SXSW Film, this means opening up…
Happily, written and directed by BenDavid Grabinski, is a dark comedy that follows Tom (Joel McHale) and Janet (Kerry Bishé) a couple who have been happily married for 14 years. The picture-perfect nature of their relationship sometimes getting on the nerves of their friends. As Tom and Janet are visited by a stranger (Stephen Root)…
During the Battle of Atlanta fought during the American Civil War, Atlanta was famously burned to the ground by Union forces. Residents of the city were forced to rebuild from the ground up. One of the relics left remaining from that conflict are the ruins of the old Marietta Paper Mill along the shores of…
Christopher Nolan is hailed as one of modern cinema’s most successful puzzle-makers. In the perplexing Inception (2010), he broke cinematic grounds by considering the murky relationship between dreams and reality. Similarly, in his recent blockbuster, Tenet (2020), Nolan rejects ideas of linear time entirely in a manner that most viewers aren’t able to fully grasp…
First opened to the public in 1902, The Gobbins was created by Irish railway engineer Berkeley Deane Wise. At the time, the cliff path drew international admiration, but the costly upkeep and the onset of World War II meant the attraction fell into disrepair and eventually closed. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho…
Social media giants and reporters alike covered up the Hunter Biden scandal during the critical weeks before the 2020 presidential election. It likely helped him defeat President Donald Trump. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho Marathon Now, filmmaker Phelim McAleer wants to show the world what voters missed. Read moreRobert Stack Finally Solves a…
Isola del Garda is a small island that takes its current name from the surrounding Lake Garda. However, during the two millennia of human presence, the island has been known by many different names and has had many uses. Today, the island hosts a beautiful neogothic villa. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho…
“An old man like me, guided by these slightly childish impulses to have an adventure as if I was apathetic, fat Indiana Jones” When his long-time girlfriend Mariana is accepted into a year-long study programme in France, filmmaker Ignacio Ceroi packs his bags and leaves Buenos Aires to follow his beloved for a period of…
No traveller arrives in Mali, a town in the far north of Guinea’s mountainous Fouta Djallon region, without a story to tell. Mali, which is sometimes referred to as Mali-ville to distinguish it from the neighboring country of the same name, is as remote as it is beautiful. The town sits among rolling green mountains…
The volcanic island of Ponza is blessed with a chromatic richness and no cliff looks the same. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe world-famous crescent-shaped beach of Chiaia di Luna (Half Moon Beach) is dominated by sheer vertical white and yellow tuff cliffs that rise more than 300 feet (100 meters) above…
Yesterday’s Oscar nominations proved that there’s something to be cherished about rare moments when the big names step away from the limelight, leaving room for smaller but just as mighty filmmakers. That same dynamic carries on as 2021’s virtual film festival experience goes from Sundance to Berlin to its next exciting stop, SXSW. In previous…
Rob Belushi prefers drama. That’s not what I expected to hear from any Belushi, let alone the family’s prince. But the son of Jim and nephew of John has done his part in breaking into the industry without relying on his inherent legacy. Though he graduated from Chicago’s famed Second City improv academy – the alma mater of his…
“Cutting and shaving.” Y Not Studios has released a first look teaser trailer for an upcoming Indian comedy titled Mandela, the feature directorial debut of filmmaker Madonne Ashwin. This Tamil-language localized comedy is a commentary on politics in India, and very timely as satire about elections in the country. The film tells the story of…
“If it bleeds, it leads.” That’s the newsroom mantra introducing Nightcrawler protagonist Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) to the cutthroat world of “stringing,” in which freelance videographers prowl LA’s streets in search of grisly footage to sell to news stations. The phrase is a neat summation of the lurid priorities of news directors like Nina (Rene Russo),…
A pinprick of light perforates a pitch-black frame. A train rumbles. A woman screams. “Out of the black silence,” booms a guttural, menacing voice, “you were born in pain.” The light at the end of the tunnel grows larger. The woman’s screams die down, supplanted by those of her newborn baby boy. “You were born…