A Separation
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“I Try to Be Unbiased and Just”: A Masterclass with A Separation‘s Asghar Farhadi
In 2009, Asghar Farhadi made ripples around the world when About Elly picked up the Silver Bear at Berlinale. However, it was in 2011 that he truly took the world by storm. A Separation, a touching drama about a couple figuring their way out through a messy but amicable divorce, picked up the Golden Bear at Berlin and more than 60 other awards that year, including an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Having offended the conservative authorities back home, though, meant France became the setting of Farhadi’s latest project, The Past. At last month’s 33rd Istanbul Film Festival, the […]
by Laya Maheshwari on May 27, 2014 -
THE BERMUDA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
“Location, location, location” could very well serve as the tagline for the Bermuda International Film Festival. Set on a paradise island surrounded by spectacular pink sand and Technicolor-blue waters in the North Atlantic, it’s only a couple hours’ plane trip from NYC (or less if you can hitch a ride with the private-jetting Mayor Mike). This gracious and warmly welcoming fest – a reflection of the country’s unbelievably gregarious and helpful population (pull out a map and you’re just as likely to have a total stranger walk you to your destination as point the way) – is now in its […]
by Lauren Wissot on Apr 10, 2012 -
2012 PALM SPRINGS FILM FESTIVAL
There’s no better time of year to be in Palm Springs than early January. The air is rejuvenating, the desert landscape alluring, and amidst all the easy living, PS kicks annually kicks off film festival season. Now in its 23rd year, the Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) prides itself on appealing to both the first-time moviegoer and the seasoned connoisseur. For the former, there were easily digestible films like Lasse Halstrom’s Salmon Fishing In The Yemen, which opened the Festival, and the Tilda Swinton-starrer We Need To Talk About Kevin; for the latter, the 276-minute Taiwanese film, Warriors of […]
by Graham Flashner on Jan 30, 2012 -
“THIS IS NOT A FILM” AND MORE: IRANIAN CINEMA AT THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL
When is a film not a film? In one of the triumphs of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the remarkable documentary This is Not A Film, by Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, asks this question and more as it portrays, diary-like, a day in Panahi’s life awaiting trial at his home in Tehran. Panahi talks on the phone with friends, illustrates with tape the boundaries of a future film set, chats with a garbage man who has just earned his Masters degree, and is kept company by his daughter’s free-roaming and giant pet lizard, Igi. If one is forbidden by law to make movies for 20 years, if one […]
by Livia Bloom Ingram on May 21, 2011
