Day 10 is winding down, and it’s become quite clear that, as was the case for the Berlinale last February, this year’s Cannes is a significant regression after a 2021 edition that overflowed with a pre-pandemic backlog. So many of the films I’ve seen, produced and completed (if not completely developed) in the midst of COVID-era constraints, have felt smaller, cheaper, cruder than what I’ve encountered here in editions past—not a judgment per se, of course, but a new, ill-fitted look from a festival that so pointedly touts its eventitude: the spectacle, the glamor, the scope of its pet auteur’s […]

Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner made her English language debut with the UK-set project, Little Joe, taking up science fiction for the first time in her career after previously exploring horror and the period drama in Hotel (2004) and Amour fou (2014), respectively. In the film, Alice (Emily Beecham) works at a corporate biotechnology lab with a team of scientists who aim to develop new breeds of flowers that can, with their oxytocin-rich pollen, elevate people’s happiness, friendliness, and sex life—an evocative and typically rich concept for Hausner that still manages to be supplemental to her exquisitely detailed and precise mise […]

The 33rd Jerusalem Int’l Film Festival celebrated the 30-year anniversary of Avanti Popolo (1986), directed by Rafi Bukai, with the premiere of a newly completed digital restoration. Now considered an Israeli classic, the film is set during the last days of the Six Day War. The story focuses on two Egyptian soldiers (played by two Palestinian actors) who are trying to get out of the Sinai desert war zone and back home to safety in Cairo. Unusual for an Israeli feature: the Arab soldiers are positioned as the central, sympathetic protagonists. Even more unusual: they ultimately join up with three Jewish […]

The Locarno Film Festival is characterized by its relaxed atmosphere and by its expansive programming. One can meander easily from a George Cukor classic on 35mm (he’s receiving a complete retrospective here), to the latest Ben Rivers and Ben Russell experimental narrative (part of the “Signs of Life” series, named after the Herzog film), to Jeremy Saulnier’s Blue Ruin screening in the 8,000 seat Piazza Grande. And in between, you can take a dip in the lake. It’s the kind of festival where you never have to wait in line for a press screening. This exceptional experience is in part […]