International Film Festival Rotterdam 2021
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“Everybody Had to Work Barefoot”: P.S. Vinothraj on His Tiger-Award Winning Pebbles
The fields that once sustained Arittapatti village have perished from a long drought. All that’s left is parched desert without trees to screen the land from the sun. Since farm work is virtually non-existent, locals must cross this harsh terrain to jobs in the surrounding towns. P.S. Vinothraj’s Tiger Award-winning Pebbles, follows a barefoot father and son as they travail this desert in rural Tamil Nandu. A day drunk Ganapathy (Karuththadaiyaan) plucks his son (Chellapandi) from class and immediately asks him to choose between himself or his mother. The little boy doesn’t reply, his frenetic father walks off, and the […]
by A.E. Hunt on Feb 10, 2021 -
Bebia, à mon seul désir, The Year Before the War and Friends and Strangers: The 2021 International Film Festival Rotterdam
Chiaroscuro is as good as a drug in Bebia, à mon seul désir, the striking debut feature from Russian-born, London-based writer-director Juja Dobrachkous, which premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) last week, in the Tiger competition. The impressionistic drama feels as if conjured out of smoke, dead leaves and rain clouds. Perhaps more to the point, its camera relishes the contrast between the pale skin of teenage model Ariadna (Anastasia Davidson), strutting the catwalk in London, and the Stygian hue of the mourning dresses worn by the women who loudly lament before her grandmother’s casket, back in rural […]
by Steve Dollar on Feb 10, 2021
