Kleber Mendonca Filho
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Kleber Mendonca Filho, Neighboring Sounds
One of the year’s most startling debuts, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Neighboring Sounds is a queasily effective portrait of a society undergoing dynamic change. Unfolding over the course of a few weeks in the perpetually sunny Brazilian metropolis of Recife, the film centers on several families in one upscale block which is surrounded by new development. Yet the perpetual noise of high rise construction isn’t the only thing haunting the denizens of this seemingly comfortable and manicured urban space. Fear of crime and just-under-the-surface racial tension takes its toll on everyone in unspoken ways. Even as fading reminders of Brazil’s ever-present […]
by Brandon Harris on Aug 23, 2012 -
LOS ANGELES FILM FESTIVAL 2012
The Los Angeles Film Festival is something of an oddity, not least because of its relative obscurity: for a 11-day-long cinematic event a stone’s throw away from the heart of the American film industry, it hardly registers on the local radar. As a reasonably cinema-savvy Angeleno, I don’t personally know anyone who gets more excited for it than they do for AFI Fest – my usual screening buddies either skipped LAFF entirely or only showed up for a handful of films this time around – though perhaps the comparison isn’t entirely valid. Where this is a “traditional” fest, with programming […]
by Michael Nordine on Jul 12, 2012 -
A MAKER’S DOZEN: NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS
Don’t be fooled: Paranoia, alienation, and irrepressible ghosts of the past are some of the common threads among the features in the 41st edition of New Directors/New Films. No one could mistake it for a series of frothy comedies or unchallenging genre fare: feel-good is hardly an operative term. What is unmistakable is that, to my mind, it remains the finest, most original film festival in New York. These mostly first and second films from around the world are edgy but accessible, fresh but polished. A combination of fiction, docs, and animation, they are not intended to soothe but rather […]
by Howard Feinstein on Mar 20, 2012
