Tag: international
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Sundance 2026: My Friend’s House Is Here: A House Made of Light and Defiance
A lyrical drama set in Tehran’s underground art scene, The Friend’s House is Here follows two women who build a sanctuary of creativity and sisterhood. The film blends intimate performances with striking visuals, offering a story of shared courage and artistic devotion.
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Left Handed Girl: A Song of Gentle Courage
This in-depth review of Left Handed Girl celebrates Janet Tsai’s radiant performance and Shih King Tsohu’s tender direction. The film earns an A grade for its warmth, childlike wonder, and luminous ensemble cast. It is a cinematic embrace of individuality, courage, and joy, leaving the viewer with lasting brightness.
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Moon: The Body Knows Before the Mind
In Moon, Kurdwin Ayub directs with a quiet pulse, letting the body speak before the mouth does, letting silence stretch across gilded rooms and dusty training mats. Florentina Holzinger’s Sarah is a woman of muscle and memory, a fighter who has lost her fight, now wandering through a world that doesn’t know what to do…
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Caught by the Tides: The River Remembers
Jia Zhang-ke’s Caught by the Tides is a film of quiet persistence, a meditation on time’s erosion and the stubborn dignity of a woman who refuses to be erased. It moves not with urgency but with endurance, tracing Qiao Qiao’s journey through the shifting landscapes of China, both geographic and emotional. Shr carries the film’s weight with…
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Hard Truths : Mike Leigh’s Unsparing Mirror
Mike Leigh’s *Hard Truths* offers a profoundly compassionate and emotionally resonant exploration of the complexities within family dynamics, resilience, and the courage it takes to confront brutal realities. At the heart of the film is an outstanding performance by Jean Marie Baptiste as Pansy, who captures the essence of human vulnerability with grace and authenticity.…
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All We Imagine as Light: A Tapestry of Ephemeral Light
Movie Info: The light, the lives, and the textures of contemporary, working-class Mumbai are explored and celebrated by writer/director Payal Kapadia, who won the Grand Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for her revelatory fiction feature debut. Centering on two roommates who also work together in a city hospital–head nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and…
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Slamdance 2025: Confessions Chin Chin: A Journey of Revelations
Movie Info: Based on true stories. Vicente and Lolo, two queer actors in search of a better future, cross paths with Sofia, Roberto, and other characters in the enigmatic CAZADOR bar in Madrid. To the frenetic rhythm of jazz, amid overflowing drinks, they address topics such as artistic life, sexual freedom, relentless discrimination, the struggle…
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Slamdance 2025: Banr”: A Heartfelt Exploration of Love and Memory in the Face of Alzheimer’s
Movie Info: After 40 years of devotion, an elderly couple faces a heartbreaking farewell—he succumbs to a heart attack, while she battles Alzheimer’s, trapped in a cycle of fragmented memories and a desperate search for her family, as love fades into unrecognition. Review: “Banr,” directed by Erica Xia-Hou, is a touching and deeply emotional film…
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All Shall Be Well: A Symphony of Resilience
Movie Info: Angie and Pat have been a happy and wealthy lesbian couple in their 60s for last 30 years, living in Pat’s flat in Hong Kong. Their friends and relatives respect and adore their relationship. One night, when Pat suddenly passes away, Angie receives comfort from her friends and initially from Pat’s family as…
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The Seed of the Sacred Fruit: Roots of Resistance
Movie Info: Shot entirely in secret, Mohammad Rasoulof’s award-winning thriller, THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG, centers on a family thrust into the public eye when Iman is appointed as an investigating judge in Tehran. As political unrest erupts in the streets, Iman realizes that his job is even more dangerous than expected, making him…
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Sundance 2025: Two Women: A Bold Exploration of Female Desire and Liberation
Movie Info: Two struggling mothers grapple with unfulfilled expectations and societal pressures. As they navigate their roles as wives and professionals, one woman’s unexpected affair sparks a reevaluation of their lives and priorities Review: Two Women, directed by Chloe Robichaud, is a bold and contemporary take on female desire and liberation. The film, which premiered…
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Sundance 2025: DJ Ahmet: A Symphony of Youth, Tradition, and Forbidden Love
MOVIE INFO: Ahmet, a 15-year-old boy from a remote Yuruk village in North Macedonia, finds refuge in music while navigating his father’s expectations, a conservative community, and his first experience with love — a girl already promised to someone else. BREVIEW: “DJ Ahmet,” directed by Georgi M. Unkovski, is a captivating drama that beautifully intertwines…
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Sundance 2025: Brides: A Poignant Journey of Friendship and Freedom
MOVIE INFO: Two teenage girls in search of freedom, friendship, and belonging run away from their lives in the UK with a dangerous plan of travelling to Syria. REVIEW: “Brides,” directed by Nadia Fall, is a deeply moving drama that explores the themes of friendship, freedom, and the search for belonging. The film follows two…
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The Girl with the Needle: A Dark Fairy Tale of Survival and Redemption
MOVIE INFO: A standout selection from the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE is a dark fairy tale about one woman’s search for tenderness and morality in a cruel world. Both eerie and exquisite, writer-director Magnus von Horn’s latest film tracks young factory worker Karoline as she struggles to survive in post-WWI…
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Memoirs of a Snail: A Whimsical Journey Through Time and Shells
MOVIE INFO: In 1970s Australia, Grace’s life is troubled by misfortune and loss. After their mother dies during pregnancy, she and her twin brother, Gilbert, are raised by their paraplegic-alcoholic former juggler father, Percy. Despite a life filled with love, tragedy strikes anew when Percy passes away in his sleep. The siblings are forcibly separated…
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Sleep: A Haunting Exploration of Possession and Matrimonial Unity
MOVIE INFO: SLEEP follows newlyweds Hyun-su (Lee Sun-kyun, PARASITE) and Soo-jin (Jung Yu-mi), whose domestic bliss is disrupted when Hyun-su begins speaking in his sleep, ominously stating, “Someone’s inside.” From that night on, whenever he falls asleep, Hyun-su transforms into someone else, with no recollection of what happened the night before. Overwhelmed with anxiety that…
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Close Your Eyes: A Masterful Return for Victor Erice
MOVIE INFO: Set in contemporary Madrid, an aging filmmaker named Miguel Garay is called upon to recount his memories of working on his final and still unfinished film, “The Farewell Gaze.” During its production, the lead actor and Miguel’s close friend, Julio Arenas, disappeared without a trace, leaving in his wake a mystery that would…
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Red Rooms: A Haunting Dive into the Dark World of True Crime Obsession
MOVIE INFO: The high-profile case of serial killer Ludovic Chevalier has just gone to trial, and Kelly-Anne is obsessed. When reality blurs with her morbid fantasies, she goes down a dark path to seek the final piece of the puzzle: the missing video of a murdered 13-year-old girl, to whom Kelly-Anne bears a disturbing resemblance.…
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Last Summer: A Bold Exploration of Forbidden Desires
MOVIE INFO: With her first film in a decade, the fearless 75-year-old French auteur Catherine Breillat (Fat Girl, The Last Mistress) proves she’s as provocative as ever with her Cannes-stirring film, which drives down the dark road of uncontrollable passion. A remarkably nuanced, radiant Léa Drucker plays Anne, an attorney who has plateaued in her…
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Flow: A Mesmerizing Journey Through Nature’s Fury and Humanity’s Echoes
MOVIE INFO: A wondrous journey, through realms natural and mystical, Flow follows a courageous cat after his home is devastated by a great flood. Teaming up with a capybara, a lemur, a bird, and a dog to navigate a boat in search of dry land, they must rely on trust, courage, and wits to survive…
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Evil Does Not Exist: A Thought Provoking Near Masterpiece
MOVIE INFO: In the rural alpine hamlet of Mizubiki, not far from Tokyo, Takumi and his daughter, Hana, lead a modest life gathering water, wood, and wild wasabi for the local udon restaurant. Increasingly, the townsfolk become aware of a talent agency’s plan to build an opulent glamping site nearby, offering city residents a comfortable…
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Terrestrial Verses: A Secular Satire on Iran’s Religious and Political Structures
MOVIE INFO: Terrestrial Verses follows everyday people from all walks of life as they navigate the cultural, religious, and institutional constraints imposed on them by various social authorities, from school teachers to bureaucrats. These stirring vignettes, humorous and affecting, capture the spirit and determination of people amidst adversity, offering a nuanced portrait of a complex…
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Robot Dreams: Do Robots Dream of Electric Friendships?
MOVIE INFO: DOG lives in Manhattan and he’s tired of being alone. One day he decides to build himself a robot, a companion. Their friendship blossoms, until they become inseparable, to the rhythm of 80’s NYC. One summer night, DOG, with great sadness, is forced to abandon ROBOT at the beach. Will they ever meet…
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“Emilia Pérez: A Bold Fusion of Genres and Stellar Performances”
MOVIE INFO: From renegade auteur Jacques Audiard comes Emilia Pérez, an audacious fever dream that defies genres and expectations. Through liberating song and dance and bold visuals, this odyssey follows the journey of four remarkable women in Mexico, each pursuing their own happiness. The fearsome cartel leader Emilia (Karla Sofía Gascón) enlists Rita (Zoe Saldaña),…
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Exhuma: Exhuming All the Layers of Korean Horror
MOVIE INFO: When a renowned shaman (KIM Go-Eun) and her protégé (Lee Do-hyun) are hired by a wealthy, enigmatic family, they begin investigating the cause of a disturbing supernatural illness that affects only the first-born children of each generation. With the help of a knowledgeable mortician (YOO Hai-jin) and the country’s most revered geomancer (CHOI…
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The Monk and the Gun: A Political Fable of Knowing Shangra-La
MOVIE INFO: An American travels into Bhutan in search of a valuable antique rifle and crosses paths with a young monk who wanders through the serene mountains, instructed by his teacher to make things right again. REVIEW: The Monk and the Gun is a Buddhist comedy about knowing and doing the right thing in the…
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Monster: A Multi-headed Evil
MOVIE INFO: When her young son Minato starts to behave strangely, his mother feels that there is something wrong. Discovering that a teacher is responsible, she storms into the school demanding to know what’s going on. But as the story unfolds through the eyes of mother, teacher and child, the truth gradually emerges. REVIEW: There…
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Housekeeping for Beginners: No Daddy Nearest
MOVIE INFO: From acclaimed filmmaker Goran Stolevski comes a story exploring the universal truths of family, both the ones we’re born into and the ones we find for ourselves. Dita never wanted to be a mother, but circumstances force her to raise her girlfriend’s two daughters, tiny troublemaker Mia and rebellious teen Vanesa. A battle…
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Blackbird, Blackbird, BlackBerry: Finding A Desperate Love in Middle Age Loneliness
MOVIE INFO: Etero, a 48-year-old woman living in a small village in Georgia, has chosen to remain unmarried. She cherishes her freedom, as much as her cakes. Her choice to live alone is often the cause of gossip among her fellow villagers. Unexpectedly, she finds herself falling into a passion with a man and is…
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I Have Electric Dreams: Coming of Age in Costa Rica
MOVIE INFO: Eva is a strong-willed, restless 16-year-old girl who lives with her mother, her younger sister and their cat, but desperately wants to move in with her estranged father. Clinging onto him as he goes through a second adolescence, she balances between the tenderness and sensitivity of teenage life and the ruthlessness of the…
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The Five Devils: The Scent of the Past
MOVIE INFO: Eight-year-old Vicky has a mysterious gift: she can recreate any scent she comes across, even that of her beloved mother Joanne. When her estranged aunt suddenly returns to town, the invocation of her fragrance plunges the young girl back in time to unravel a past replete with family secrets and queer romance. REVIEW:…
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Love, Divided: Breaking Down the Walls to Love
MOVIE INFO: Valentina is a pianist preparing for an audition. David is a games inventor who can only concentrate in complete silence. Separated by a paper-thin wall, they strive to live in harmony with each other. REVIEW: Love, Divided uses about a foot of separation to create rom-com charm. That’s the distance between the walls…
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Infested: Itsy Bitsy Spiders Grow and Grow
Movie Info: Kaleb is about to turn 30 and has never been lonelier. He’s fighting with his sister over an inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Fascinated by exotic animals, he finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the…
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Yannick: Holding the Viewer Hostage
MOVIE INFO VIA ROTTEN TOMATOES: In the middle of a performance of the play “Le Cocu,” Yannick interrupts the show to take the evening back in hand. He demands to be entertained but is rejected and ridiculed.Content collapsed. REVIEW: The French filmmaker, Quentin Dupieux has his own officially recognized film genre in his native country. …
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The Settlers: The Terror of Tierra del Fuego…
MOVIE INFO VIS ROTTEN TOMATOES: Chile, 1901. Three horsemen embark on an expedition, tasked with securing a wealthy landowner’s vast property. Accompanying a reckless British lieutenant and an American mercenary is mestizo marksman Segundo, who comes to realize their true mission is to violently “remove” the indigenous population. REVIEW: The Settlers is a grim violent…
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The Persian Version: The Road that Goes To and Away From Iran
MOVIE INFO VIA ROTTEN TOMATOES: Leila is an Iranian American woman who strives to find balance and embrace her opposing cultures. When her large family reunites in New York City for her father’s heart transplant, she keeps everyone at arm’s length — until a secret is revealed. REVIEW: “I dreamed of being the Iranian Martin…
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Perfect Days: Hanging On to the Best of Him
MOVIE INFO VIA ROTTEN TOMATOES: Hirayama seems utterly content with his simple life as a cleaner of toilets in Tokyo. Outside of his very structured everyday routine he enjoys his passion for music and for books. And he loves trees and takes photos of them. A series of unexpected encounters gradually reveal more of his…
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The Teacher’s Lounge: A Microcosm of Cultural Fear in the Classroom.
MOVIE INFO VIA ROTTEN TOMATOES: Carla Nowak, a dedicated sports and math teacher, starts her first job at a high school. She stands out among the new staff because of her idealism. When a series of thefts occur at the school and one of her students is suspected, she decides to get to the bottom…
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Return to Seoul: Lost and Found in Mistranslation
MOVIE INFO VIA ROTTEN TOMATOES: On an impulse to reconnect with her origins, Freddie, 25, returns to South Korea for the first time, where she was born before being adopted and raised in France. The headstrong young woman starts looking for her biological parents in a country she knows so little about, taking her life…
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Other People’s Children: Feeling the True Romance
MOVIE INFO VIA ROTTEN TOMATOES: Rachel is 40 years old, with no children. She loves her life: her high school students, her friends, her ex, her guitar lessons. When she falls in love with Ali, she becomes attached to Leila, his 4-year-old daughter. She tucks her into bed, cares for her, loves her like her…
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Slamdance Review: The Accident: Trying to Tow the Line in an Italian Way
Movie info via Slamdance After being fired, Marcella, a gentle hearted mother going through separation, buys a tow truck; she gets trapped deeper and deeper in a cynical and aggressive world until a terrible opportunity shines in front of her. Review: Giuseppe Garau’s The Accident is shot strictly from the passenger side of the leading…
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Revoir Paris: Salvaging the Gaps of a Shattered Memory
MOVIE INFO- ROTTEN TOMATOES: After an idyllic date night full of red wine and a late-night motorcycle ride home, Mia (Virginie Efira) stops at a Parisian bistro to take shelter from a downpour. Her reprieve is shattered when a gunman opens fire. Three months later, with a frustratingly hazy memory of the attack, Mia finds…
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One Fine Morning: Living in the Joie De Vivre
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: Sandra, a young mother who raises her daughter alone, pays regular visits to her sick father. While she and her family fight tooth and nail to get him the care he requires, Sandra reconnects with Clément, a friend she hasn’t seen in a while. Although he is in a relationship,…
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Anatomy of a Fall: Putting the Author and Audience Response on Trial
Movie info via Rotten Tomatoes: For the past year, Sandra, her husband Samuel, and their eleven-year-old son Daniel have lived a secluded life in a remote town in the French Alps. When Samuel is found dead in the snow below their chalet, the police question whether he was murdered or committed suicide. Samuel’s suspicious death…
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Close: Splitting Childhood into Joy and Grief
Storyline via IMDB: With summer drawing to a close, inseparable 13-year-old best friends Léo and Rémi idle away the rest of the holidays before school. It is as if the two bosom buddies share an unbreakable brotherly bond beyond their comprehension–in fact, nothing can ever come between them. However, when the boys’ cloudless friendship catches…
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Eo: Transfiguring the Suffering of Every Living Thing
Plot via IMDB: The world is a mysterious place when seen through the eyes of an animal. EO, a grey donkey with melancholic eyes, meets good and bad people on his life’s path, experiences joy and pain, endures the wheel of fortune randomly turn his luck into disaster and his despair into unexpected bliss. But…
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Empire of Light: Living Within the Flickering Light
Plot via IMDB: Hilary (Olivia Colman) is a cinema manager struggling with her mental health, and Stephen (Micheal Ward) is a new employee longing to escape the provincial town where he faces daily adversity. Together they find a sense of belonging and experience the healing power of music, cinema, and community. Empire of Light takes…
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Sundance: Mami Wata
Plot via Sundance:In the oceanside village of Iyi, the revered Mama Efe (Rita Edochie) acts as an intermediary between the people and the all-powerful water deity Mami Wata. But when a young boy is lost to a virus, Efe’s devoted daughter Zinwe (Uzoamaka Aniunoh) and skeptical protégé Prisca (Evelyne Ily Juhen) warn Efe about unrest…
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Sundance: When It Melts
Plot via Sundance:Eva struggles with human connection. Now that her younger sister Tess is moving out, and long estranged from her neglectful parents, the fragile Eva is finally truly alone. Already reeling, she’s instinctively revulsed by a social media post announcing the memorial celebration for a long-passed childhood friend. She emotionally recalls her sensitive 13-year-old…
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Sundance: Girl
Plot via Sundance:Mother-daughter duo Grace and Ama have established a deep bond that’s protected them from outsiders, but as they start anew in Glasgow, things begin to change. Ama’s burgeoning puberty and curiosity set off reminders of a past that 24-year-old Grace has been running from. The comforting fairytale-like origin story that Grace has been…
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Sundance: Scrapper
Plot via Sundance:Following her mother’s death, a resourceful 12-year-old girl, Georgie (Lola Campbell), continues to live alone in their London-outskirts flat. She makes money stealing bikes with her friend, Ali (Alin Uzun), and keeps the social workers off her back by pretending to live with an uncle. It works like a charm until Jason (Harris…
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Sundance: La Pecera (The Fishbowl)
Plot via Sundance:After years of remission, Noelia’s cancer has returned and is spreading quickly. Exhausted by relentless treatment plans and pills that do more harm than good, she seeks another way out. Brushing aside her boyfriend Jorge’s well-meaning but suffocating gestures, she heads back to Vieques, the blissful eastern Puerto Rican island where she grew…
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Sundance: Mama Cruz
Plot via Sundance:Devoutly religious Cruz leads a routine existence with her husband and precocious granddaughter Viky, while her daughter Carlota chases her dream of becoming a professional dancer in Vienna. A single errant click while attempting to navigate the internet momentarily exposes Cruz to online pornography. She’s mortified but suddenly reminded of her own desires.…
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Sundance: Slow
Plot via Sundance:Contemporary dancer Elena meets Dovydas when he is assigned to interpret via sign language in a class she is teaching to deaf youth. Their connection is immediate, kinetic, and frictionless. As they gravitate toward each other, resisting the forces and interventions of their separate daily lives, their bond deepens from platonic to romantic.…
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Sundance: Bad Behaviour
Plot via Sundance:Lucy seeks enlightenment. The former child actress makes a pilgrimage to join her guru, Elon Bello (Ben Whishaw), for a silent retreat at a beautiful mountain resort with a Tesla-crammed parking lot. Before she shuts off her phone to the world, Lucy reaches out to her daughter, Dylan — a stunt person training…
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Sundance: Animalia
Plot via Sundance:Heavily pregnant Itto looks forward to a day of peace and quiet when she gets her affluent household mostly to herself after her husband, Amine, goes away on business. She’s quickly lost sight of her modest origins and has adapted to her new family’s detached opulence. But when a mysterious state of emergency…
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Sundance: Heroic
Plot via Sundance:Eighteen-year-old Luis (Santiago Sandoval Carbajal) enlists as an infantry cadet in the Heroic Military College in the hopes of becoming an officer and supporting his struggling family. Tucked away in the mountains and surrounded by statues honoring Aztec gods, the school is constructed from giant slabs of stone and ruled by even more…