All wrapped up with the Lady Gaga starrer ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’, Tunisian gem ‘Aïcha’ by Mehdi Barsaoui and ‘Wolfs’ starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt — talk about a festival for the stars!
Read More
Richard Linklater's 'Hit Man' is an all around hit you should watch in cinemas, and on Netflix
Here are a few reasons why… One hint? Glen Powell smolders. You’re welcome.
Read More
Ali Suliman plays Mustafa, a father separated from his family by a wall, in Ameen Nayfeh’s ‘200 Meters’
Love in the time of occupation: Ameen Nayfeh's stunning '200 Meters' starring Ali Suliman in Venice
A father, his family, a wall. It’s a theme, an image we think of often these days, particularly when speaking of certain American policies and our current US President. But where is another part of the world where such a policy has been tried and tested, and of course, failed miserably on a human scale? Palestine, or Israel if you wish to call it with its post-1948 name. A land belonging to many and claimed by some.
In Ameen Nayfeh’s quiet masterpiece ‘200 Meters’, which premiered as part of the Giornate degli Autori lineup in Venice this year, Palestinian superstar Ali Suliman plays Mustafa, a loving husband and doting father.
Read More
Mostofa Sarwar Farooki's 'No Bed of Roses': Why this film brought me solace during this crisis
When I spent time in Paris with the late Richard Lormand, a film publicist whose passion for world cinema was a constant inspiration to those who knew him, he spoke often about “Farooki” and his 2017 film ‘No Bed of Roses’. Richard had represented the Bangladeshi filmmaker’s previous work in festivals and was really saddened that his latest wasn’t featured in Venice. It starred Irrfan Khan, whom we both adored and had seen in Locarno the year before. Whenever Richard spoke of a film, it turned into something magical and I could not rest until I had watched it.
Read More
Ziad Bakri and Maria Zreik in Zain Duraie’s ‘Give Up the Ghost’
"Choose love over fear, always": Zain Duraie talks about her short film 'Give Up the Ghost'
One of the hottest button issues for a modern woman concerns her ability to have a child. Depending on which society you are born into, it ranges from being a duty to a God-given right, with all shades of grey in between.
In her haunting, beautifully shot (by Benoît Chamaillard) and perfectly sound designed (by Israel Bañuelos) short film ‘Give Up the Ghost’, Jordanian filmmaker Zain Duraie explores the consequences on a marriage around the ability or inability to have a child.
Read More
Marcello Fonte in Matteo Garrone’s ‘Dogman’, photo by Greta De Lazzaris
London Film Festival is all going to the Italians... Italian filmmakers that is!
Back in February during Berlinale, at the very start of this strange yet fateful year, I watched Laura Bispoli’s ‘Daughter of Mine’ and fell back in love with Italian cinema. I was then satisfied further in Cannes, where I got to watch three more fantastic Italian films — which included Matteo Garrone’s ‘Dogman’ and Alice Rohrwacher’s ‘Happy as Lazzaro’. Then Venice rolled around and there was ‘What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire?’ by Roberto Minervini and my personal, patriotic soul burst with pride.
Well, London audiences will soon be able to experience all of these titles in one place along with a selection that will include Laura Luchetti’s ‘Twin Flower’, Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Suspiria’ and Eduardo De Angelis’ ‘The Vice of Hope’. They are all part of the BFI’s London Film Festival Italian selection of cinematic picks from our peninsula.
Read More
“A collector of contradictions”: Amos Gitai takes us on a voyage of thinking with ‘A Tramway in Jerusalem’
“And despite the clamors and the violence, we tried to preserve in our hearts the memory of a happy sea, of a remembered hill, the smile of a beloved face.” — Albert Camus from ‘Resistance, Rebellion and Death: Essays’
As I watched Amos Gitai’s latest ‘A Tramway in Jerusalem’ with the usual anticipation I dedicate to all the works of the visionary Israeli filmmaker, I looked for the funny. After all, Gitai himself, in his director’s notes called Tramway “an optimistic and ironic metaphor of the divided city of Jerusalem”. In the synopsis of the film, the word “comedy” is used yet when I watched ‘A Tramway in Jerusalem’, more than once, I cried. Long, perfectly needed tears. The film world premiered out of competition at this year’s Venice International Film Festival.
Read More
PHOTO BY LORENZO PIERMATTEI
Trine Dyrholm in Susanna Nicchiarelli’s ‘Nico 1988’
Talking ‘Nico 1988’ with Susanna Nicchiarelli and Trine Dyrholm
From a haunting first image of Christa Päffgen portrayed as a child watching Berlin burn in the distance with her mother at the end of the Second World War, to the core of her film ‘Nico 1988’ which concentrates on the last three years of the rockstar’s life, filmmaker Susanna Nicchiarelli keeps us, her audience, spellbound. ‘Nico 1988’ opened the Orizzonti section of this year’s Venice Film Festival and for me, the event started then and there, with this touching, moving, electrifying yet perfectly human masterpiece.
The life of Nico went from teenage model to Velvet Underground singer and Andy Warhol muse, to, as the artist himself famously stated, becoming “a fat junkie” and disappearing — all in the blink of an eye. Yet when the world wanted her to go away, as they do with pretty women once they turn, eh hum... older, say thirty, Nico found her second wind. She dyed her hair, started wearing head to toe black and became the original mistress of darkness, crooning songs about her existence that still send shivers down every woman’s spine, they are so true to life!
The film screens the weekend of April 26th in NYC, as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. Book tickets on the TFF website.
Read More
A still from ‘Human’ by Yann Arthus-Bertrand
“Cinema with a Conscience”: Five Movies that Changed My Life
We’ve all experienced the positive power of cinema. It is that moment, at the end of a movie, right before the lights come back on and as the credits roll by, when we feel we can change the world. We feel invigorated, wish to do better, want to be better and walk out of the theater with a new spring in our step. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, that energy, the magic of the movies, stays with us in our daily lives and continues to inspire a change that can become momentous.
Read More
PHOTO BY GIORA BEJACH
Lior Ashkenazi and Sarah Adler in still from Samuel Maoz’s ‘Foxtrot’
Talking ‘Foxtrot’ with Lior Ashkenazi, Sarah Adler and Samuel Maoz in Venice
In a great film, there is always a moment when things change — that instance when the viewer is caught off guard, and left with an indelible feeling to take home. I consider it the cinematic equivalent of that famous Maya Angelou quote “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Personally speaking, a truly successful movie is one where that moment remains with me, hours later, casting a spell over my heart and soul.
Samuel Maoz’s ‘Foxtrot’ is that film. More than twelve hours after watching it at the Venice Film Festival where it is featured in the main Competition section, I’m still only barely able to process it emotionally. Even though the filmmaker created an artful, visually stunning, sonically powerful, perfectly acted, intellectually stimulating and utterly entertaining film — I can just remember how it made me feel. I doubt I will ever forget actually.
Read More