film festivals
Hit the Road review - leaving Tehran for truth and freedomSaturday, 30 July 2022![]() The trailer for Panah Panahi’s award-winning first feature Hit the Road is one of the most misleading I’ve yet seen thanks to its jaunty Western pop soundtrack and reassuring caption that the movie resembles an Iranian Little Miss Sunshine.Yes, it’s... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Parallel MothersTuesday, 24 May 2022![]() Parallel Mothers unfolds at a daringly slow pace, and there are moments in the first half of Pedro Almodóvar’s 2021 drama when you wish that things would speed up. And then you’re wrong-footed by the unexpected shifts in tone and direction, and... Read more... |
theartsdesk Radio Show 33: Ukraine special - musicians and artists direct from Ukraine, with co-host Anastasia PiliavskyTuesday, 10 May 2022![]() The latest edition of Peter Culshaw’s occasional global radio shows focuses totally on Ukraine, looking at music, art, culture and resistance.Culshaw has reported over the years on the Odessa Film and Jazz festivals for theartsdesk, and written for... Read more... |
Murina review - her father, her jailerWednesday, 13 April 2022![]() Murina, the suspenseful first feature written and directed by the Croatian filmmaker Antoneta Alamat Kusijanoviće, depicts a cruel dance that three of the four participants can't or won't stop. Its instigator, a father and husband in thrall to his... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Down by LawTuesday, 01 February 2022![]() Does restoration and upgrading to 4K always make a film better? I used to think so but after watching an unnervingly image-perfect Blu-ray of Down by Law, I’m not so sure.Jim Jarmusch's shaggy dog tale about three strangers thrown together in a... Read more... |
Best of 2021: FilmSunday, 02 January 2022Like every other artform, cinema suffered greatly in a year of lockdowns. But despite an ever-changing outlook, theartsdesk still managed to review over 130 films in 2021!Long-awaited blockbusters and no-budget indies fought for screen space big and... Read more... |
Titane review - love under the bonnetFriday, 31 December 2021![]() The restrictiveness of conventional gender identities explains the extreme body horror of Titane, in which a pregnant rookie firefighter frequently invoked as Jesus bleeds car oil from her vagina and from the stigmatic splits in her swollen belly.... Read more... |
Blu-ray: BeginningTuesday, 06 April 2021![]() This debut feature from the young Georgian writer-director Dea Kulumbegashvili is exceptional in many ways. It stands out not only for its hypnotic quality as a film that feels like that of an already formed auteur, as well as for the complex... Read more... |
Verdict review - social realism and court procedural combine in powerful Manila dramaSaturday, 13 March 2021![]() There’s something of an anomaly in Filipino director Raymund Ribay Gutierrez’s debut feature between its fast-moving dramatic opening, defined by an agile hand-held camera, and the much slower, more static scenes that follow. That early material,... Read more... |
Berlinale 2021: Petite Maman review – magical musings on the parent-child relationshipSaturday, 06 March 2021![]() Hot on the heels of her 2019 triumph Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma’s fifth feature continues a perfect track record; this is yet another gorgeous and perceptive film, told from a determinedly female perspective but with a wisdom... Read more... |
Berlinale 2021: Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn review – cheeky, timely and very provocativeThursday, 04 March 2021![]() The Romanian director Radu Jude invariably serves spicy satire that challenges his compatriots to face historical crimes and present failings. The latest is an erudite and daft, raunchy and knockabout, endlessly provocative film that, for sake of... Read more... |
Blu-ray: LibertéTuesday, 19 January 2021![]() Catalan director Albert Serra’s interest in late 18th century France is well established – his previous film was The Death of Louis XIV – but the title of his new one has precious little to do with the triadic revolutionary slogan that swept away... Read more... |
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