Tag: 2023 Berlin International Film Festival
Music | Review
Oedipus Shrugged: Schanelec Finds Tragedy is the Song That Doesn’t End
There’s little use clinging to the description of Angela Schanelec’s latest film Music as...
20,000 Species of Bees | Review
The Secret Life of Bees: Solaguren’s Warm Debut Explores the Communal Dictation of Gender Identity
Our relationship to our gender and sexual identities is...
Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything | Review
Goodbye, First Love: Atef Explores Pangs of Passion Amidst Detached Reunification
For her sixth feature film, Germany’s Emily Atef returns to themes of circumstance...
Limbo | Review
Desert Fury: Sen Gets Bleak in the Heat of a Cold Case Mystery
Despite it being the title of innumerable films from around the world,...
The Shadowless Tower | Review
The Polite Stuff: Lu Searches for Redemption Through the Walking & Talking Cure
In the strangely alluring The Shadowless Tower, (Bai Ta Zhi Guang)...
Silver Haze | Review
Keeper of the Flame: Polak Reckons with Reconciliation vs. Retribution in Conventional Drama
Dutch director Sacha Polak continues to explore the difficulties of acceptance and...
Disco Boy | Review
Mal Travaille: Abbruzzese Finds the Rhythm of the Night in Hypnotic Debut
“E’en hell hath its peculiar laws,” remarked Faust in Goethe’s eternal classic, the...
Interview: Lila Avilés – Tótem
Among the titles competing for the Golden Bear at the 2023 Berlinale, the sophomore feature by Mexican filmmaker Lila Avilés brims with vitality. It...
Tótem | Review
Life and Death of the Party: Aviles’ Bustling Ensemble Piece Balances Pain & Profundity
Taking place over the course of one frenetic day, Lila...
Manodrome | Review
Wrecked Ralph: Trengove Gazes into the Weaponization of Masculinity in Unsettling Character Study
Playwright and activist Eve Ensler commented on a 2017 panel regarding how...
She Came to Me | Review
Guilty of Romance: Miller Weaves a Wacky and Disarmingly Charming Love Tapestry
To those who think the possibilities of heartfelt romantic comedies dried up in...
Interview: Jennifer Reeder – Perpetrator
With an output of three feature films in just four years and several short films in-between, a purveyor in Feminist horror cinema genre, American...
Afire | Review
Pleasure to Burn: Petzold Stokes the Flames in Diffident Drama
A fragile male ego finds itself dismantled in Afire (Roter Himmel), the second chapter...
Past Lives | Review
Tell Me That You Love Me, Nora Moon: Song Explores Destiny and Longing in Potent Debut
Romance cut short before it reaches full bloom is...
BlackBerry | Review
Hold the Phone: Johnson Delivers the Ballad of the BlackBerry
Exposing the accidental alchemy which generated the titular BlackBerry, the world’s first Smartphone (and as...
2023 Berlin International Film Festival Coverage Wrap-Up
The 2023 edition of the Berlin International Film Festival has come and gone (we got plenty more to insert here), but here are some...
Till the End of the Night | 2023 Berlin Film Festival Review
Night Boos: Hochhäusler Bungles Black Market Crime Thriller
Blending fatal romanticism and B-movie genre tropes, it’s not difficult to see where a certain Fassbinder sensibility...
The Survival of Kindness | 2023 Berlin Film Festival Review
Lady in a Cage: de Heer’s Dystopia Explores the Enduring Echoes of Colonialism
Dutch-born director Rolf de Heer has been a mainstay of Australian cinema...
Living Bad (Viver Mal) | 2023 Berlin Film Festival Review
The Mirror Has Two Faces: Canijo’s Customers Are Always Blight with Inverse Melodrama
“Happiness consumes itself like a flame. It cannot burn for ever, it...
Bad Living | 2023 Berlin Film Festival Review
The Best Exotic Portugal Hotel: Canijo Examines Motherhood as Misanthropy in Masterful Familial Miasma
The women handling the specialty boutique hotel in Joao Canijo’s Mal...
Le grand chariot (The Plough) | 2023 Berlin Film Festival Review
Father Knows Best: Garrel’s Family Affair Flounders in Banality
Although co-credited to the late, great Jean-Claude Carrière and starring a whole gaggle of the Garrel...
Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert | 2023 Berlin Film Festival Review
Road to Nowhere: Von Trotta Presents the Basics on Bachmann
Throughout her career, Margarethe Von Trotta, a key figure from the New German Wave of...
The Teachers’ Lounge | 2023 Berlin Film Festival Review
Dangerous Finds: Catak Mines the Impossibility of Idealism in Departmental Dilemma
Sometimes maintaining the semblance of a ‘safe space’ means sublimating self-righteousness, a lesson learned...
The Beast in the Jungle | 2023 Berlin Film Festival Review
Waiting for the Stars to Align: Chiha Finds Fruit Rotting on the Vine
“Good things come to those who wait” might be a commonly bastardized...
