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 semblanc