Tag: top-stories
Interview: Filmmaker Andrew Renzi & Subject Hector Barajas – Ready for War
What does it mean to be stuck behind enemy lines? For his third docu feature, Andrew Renzi (Fishtail, The Benefactor, They Fight) adds a...
Interview: Benjamín Naishtat – Rojo
Selected for the Platform section competition at TIFF and San Sebastian (winner of the Silver Shell for Best Director, the Silver Shell for Best...
Queen of Hearts | Review
The Sorrows of Milf: Dyrholm Puts the Extra in Extra-Marital as the Star of el-Toukhy’s Uncomfortable Drama
Danish director May el-Toukhy crafts a compelling melodrama...
Harriet | Review
A Road Less Traveled: Lemmons Lionizes Historical Icon Harriet Tubman in Safe Biopic
As the arrival of the first theatrical feature to properly pay homage...
The Irishman | Review
Benjamin Button-Man: Scorsese's Oldfellas Still Got It
A spiritual sequel to Goodfellas—with the black humor of The Wolf of Wall Street and the moral...
Interview: Carlo Sironi – Sole | 2019 PYIFF
Italian filmmaker Carlo Sironi — whose shorts have already brought him attention at Venice and Locarno — has now given us a striking first...
Interview: Aoqian Sun – Over the Sea | 2019 PYIFF
Before first-time Chinese filmmaker Sun Aoqian became a ravenous student of cinema, he was born to a family of farmers. Much of his childhood...
Frankie | Review
A Death in the Family: Sachs Sacks Huppert in Sun Dappled Soap Opera
The latest film from American director Ira Sachs is set in the...
Synonyms | Review
Lost in Translation: Lapid Languishes in Enigmatic, Complex Study on Cultural Identities
The rejection of self and the adoption of persona are prominent themes pouring...
Criterion Collection: Fists in the Pocket | Blu-ray Review
Criterion re-releases the mordant directorial debut of Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio, Fists in the Pocket (1965), just as the perennial filmmaker ends his sixth...
2019 PYIFF / Day 9: It’s a Wrap!
On Day 9 of the festival, PYIFF organized a special excursion for foreign press: a day trip to An Ze, a mountain known for...
Sister | 2019 Warsaw International Film Festival Review
Little Women: Tsotsorkova Poetic Study of Female Solidarity
Svetla Tsotsorkova’s assured sophomore feature proves that the Bulgarian filmmaker has an unparalleled eye for the raw,...
Never Happened | 2019 Warsaw International Film Festival Review
Rewriting History: Bereznakova Presents Fresh View on Two Decade Poli-Scandal
After working short documentaries, experimental and television film formats, Slovak director and video artist Barbora...
The Lighthouse | Review
I Can Hear the Mermaids Singing: Eggers Unleashes a Hyper-Stylized Portrait of Nautical Madness
Virginia Woolf (who, having known something about the subject and its...
Interview: Producer Natalie Metzger – Greener Grass
The old adage “behind every great man there’s a great woman” feels outdated in 2019. Nowadays, men are lucky to stand side-by-side with a...
Eli | Review
Devil May Care: Foy Falters with Campy Horror Flick
Director Ciarán Foy continues with genre in third narrative feature, Eli, a B-grade horror film...
Babak Anvari’s Wounds | 2019 Sundance Film Festival
Celebrated debut film Under the Shadow set in the war-torn Tehran of the 1980s has a lot of things going for it beyond the...
Criterion Collection: Cluny Brown (1946) | Blu-ray Review
Criterion resurrects Ernst Lubitsch’s final completed film Cluny Brown (1946), a post-war comedy about pre-WWII class divisions in 1938 England. Headlined by Jennifer Jones,...
Curator | 2019 Warsaw International Film Festival Review
Minimizing Style to Maximize Effect: Levchenko Goes Deep in Russian Murder Drama
According to the Cambridge English Dictionary the curator is a person who is in...
Invisible | 2019 Warsaw International Film Festival Review
Hidden Treasure: Jonynas Stages Greek Tragedy against Backdrop of Eastern Europe
A student of Krzysztof Zanussi, Lithuanian director Ignas Jonynas infuses his third feature film...
Cat in the Wall | 2019 Warsaw International Film Festival Review
Walls of existence: Politics & Pettiness find a Way Through the Cracks of Everyday Life in Bulgarian Debut
Bulgarian duo Vesela Kazakova and Mina Mileva’s...
Carturan | 2019 Warsaw International Film Festival Review
Pray the Lord My Soul To Take: Sandulescu’s Poignant and Witty Meditation on Mortality
Liviu Săndulescu’s Carturan is a tale about bribery, the uncaring bureaucratic...
Interview: Ulrich Köhler – In My Room
Coming seven years after 2011's Sleeping Sickness (Schlafkrankheit) and his longest time off between features, after his feverish study of settler psychology in West...
Joker | 2019 Toronto Intl. Film Festival Review
The Day the Clown Cried: Phillips Tries to Provoke the Herd in Adult Comic Book Origin Story
As another cinematic iteration of the eponymous Joker...
Lucy in the Sky | Review
Loosey Goosey: Hawley Gets Histrionic with Uneven Melodrama
At the end of Now, Voyager (1942) the chain-smoking Bette Davis delivers her iconic line to Paul...
Criterion Collection: Do the Right Thing (1989) | Blu-ray Review
Just in time for the film’s thirtieth anniversary, the Criterion Collection resurrects Spike Lee’s masterpiece Do the Right Thing with a 4K restoration for...
Criterion Collection: A Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman | Blu-ray Review
Criterion re-releases restorations of three Ingmar Bergman titles with A Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman, the collection’s first presentation of the Swedish auteurs works originally...
Sister Aimee | Review
If You Seek Aimee: Buck & Schlingmann Resurrect a Fallen Angel
Directors Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann succeed with one overarching point in their indie-ensconced...
The Day Shall Come | Review
Fooling the Children of the Revolution: Morris Returns with Dark, Political Satire
Stakes are perhaps too high for writer-director Christopher Morris’s sophomore film following the...
The Golden Glove | Review
No Glove No Love: Akin Revels in Garish Grotesqueries with Squalid Period Piece
Turkish-German director Fatih Akin resurrects the obscure German serial killer Fritz Honka...
Video Interview: Phuttiphong Aroonpheng – Manta Ray
As ubiquitous on the fall festival circuit as it is excellent, Thai border drama Manta Ray ticks all the boxes: it’s an accomplished arthouse...
IONCINEPHILE of the Month: Ognjen Glavonić’s Top Ten Films of All Time List
Have you ever wondered what are the films that inspire the next generation of visionary filmmakers? As part of our monthly IONCINEPHILE profile, we...
IONCINEPHILE of the Month: Ognjen Glavonić – The Load
IONCINEMA.com’s IONCINEPHILE of the Month feature focuses on an emerging creator from the world of cinema. This month, we feature Ognjen Glavonić who saw...
Criterion Collection: The Koker Trilogy | Blu-ray Review
There isn’t a cinematic figure like any other, at least who straddled such a drastic historical divide of censorship, like Abbas Kiarostami, a pioneer...
Ad Astra | Review
All Alone in the World: Gray Elegantly Propels Trademark Themes & Style into Outer Space
The curiosity of witnessing James Gray try his hand at...
Criterion Collection: The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952) | Blu-ray Review
For those accustomed to the bittersweet greatest hits of Japanese auteur Yasujirô Ozu’s later period familial dramas, the lesser known 1952 social satire The...
The Conversation: Top 10 Films of the 2019 Toronto Intl. Film Festival
Surprises were few and far between at a relatively reserved 2019 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival. Sans a rather intense interest in...
Devil Between the Legs | 2019 Toronto Intl. Film Festival Review
If Bleak Street Could Talk: Ripstein’s Not Afraid of Virginia Woolf in Sordid Marital Melodrama
Arturo Ripstein, one of Mexico’s most enduring and influential auteurs,...
Pelican Blood | 2019 Toronto Intl. Film Festival Review
Mother May I Sleep with Martyr?: Gebbe Dresses in Distress with Maternal Drama
It’s always lamentable to find a charismatic actor stymied by a poorly...
The Moneychanger | 2019 Toronto Intl. Film Festival Review
Money Ain’t for Nothin’: Veiroj Turns to Political Period Caper
A common saying in Montevideo, Uruguay, meant to succinctly condense the city’s appeal and cement...
No.7 Cherry Lane | 2019 Toronto Intl. Film Festival Revew
Remembrance of Things Cats: Yonfan Sketches a Rebellious Love Letter in Animated Debut
The multifaceted Yonfan returns to feature filmmaking for the first time in...
The Barefoot Emperor | 2019 Toronto Intl. Film Festival Review
Barefoot and Stagnant: Woodworth & Brosens Continue Their Belgian Political Satire
While one doesn’t necessarily have to be readily familiar with the 2016 film King...
The Conversation: 10 Most Anticipated Films – TIFF 2019
Despite its various programming cutbacks over the past several years, TIFF remains an overwhelming buffet of juxtapositions. A marvelous chance to catch up on...
The Conversation: 10 Most Anticipated Films – Venice 2019
There’s much to be excited for in the upcoming 2019 Venice Film Festival, the 76th edition of the world’s oldest major film festival. Of...
Interview: Ognjen Glavonic – The Load
World preeming at the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes, Ognjen Glavonic certainly had the odds stacked against him to create his fiction debut and a...
Interview: Basil Da Cunha – O Fim do Mundo | 2019 Locarno Film Festival
Basil Da Cunha’s O Fim do Mundo has just been unveiled as part of Locarno’s Concorso Internazionale, and this story of a young man...
Interview: Philippe Lesage – Genèse
A thematic follow-up to his fiction debut The Demons (2015), Genèse is linked to Philippe Lesage’s earlier film in more ways than one -...
Interview: Roberto De Feo – The Nest | 2019 Locarno Film Festival
Roberto De Feo is fresh from a Locarno bow with his debut feature The Nest, presented in the Crazy Midnight slot of the Piazza...
Interview: Gabriela Amaral Almeida – The Father’s Shadow | 2019 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival
With barely a year between productions, Brazilian filmmaker Gabriela Amaral Almeida moves from survivalism in O Animal Cordial to enlarger genre parameters to delve...
Bait | 2019 New Horizons Intl. Film Festival Review
Scratching the Surface: Jenkin’s Ambitious Visual Style Carries Cornish Coastal Drama
Experimental filmmaker Mark Jenkin shines a light on the film industry of Cornwall with...
