International Film

A man sits on a bench, wrapped in a coat he’s owned for years. He rests his feet at the head of Jaffa Street in Jerusalem. A tour guide comes along, decked to the nines…

Creating an intimate documentary that goes deep into an individual’s backstory can be one of the most difficult types of film to do right. The level of intimacy necessary can be difficult to capture and dip…

A teenage girl takes a step toward adulthood in contemporary Cairo.   Nick Kush: Farida Zahran shows plenty of restraint in telling this coming-of-age story; in the wrong hands, Youth could turn into a needlessly brutal…

Dialogue is one of the most prominent aspects when it comes to filmmaking. Lines such as “I’ll be back,” and “I am your father” have become nearly as notable as the movies they’re featured in…

Why Don’t You Just Die! comes from writer/director Kirill Sokolov and tells the story of Matvey, a young man who has been tasked with murdering his girlfriend’s detective father, Andrey, by none other than his…

The Platform often returns to a somewhat meta retort shared by the main character, Goreng (played by Ivan Massagué, who looks like a Spanish John Turturro), and his prison cellmate, Trimagasi (Zorion Eguileor, the perfect…

After last week’s The Platform, Netflix continues something of a roll for Spanish releases with David and Àlex Pastor’s The Occupant, a viscerally dark meditation on masculinity and status in an increasingly precarious world. (And…

Daniel Calparsoro’s Twin Murders: The Silence of the White City (2020) is a Spanish thriller on Netflix, and so it was composed with the World Wide Web in mind for its target demographic. However, this is…

Sometimes, a tragedy happens that is so beyond the scale of my comprehension, that I cannot fully engage in it. It can be hard to watch relentless news coverage or read emotional articles about senseless…

My introduction to Paolo Sorrentino’s wondrous style of filmmaking was with the first season of The Young Pope, a show that, despite much critical acclaim, became the subject of much ridicule in social media and…

If there is any nation on this earth that is truly overdue for awards attention due to their amazing output of quality cinema, it is South Korea. Shockingly, South Korea has never had a film…

Click here to read Part 1. MIFF 2019 keeps on going, and so do the mini reviews. Let’s dive right in! Sorry We Missed You At the sprightly age of 83, two-time Palme d’Or winner…

You know, if Netflix is going to continue to move towards its ultimate goal of world domination, it has to account for every culture around the world. Enter Bleach, the live-action version of the popular anime…