Violeta Salama’s warm and sensitive feature debut, Alegría, is exactly the kind of film you look for at a Jewish Film Festival: a travelogue and a story of culture, religion, and family.
Essays
Cannes Film Review: Manuela Martelli’s 1976 ratchets up the tension
Manuela Martelli’s feature debut, 1976, which she co-wrote with Alejandra Moffat, is equal parts character study and taut political drama. The film 1976 screened in the Director’s Fortnight sidebar at Cannes 2022.
Cannes Review: Naomi Kawase’s Official Film of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Side A
Naomi Kawase’s Official Film of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Side A avoids the usual tropes and cliches of sports films, focusing instead on how the athletes are rounded people, as well as the beauty fleetingness of athletic achievement
Continental Drift (South) is a biting satire and family drama
Lionel Baier’s biting yet heartfelt comedy Continental Drift tackles the migrant crisis and the consequences of personal failures of empathy.
Cannes: Marie Kreutzer’s film Corsage finds the Empress in an existential crisis
Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage, which premiered in the Un Certain Regard sidebar at the Cannes Film Festival, reframes the story of Empress Elisabeth of Australia (Sissi) as one of a woman trying to live up to impossible beauty standards in a patriarchal world.
Cannes: Erige Sehiri’s Under the Fig Trees is a thoughtful day Tunisian drama
Set over the course of one day, Erige Sehiri’s narrative feature debut Under the Fig Trees (Sous les figues) is a thoughtful ensemble film about the group of workers in a Tunisian fig orchard.