Director Anne Zohra Berrached discusses 24 Weeks — her Berlinale Competition film about a couple who must decide whether to have a late abortion when they discover their child will have Down Syndrome — about the challenges of the subject matter and why she wanted non-professional actors for some of the parts.
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Canada’s Top Ten has strong films but lacks imagination
Canada’s Top Ten of 2015 represents a very strong slate of films. Yet it doesn’t quite reflect the diversity and originality of Canadian films last year.
Being 17 is more Sciamma’s than Techiné’s film
Berlinale correspondent Elena Lazic reviews Being 17. Although it was written by Céline Sciamma and directed by André Techiné, it’s got Sciamma’s fingerprints all over it.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses shines at the Donmar
Josie Rourke’s production at the Donmar plays up the novel’s feminist subtext while emphasizing the genuine bond between its two dissolute protagonists. The result is a surprisingly romantic take on this cynical novel.
The Lovers and the Despot lacks substance
The Lovers and the Despot tells what should be an interesting story without doing the work to create one. It recounts a bizarre slice of South Korean cinema history: in 1978, director Shin Sang-ok and his ex-wife, actress Choi Eun-hee, were kidnapped, separately, by Kim Jung-II from Hong Kong and held for eight years. Kim Jung-Il wanted swift improvements in the North Korean film industry, and this was his solution.
Notes on Blindness explores the soundscape
Documentarians Peter Middleton and James Spinney use segments of John M. Hull’s actual audio tape recordings to reconstruct his experience of going blind in this experimental non-fiction film.