Belfast
ORIGINALLY REVIEWED OCT. 13, 2021 Kenneth Branagh won the Academy Award for best original screenplay for this warm, funny, visually sumptuous autobiographical drama.
Red Sea
Rupture
The unsettled protagonists of Hamzah Jamjoom’s “Rupture” seem to be literally pulled through past, present and future in this Italian-inspired thriller in which a woman’s sanity is disturbed by her pregnancy and a malevolent concierge (played by Billy Zane) with his own unsavory baggage.
Red Sea 2021: The Verdict
Saudi Arabia takes a big step forward with an international culture event in Jeddah that, for all the glitches, showcased the modern and rapidly changing face of its society.
Huda’s Salon
Hany Abu-Assad’s best work toys with questions of moral absolutes, yet his dissatisfying “Huda’s Salon” is hamstrung by a weak script and ill-advised editing choices that fail to build characters or tension, despite an interesting premise.
Radiograph of a Family
Director Firouzeh Khosrovani’s own parents embody the lacerating split of Iran into modern liberals and Islamic fundamentalists after the 1978 revolution, in a personal doc of startling clarity and impact.
Hit the Road
Voted best film at the London BFI festival and Mar del Plata, an offbeat Iranian roadie launches the filmmaking career of Jafar Panahi’s son Panah in style.
Daughters of Abdulrahman
Predictably stereotyped characterizations still deliver some enjoyable moments in this female empowerment story that unfortunately also plays to the region’s homophobia but will be a crowd-pleaser in the Arab world.