Red Sea

Belfast

Mar 28, 2022 | Featured, Festivals, London, Red Sea, Tallinn, Toronto

ORIGINALLY REVIEWED OCT. 13, 2021 Kenneth Branagh won the Academy Award for best original screenplay for this warm, funny, visually sumptuous autobiographical drama.

An immersive, sensorial plunge into a young Iraqi refugee’s desperation as he evades capture by anti-immigration vigilantes in a Bulgarian forest, filmed with taut suspense and anchored by a stand-out performance from Adam Ali.

Rupture

Jan 5, 2022 | Festivals, Red Sea, Spotlight

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.

Communion

Dec 31, 2021 | Featured, Festivals, Red Sea

In his exploration of a man’s descent into madness during the present pandemic, director-actor Nejib Belkadhi makes a rare of-the-moment drama, inflected with humor and surrealism, that captures our unease in ways likely to outlast COVID’s grip on our psyches.

The Exam

Dec 25, 2021 | Featured, Festivals, International Oscars 2024, Karlovy Vary, Red Sea

Cheating on a high school exam for a good cause gives top Iraqi Kurdish writer and director Shawkat Amin Korki (‘Memories on Stone’) a fertile moral field to examine the traps surrounding female empowerment.

Red Sea 2021: The Verdict

Dec 19, 2021 | Festivals, Red Sea, The Festival 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

Dec 17, 2021 | Festivals, Red Sea, Toronto

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.

Route Ten

Dec 16, 2021 | Featured, Festivals, Red Sea

What on the surface appears to be a formulaic road movie thriller about a couple of siblings tormented by a white Jeep on a desert road turns into a surprising critique of the Saudi old guard in which the younger generation declares its liberation from toxic patriarchy.

Radiograph of a Family

Dec 14, 2021 | Festivals, Red Sea

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

Dec 11, 2021 | Festivals, Red Sea

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.