The Stranger
François Ozon gives much-loved Albert Camus novel ‘L’Étranger’ a chic retro-modernist polish in this sumptuously shot adaptation of a French literary classic.
San Sebastian
Kings of the World
Colombian writer-director Laura Mora’s prize-winning road movie ‘Kings of the World’ is a messy but big-hearted love letter to the loveless.
The Employer and the Employee
A subtle character study successfully explores guilt, filial duty and labor relations between a young farmhand and his boss, set among the vast soybean plantations along the Uruguay Brazil border.
San Sebastian: The Verdict
San Sebastian celebrated its 70th anniversary with grace and good programing.
Pornomelancolía
Director Manuel Abramovich’s controversial docu-fiction portrait of Mexican porn star Lalo Santos, ‘Pornomelancolía’ is empathetic and absorbing, despite being disowned by its leading man.
San Sebastian: The Awards
San Sebastian’s top prize went to a Colombian coproduction for the first time in its history, and to a woman director for the third year running.
The Wonder
Oscar-winning director Sebastien Lelio’s handsome literary mystery thriller ‘The Wonder’ stars Florence Pugh as a kick-ass nurse fighting fake news and dubious miracles in 19th century Ireland.
The Substitute
Set in the barrios of Buenos Aires, Diego Lerman’s classroom drama movingly praises a dissatisfied young lit teacher who can’t help but interfere in his students’ lives.
Great Yarmouth – Provisional Figures
Brexit Britain offers only hellish horrors to exploited migrant workers in ‘Great Yarmouth – Provisional Figures’, a bleakly compelling social-realist thriller from Portuguese director Marco Martins.
The Great Silence
Katrin Brocks’ feature debut takes full advantage of its exotic setting in a highly dramatized if not always convincing story about a devout young woman who’s about to become a nun when her violent brother turns up at the convent.
Vicenta B.
Director Carlos Lechuga sends a powerful farewell letter to a country adrift in depression and despair in this heartbreaking chronicle of the post-Cuban revolution.
Drive My Car
Winner of the Academy Award for best international feature, Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s ‘Drive My Car’ is the story of how love survives death in a long, measured, ultimately mesmerizing examination of the human soul.
As in Heaven
In the 19th century, a 14-year-old Danish girl struggles between her will and God’s in Tea Lindeburg’s impressionistic period drama, winner of the best director nod in San Sebastian.
San Sebastian 2021: The Verdict
The crowds were back at the 69th San Sebastian International Film Festival (around 90% compared to 2019 levels), but not the carefree atmosphere of leisurely walks with friends, meetings in the crowded pintxos (snack) bars, and swims on La Concha beach, for which the Basque city on the Atlantic was justly beloved before the pandemic....
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I Want to Talk About Duras
In her many novels, plays and movies, author and filmmaker Marguerite Duras would often make herself a character in the stories she was telling, mixing autobiography and fiction into a seamless blend that the French called autofiction. It was writing with a capital I, or Je, and it would help foster in a new wave...
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The Good Boss
Javier Bardem is the main attraction as a smooth-talking factory owner in Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s drawing room social satire about modern labor.
Benediction
The life of English poet Siegfried Sassoon movingly expresses the traumas of war and love in one of writer-director Terence Davies’ finest creations.
One Second
Zhang Yimou ironically salutes the movies and their fervent audiences during China’s Cultural Revolution, in a stylistic pastiche that drags a little.