Rotterdam 2025: The Verdict
The 54th edition of International Film Festival Rotterdam served up a cosmopolitan banquet of punky Balkan bio-drama and chilly Baltic brooding, arty African essay-films and mind-bending Mexican animation.
The Festival Verdict
Cairo 2024: The Verdict
Returning after last year’s dramatic cancellation, the 45th edition of the long-running Cairo festival had a rich international program but a special focus on strong films from Africa, the Middle East, Palestine and Egypt itself.
The Verdict: Sarajevo 2024
Sarajevo Film Festival’s 30th edition was a starry affair, balancing stories from the Balkan region’s dark past with signposts to a brighter future.
Locarno 2024: The Verdict
The 2024 Locarno Film Festival spotlighted the future in more ways than one.
Karlovy Vary 2024: The Verdict
The 58th edition of KVIFF featured Kafka-esque comedy, a strong international program and some controversial prize choices.
La cocina
A disappointing, maddeningly self-indulgent plunge into the tensions and inequities in the kitchen of a Times Square eatery, designed as an anti-capitalist diatribe messily juggling personal and choral storytelling but saved to some degree by excellent chiaroscuro camerawork and a strong cast.
IFFR 2024: The Verdict
Rotterdam Film Festival’s 53rd edition balanced an uneven competition program full of sombre three-hour dramas with more adventurous sidebars, essay films, experimental video art and pop superstar guests.
DOK Leipzig 2023: The Verdict
With its socially and politically engaged agenda, DOK Leipzig’s 66th edition felt especially timely this year during a major period of global turbulence.
Oldenburg Film Festival 2023: The Verdict
Germany’s premiere festival platform for rule-breaking indie cinema celebrated its 30th edition with audacious acid-punk UFO comedies, bleak kidnap thrillers and a ground-breaking peek into the multiverse.
Venice 2023: The Verdict
The best thing about the 80th Mostra del Cinema was a stand-out film that almost all the critics were able to get behind and support wholeheartedly – and it won the Golden Lion for Best Film.
Karlovy Vary: The Verdict
Punk rockers, kick-ass senior citizens and fresh new cinematic voices from Iran to India made for a strong edition of the long-running Czech fest.
International Film Festival Rotterdam 2023
As it finally returned from Covid-19 limbo under new artistic director Vanja Kaludjercic, the Dutch film festival reaffirmed its core mission to promote fresh, socially conscious, culturally rich cinema.
Thessaloniki International Film Festival: The Verdict
After a muted few years of Covid caution, the 63rd edition of My Big Fat Greek Film Festival was back in full Dionysian mode.
DOK Leipzig 2022: The Verdict
The 65th edition of East Germany’s longest-running independent film festival offered a lively mix of parties and premieres, critical voices and formal experiments.
Oldenburg International Film Festival: The Verdict
The emphatically indie small-town German fest continues to make a big splash with its eclectic mix of art-house, cult, experimental and left-field genre movies.
Sarajevo Film Festival 2022: The Verdict
The Balkan region’s prime cinematic gathering bounced back from pandemic shutdown with a strong film program, starry guests and plenty of party attitude.
Sarajevo 2022: The Awards
Croatian director and actor Juraj Lerotic was the big winner at Sarajevo, taking home both the Best Film and Best Actor prizes for his sensitive and devastating feature ‘Safe Place’.
Locarno 2022: The Verdict
The 75th edition of the Locarno Film Festival reinforced what’s been apparent for some time: programming a major festival largely composed of world premieres that falls between Cannes and Venice is no easy task. Embracing its cinephilic reputation with more conviction than ever, Locarno continues to search for challenging works in their two main prize-giving...
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Locarno 2022: The Awards
Brazilian director Julia Murat’s bold, brave and important feature ‘Rule 34’ (‘Regra 34’) walked off with the Pardo d’oro for best film at Locarno in a surprise win.
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.
Cairo International Film Festival 2021: The Verdict
The grand old lady of Middle Eastern film festivals has matured into a modern, major cultural event for Egypt, whose emphasis is more on filmmakers than the red carpet.
International Documentary Festival Amsterdam 2021: The Verdict
Before its last day was cancelled, IDFA often proved it had found a sweet spot between a filmmaker’s vision and a challenge for its audience.
Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2021: The Verdict
Celebrating its 25th edition with a strong post-Covid comeback, the boutique Baltic festival served up a feast of monochrome Cold War nostalgia and colourful experimental fare.
Thessaloniki 2021: The Verdict
The sense of relief that suffused the 62nd Thessaloniki International Film Festival could be felt throughout the city’s repurposed old port, not just in the festival locations but in the favorite bars, restaurants and hangouts of the cinema crowd who palpably relished their return to a beloved city. Let’s be honest: San Sebastián and Thessaloniki...
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FESPACO 2021: The Verdict
Mati Diop's Atlantique (Atlantics) kicked off the 27th FESPACO, the Pan-African Film and Television Festival that takes place bi-annually in the Burkina Faso capital of Ouagadougou, in a screening that foreshadowed a couple of features of the 2021 festival. One of these was welcome, the other frustrating. The most welcome thing first. It was a...
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El Gouna 2021: The Verdict
The town of El Gouna is a purpose-built gated community on Egypt's Red Sea coast just north of the popular resort city of Hurghada. It’s a place of privilege, where rolling green lawns and intensely colored bougainvillea grace pleasingly designed villas varied enough to feel distinctive yet with nothing that jars or clashes. El Gouna...
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BFI London Film Festival 2021: The Verdict
The 65th London Film Festival was a welcome return to pre-Covid notions of cinema as communal celebration and politically conscious art form, but a bumpy ride for press and industry professionals.
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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