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Review: 'Je Suis à Toi' - Fran Hoepfner 18 Oct 2014
Nothing in this world comes for free. Even love and sex come at a heavy personal and financial cost. David Lambert’s film 'Je Suis à Toi' explores this notion of what humans pay and receive through the story of three people living in a Belgian village.
Review: 'Jauja' - Vanity Celis 18 Oct 2014
What makes a life function and move forward? The quote is a question that is visually posed in Jauja, an existential parable that uses the outlines of a Western to treat us to a profusion of iconic shots, toned in deeply saturated colors to resemble vintage photographs, or painted stills from a 19th century novel.
Review: ‘Black Coal’ - Zack Miller 21 Oct 2014
The only thing slicker than the ice that coats the ground in Diao Yi’nan’s ‘Black Coal’ is the heavy aestheticism that has dominated the neo-noir genre of late. Ablaze with colored lights in nearly every frame, Diao’s northern Chinese detective puzzler holds on to the stylish tendencies of American counterparts like Drive, but grounds them in a world that feels ultimately more livable.
Review: ‘Reality’ - Chris Frieswijk 21 Oct 2014
'Reality' is like a graphic by M.C. Escher: a film that'll actively approach your viewing experience and its conventions. It might leave the viewer puzzling though, as every attempt to make sense of the story is countered with ever more complex layers of metafiction and internal references. Several layers of reality are presented without a clear coherency in space and time, leading the unsuspecting viewer into elusive paradox. The film's form ties ends together in an impossible way and thereby hints to the artificial and dream-like nature of cinema.
Review: An Educator’s Devotion and the Wrong Kind of Intimacy in ‘The Kindergarten Teacher’ - Fran Hoepfner 21 Oct 2014
Educators are tasked with a great responsibility: inspiring a thirst for knowledge and a passion for art and science in each generation’s youth. Nadav Lapid’s new film ‘The Kindergarten Teacher’ takes this mission to a new extreme. The story itself is simple. The teacher Nira (Sarit Larry) discovers that one of her students Yoav (Avi Shnaidman) – a quiet, stoic child – will recite his own poems whose brilliance goes above and beyond her own abilities as a writer. In turn, she deems it her mission to nurture his ability at the risk of his and her wellbeing.
Review: ‘Gente de Bien’ - Vanity Celis 21 Oct 2014
Franco Lolli's debut feature is a contemporary exercise in Neorealism that concerns itself with the misfortunes of a slightly disheveled pair. Ten-year-old Erik seems nothing short of a hoodlum in the making. His father Gabriel is a lethargic layabout who means well but cannot get his finances straight.
Review: ‘White God’ - Andrew Lapin 21 Oct 2014
Kornél Mundruczó’s animal fable ‘White God’ depicts the stray dogs of Budapest rising up against their human tormenters after putting up with one too many abuses. The film was clearly made by dog lovers: Mundruczó shoots often from his canine stars’ eye level and allows them to band together in a kind of squatters’ community on an abandoned lot. When they rebel, the language of Cinema Apocalyptica – empty streets, people falling over each other in their mad rush to escape, wind howling through hastily made barricades – emboldens their cause. Nevertheless, the film shows dogs being shot, drugged, and tortured for sport, making a mockery of DoesTheDogDie.com.
'Gente de Bien' by Franco Lolli wins Grand Prix for Best Film at the 41st Film Fest Gent 21 Oct 2014
On Wednesday the 22nd of October the international jury of Film Fest Gent announced the winners in different competitions.
Review: Adjusting to nature's rhythm in Naomi Kawase's ‘Still the Water’ - Chris Frieswijk 22 Oct 2014
Part of growing up is about learning how to deal with complex themes such as love and death, about adjusting to your surroundings, and above all about accepting that things don't always go by your standards. In ‘Still the Water,’ we follow the young protagonist Kaito in his coming of age.
‘Stratos’ - Zack Miller 22 Oct 2014
Opening on a line of bus after decaying yellow bus, ‘Stratos’ immediately declares its intentions: the new hitman film from Greek writer-director Yannis Economides is all about repetition.