Known throughout the world for its extraordinary beauty and its emphasis on Gross National Happiness, the remote Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan was the last nation to connect to the Internet and TV. And if that weren’t enough change, the King announced that he would cede his power to the people more...
The Little Things in Life... Make the Biggest Films
On June 18, 2023 at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, in the middle of a new ten-film series entitled, A New Wave of K-Cinema: Korean Women Directors, the insightful, delightful Lucky Chan-sil was screened to a full house. Debut filmmaker Kim Cho-Hee was there to share more...
Emotional and Psychological Impairment The Real Deafness Floating in the Wide Aegean Sea
Is it our ears—or our emotions—that are the gatekeepers of sound? With her film presented as the Closing Night selection for the 17th Los Angeles Greek Film Festival, Maria Douza explains that while deafness may be a handicap of the ear, in a metaphorical way it can be a handicap of the soul more...
Filipinas in Athens Faith and Bonding in Sisterhood
Holy Emy: Araceli Lemos Wins Double Awards at the 22nd LAGFF
Araceli Lemos is a director, writer and editor born in Athens, Greece and currently based in Los Angeles. With an M.F.A. in Film Directing from California Institute of the Arts as a Fulbright Scholar, she made Holy Emy as her debut feature film, and it premiered at the International Film Festival Locarno more...
The Comedic Drama of the Georgian New Wave Laughter-through-Tears Neorealism
Brighton 4th: Poetic Realism in the Big Apple, Georgian-Style
Meet Levan Koguashvili. If a number of filmmakers can be credited with spearheading a Georgian New Wave in cinema in these last two decades, he is surely one. Born in Tbilisi in 1973, he studied Film Production at the Georgian State University of Theatre and Cinema in Tbilisi, but a year after more...
When Strahinya and his wife, Ababuo, left Ghana at the beginning of the migrant crisis, they managed to reach Germany but were deported back to Belgrade. Serbia might not be Germany, but Strahinya does his best to begin a new life, working hard to secure asylum. The process is lengthy, and Ababuo, more...
Two Sisters on the Road to the Future A Father in Their Shadow
Even in the so-called “film capital of the world,” it can seem like a minor miracle to get a glimpse of Albanian cinema today, but this is not the only reason Open Door feels like a god-send. This debut feature by Florenc Papas is a small gem, a tautly written road movie transpiring in barely a day more...
An Old Novel, A New Film Eye Candy with Authenticity
Emma: Austen for the Young and Restless... and the Literati
Emma, the so-called “delicious” new film version of Jane Austen’s late-career novel, screened theatrically in Los Angeles to a lively full house at the Landmark Theater where it was followed by a savvy Q&A with director Olivia De Wilde moderated by independent filmmaker Gus Van Sant more...
Music, Dance, Laughter Resisting, then Yielding to the Panigiri of Life
Margarita Panousopoulou: Acting in a “Moony Comedy”
For the recent In This Land Nobody Knew How to Cry, you play the female lead, a head-strong economist from Europe who returns to her native Greece. Was this the first time for you to be acting in a film made by your father? Did he imagine the role for you from the beginning, and write it exactly for you more…
A Love Letter to the Balkans An Elegy for the Living
Borders, Raindrops: Riding the White Wave at SEEfest LA
When I left the theater hall after the screening of Borders, Raindrops at SEEfest 2019, the 14th annual South East European Film Festival of Los Angeles, I bumped into Vlastimir Sudar, there to represent that film, in the lobby. I was glad to share with him my excitement over such an inspiring protagonist more...
1968 and the Czech New Wave From Spring to Summer in Prague
A man moves with the best talents of his time and place, the literary giants and the leading lights of the theatre in Bohemian culture, but then his country is invaded and occupied. He has a chance to flee, but doesn’t. He stays to challenge the oppressive regime, to resist it with his seemingly innocuous art more...
A French Domestic Thriller An Age-Old Social Problem
Custody may embody the hyper-realism of Maurice Pialat’s domestic dramas, the intrigue and social commentary of Claude Chabrol’s mysteries, and the psychological thriller genre mastered by Alfred Hitchcock, but its story comes from headlines today, long after these masters showed us the fear more...
Thoughts, Words, Actions A Different Kind of Bio-Pic
Raoul Peck and The Young Karl Marx: The Dialectics of Storytelling
A serous thinker sits at a chessboard – kings, queens, knights, bishops, and pawns – in 1843. It could be Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, pondering the next move after the printing press and the textile factory change the world in the Industrial Revolution. Or it could be biographer Raoul Peck on set, more...
Interrogation: Vetri Maaran on Visaaranai, India, and Cinema
Many filmgoers today might be surprised to discover that over 60% of India’s cinema output is neither Bollywood in style nor Hindi in language but hails from South India where films of many genres are made in Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam. There, Tamil Nadu has been producing films for at least more...
In the most cinematic way, The Judgment shows space and time: a precise location, a precipice in southern Bulgaria, and a specific moment, today; symbolically, it is any region where displaced peoples seek asylum and sustenance, and any time—ancient, communist-era, or since then—when individuals were punished, slain, more...
History Includes Children A Saga from Finland
In the Land of Hou… Where Art and Philosophy Flow into the Same River
Hou Hsiao-Hsien and The Assassin: The Paradox of Poetic Realism
After making 20 feature films in 35 years, and writing, acting, and producing for filmmakers such as Edward Yang and Zhang Yimou, the celebrated Taiwanese writer-director Hou Hsiao-Hsien turned to two old loves — the chuanqi (legends) of China’s Tang Dynasty and the wuxia (martial arts) films from Hong Kong more...
Raising a Girl, Creating a Daughter A Mother and Filmmaker Shows Us How
Set today in the northern mountains of Pakistan, Dukhtar is an intense road film of a mother and daughter fleeing a traditional practice of marrying off child brides. “Dukhtar” means “daughter” in Urdu. The mother, who suffered this same fate, now sees her much older husband, a powerful tribal leader, using ten-year-old more...
Librarians and Latinos Storytelling Breeds
Cinematic Crossovers
The Park Bench and After Words: Love and Language, Latin-Style
Late in August at the art-house venues of Southern California, small indie films pop up as feature film debuts. Writer-director Ann LeSchander’s The Park Bench and writer-director-producer Juan Feldman’s After Words — true novelties that steal the heart — beg comparison as they bring literature to the screen more...
Film, Family, and Justice Israel’s Unflinching Courtroom Drama
Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem — Calling for the ‘Elkabetz Law’
Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem is a keenly written, superbly acted film that chronicles the five-year process for an Israeli woman today to obtain a divorce from her neglectful but possessive and stubbornly resistant husband from whom she has been separated after raising their numerous children and working more...
Image and Music in the Poetics of Cinema Tito Molina Hails from Ecuador
In his compact,
94-minute poetic inquiry into the space between life and death, past and
future, memory and dream, Tito Molina brings us the music of the soul. The entry from Ecuador, Silence
in Dreamland is an unusual gem among the 83 films submitted from the world
over for the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar more...
Women, Family, Culture... And the Art of Animating Depression
When New York-based filmmaker Signe Baumane takes us to “another reality,” at least in her latest film, Rocks in My Pockets, it is at once cultural and historical, spanning a hundred years of life in Latvia, the tiny Baltic republic where she was born. That reality is also swimming in politics — internationally so, contending more...
The Herb Alpert Award in the Arts: Two Decades of Whole-Hearted Support
On May 9, 2014 in Santa Monica, the Herb Alpert Foundation and its juries and guests had plenty to celebrate — the most recent five (in fact, all 100 recipients thus far) of the distinguished grant, the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, in five fields: Visual Arts, Music, Dance, Theatre, and Film/Video. A residency at CalArts is more...
Writing, Directing, and Producing a Love Story Forging a Palestinian Film Movement
Omar, the Palestinian: Hany Abu-Assad Calls It “Othello, the Occupation”
Omar, an enthralling wide-screen drama of our times bearing classical storytelling and thespian verve, has been selling out in theaters. Shot on location in Nazareth, Nablus, and Bisan with “first-feature” credits for most of the cast and crew, the work is all the more impressive, and the risks taken and fulfilled, all the more stunning more...
From Her Little Camera to Her Big Installation A Cinematic Gleaner Spreads Her Wings
The Gleaners and I begins as Agnès Varda observes and follows and interviews people in the fields of France today picking up potatoes from the ground, much as peasant women who combed the harvested plots of land for leavings were painted by Jean-François Millet in 1867. Today she finds them not only in the countryside more...
It’s All About Togetherness Singing the Connection
The pioneering Los Angeles Master Chorale will launch its 50th season with élan this Sunday, September 22nd, at 7 pm at Walt Disney Concert Hall with a multi-media retrospective concert, a historical exhibition, and a champagne toast for the entire audience. Music Director Grant Gershon will be showcasing selections more...
A Chilean Author, A World-Renowned
Artist
A Conversation about Writing and Politics, History and Memory
She was introduced on May 17 at the Broad Stage as the most widely read author in the Spanish language today, with her works translated into 30 languages and selling over 57 million copies, but her short story of less than ten pages, “Una Venganza” (“An Act of Vengeance”), was the source of the opera , Dulce Rosa more...
Brazil’s Pioneer of Cinema Novo Stepping in Tune with Tom Jobim
Chinese Americans in China It’s Funnier than It Seems
I was fortunate to attend Daniel Hsia’s uniquely beguiling new film at its Hollywood premiere at the TCL Chinese 6 Theaters in Hollywood with members of the cast and crew present. Last week I was also lucky to catch a sneak preview of Shanghai Calling at USC, where the film’s prolific producer, Janet Yang, discussed more...
Bence Fliegauf Takes Us to Hungary’s Romanies And His Film Is Submitted for an Oscar
Just the Wind Opens the Hungarian Film Festival of Los Angeles
Working internationally in cinema and television and wearing many hats, from screenwriting and directing to set design and sound engineering, Bence Fliegauf returned to his native Hungary to make Just the Wind, his fifth feature film, which contributes to his rising reputation as one of the most respected and prolific of his more...
From the Spotlight to the Viewfinder From Ibsen to Alakosi
A Swedish Grande Dame at the SFFLA: Pernilla August and Beyond
Button up your overcoats — there’s a strong north wind whipping throughthe southland, a female voice that can ride as well on a whisper, that lets you see your own breath in the air when warmth and tenderness take over the chill. On January 7th at 8 pm the Scandinavian Film Festival L.A. follows its gala buffet with Beyond more...
Making an Award-Winning Film? It’s Like Riding a Bicycle, If You’re the Dardennes
Along for the Ride: The Dardennes Discuss The Kid with a Bike
Belgian brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
have been lauded worldwide as auteurs for their realistic dramas of everyday,
contemporary life since the mid-90s when they launched their production
company, Les Films du Fleuve (having already produced some sixty documentaries
with their earlier company, Dérives) more...
The Epic Battle of Chile And Forty Years of Documentaries
Patricio Guzmán: The Watchful Eye The
Chilean Filmmaker in Dialogue at UCLA's Retrospective
“Patricio Guzmán: The Watchful Eye,” from April
15 to May 11 at the Billy Wilder Theater, is a stunning retrospective by the
UCLA Film and Television Archive showcasing nine films by Chile’s renowned
documentarist, Patricio Guzmán, from his first internationally lauded work, The
Battle of Chile more...
The French Icon Is More Winning than Ever
A Six-Film Retrospective Salutes HerCatherine Deneuve, No Potiche, Reigning Supreme in Ozon’s Latest Opus
Amidst a mini-retrospective, “Beautiful Dreamer: The Early Films of Catherine Deneuve,” running from March 4-12 at the Bing Theater, the world-renowned actress paid a precious visit to avid fans at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on March 8, 2011, following a preview of her latest, Potiche by François Ozon more...
When Money and the Mind Fail Us A Comedy of Woe from Iceland
Mamma Gógó Looks Back: The Ghostly Tales of Fridrik Thór Fridriksson
His towering presence and husky voice are at odds with his quiet reserve and soft countenance. Shaking his hand, you feel he is at one remove from the world — or altogether too in-touch with it. Seemingly part Marlborough Man and part country preacher, he is an erudite, globe-trotting, go-getter from Reykjavik more...
A Francophile Gets Out into the World An International Terrorist Falls under Scrutiny
The sprawling lawn of the Résidence de France in Beverly Hills evoked the green gardens of Summer Hours, Olivier Assayas’ last film (2008). Like the genteel characters in that crisply lyrical update of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard in the Parisian countryside, Assayas struck a fine profile. His salt-and-pepper hair and more...
Fathers and Sons in
Humans in Harmony with
Nature
In his uniquely intimate Alamar, Pedro González-Rubio approaches the lyrical narrative as no other filmmaker does. This is a bold statement considering that comparisons abound: the first decade of this century sparkles with films from Mongolia to Argentina, from Kazakhstan to Colombia — just to hint at the many gems of more...
Andrew Hall Fills the Screen
For the film aficionado forever seeking kino caviar, a key venue becomes vitally important, since in more ways than one, it is likely to become a second home — or from time to time, even a first home, the same seats taken up by the same familiar faces, each there to feast on a reliable plat du jour. So even more at the heart of more...
Acting on the Stage or Acting on the Screen?
Andi Vasluianu on The Other Irene: Inside the Curl of Romania’s Next Wave
At the South East European Film Festival Los Angeles (SEEFEST), April 29-May 3, 2010, held at the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles and UCLA’s James Bridges Theater, I discovered The Other Irene, a spellbinding new Romanian film directed by Andrei Gruzsniczki. The lead actor, Andi Vasluianu, was on hand to receive more...
War and Immigration in Everyday Life Two Generations of Women’s Filmmaking in Iran
Social Issues through Women’s Eyes in Iranian Cinema Arefpour and Bani-Etemad Talk about Heiran and Gilaneh
Shalizeh Arefpour’s sumptuous and sobering debut feature, Heiran, headed off the “20th Annual Celebration of Iranian Cinema” (February 5-20, 2010, screening eight features and four shorts) by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, which continually offers one of the oldest Iranian film festivals in the United States. Iran's more...
South Korea’s Independent Cinema Jeon Soo-il Discusses the Time and Space Between
Himalaya and With a Girl of Black Soil: Jeon Soo-il and the Rhythms of Life
On January 15, 16, 17, and 24, the UCLA Film & Television Archive screens a six-film retrospective of the work of the internationally esteemed Jeon Soo-il, a series presented by the Ciné-Asie Film Institute of Montreal that travels to three Canadian cities and three American cities through April, 2010. In the last thirteen more...
When All of Us Are Files for Someone Else Romania's Post-Policier
Internationally lauded for his highly original 12:08 Bucharest (2006), a droll look at the quizzical moment of the Romanian Revolution as everyday citizens might have taken stock of it, Corneliu Porumboiu began writing and visualizing Police, Adjective by observing his local environment, this time by listening to the daily work more...
A Portrait of Forgiveness from Finland An Auteur Wins the Fest’s Main Award
Klaus Härö Graces Mannheim-Heidelberg Fest with Letters to Father Jacob
The 58th International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg, where the “art of cinema” is upheld above all celebrity, box office, and entertainment values, screened 32 new films this season: 17 in the International Competition section, 8 in the International Discoveries program, and 7 in the Festival Highlights segment more...
When Less Is More The Right Programmer Does Wonders for a Festival
The journalist who wrote this in 1868 was stunned by Claude Monet as an intrepid observer of nature more...
The Danish Resistance at
Eye-Level
A Look at the Bigger Picture
Ole’s Reason -- A Love Story:
Documentary Prize-Winners Hail from
A silence but for the chirping of
birds gives way to the voices of small children as a hand-held camera enters
their school in the state of Jalisco, Mexico.
As they draw pictures of men, their teacher asks how many of their dads
have crossed over to the North. Seven
out of seventeen raise their hands. Why do they go? “To work more...
Mastering the Game in Queen
to Play
Caroline Bottaro’s Directorial Debut
When
Two Heads Are Better than One:
Five-and-a-half years ago, when Caroline Bottaro’s
next-door neighbor dropped in to share a book she’d just finished creating and
ask for a critique, could Bottaro, the screenwriting partner of Jean-Pierre
Améris, possibly have known that she herself would turn this first novel into such an
inspiring feat for her own first feature more...
Musical Chairs with a
French Twist
Emmanuel Mouret Minds His Manners in Shall We Kiss?
With good reason, the word “finesse” comes from the French: for one thing, the Gauls are famous for finagling ways to follow their desires and manage the damage at the same time. Strategy is needed, but manner is key. And anyone familiar with The Art of Courtly Love knows that manners must grapple with morals. From more...