FILMS from AFAR

Click for full reviews on Common Sense Media: Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions Shawn Mendes: In Wonder Ariana Grande: Excuse Me, I Love You Blackpink: Light Up the Sky

Makers of documentaries about people's unfolding lives can't always be sure of the story they'll be telling, so having the right ingredients -- as in this case -- is key. Homeroom is a film about a year in the lives of a diverse class of high school seniors in conflictive Oakland, California. The story took on unexpectedly heightened significance as Covid struck mid-school year and the Black Lives Matter movement arose in communities across the US. The students' fight with the local school board to remove police from their schools, police they said were more threatening than comforting to "Black and Brown" teens and also wasted much-needed district funds, got a boost from these events as well. Poignant footage shows empty classrooms after school is shut down due to Covid and a virtual graduation ceremony celebrated at home with individual families. Homeroom eschews first-person interviews in favor of capturing its subjects' interactions with each other and through social media. This can feel disorienting at first when viewers don't yet know who the film's "stars" are (or even their names), and it takes at least half of the documentary to really congeal. We also don't get the insight of perspectives on these students and events from teachers or family members. But ultimately this fly-on-the-wall style does offer a lot of context in portraying the students' lives, concerns, and relationships, as do the social media observations. We see them through their own Instagram stories, we witness how they receive and digest news on their social media feeds, and we discover details about their lives through their online college application process. The kids talk tough and struggle with undue hardships -- poverty and encroaching gentrification, instability at home, a lack of documentation, failing grades or low SAT scores, and violence all around them. Seeing them muster the courage to speak out publicly on issues that directly impact them, and especially witnessing the way they support each other mutually through good and hard times, is inspirational. Read the full review at Common Sense Media.

Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War was the big winner Saturday night at the 31st annual European Film Awards in Seville, Spain, walking away with five awards, including for best film, director, screenwriter, actress and a technical award announced earlier for editor. Pawlikowski dedicated his first award of the night to his parents, whose story inspired the black-and-white romantic period drama. Cold War star Joanna Kulig earned best actress honors. Expectations will now be high for Cold War to follow in the footsteps of Pawlikowski’s previous film, Ida, which went from nabbing five top prizes at the EFAs in 2014 to a foreign-language film Academy Award win two months later. Cold War, which will be released Dec. 21 in the U.S. through Amazon, is representing Poland in the same Oscar category this year. All of this year’s EFA best film nominees — including Matteo Garrone’s Dogman, Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy as Lazzaro, Lukas Dhont’s Girl and Ali Abbasi’s Border — premiered at Cannes, and all, except Happy as Lazzaro, were nominated to represent their countries in the foreign-language film Oscar category. Dogman beat out Rohrwacher's drama to represent Italy at the Academy Awards. Other favorites going into Saturday's gala did not walk away empty-handed. Italian actor Marcello Fonte was named best European actor for his turn in Matteo Garrone’s drama Dogman, a performance that also earned him a best actor prize at Cannes this year. The European Discovery Award — Prix FIPRESCI — went to Girl, whose director Dhont dedicated the prize to star Victor Polster and Nora Monsecour, the young trans girl on which the story is based. Of Polster, whose casting in the film elicited critiques among some in the transgender community because he is himself is not transgender and neither is Dhont, the helmer said, “I knew he was going to do that other person justice” in a performance he said showed that “the biggest power of any artist is empathy.” Dhont had earlier in the day addressed the critiques of his movie at an EFA-sponsored roundtable on gender equality in film: “I think there’s a very important nuance to be made. Yes, we need stories by women told by women ... and yes, we need trans stories told by trans people. But I see cinema as a bridge, I don’t see it as a wall. I think if we are going to limit ... ourselves to only talk about parts of our own identity, I think we are headed in the wrong direction.” Read the rest of the story and see a full list of winners here.

From censorship to reductions in government support for the film sector, insiders prepare for upheaval in Latin America’s biggest entertainment market: ‘It will be uncertain times for people that produce culture in Brazil’ ​Within a week after far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro won the presidential election in Brazil on Oct. 28, concerns about the future of the country’s entertainment sector became a major talking point at the Rio De Janeiro International Film Festival, which ran Nov. 1-11. Top among those concerns: the potential rolling back of government incentives and mechanisms that have helped grow the industry and, more broadly, of basic rights and freedoms in this diverse country. The festival’s co-executive director, Ilda Santiago, says she didn't attend a single presentation of the 80 short and feature films playing at the fest where Bolsonaro’s election wasn’t a topic of discussion. “The festival is playing a major role in allowing producers, directors, all the different professionals to say we want to guarantee that from here on we go forward, not back,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. Bolsonaro won with just over 55 percent of the vote. His appeal was attributed to disillusion with unemployment, crime and economic instability in the country, as well as cases of corruption under the ruling Workers’ Party. Supporters said they hoped Bolsonaro would “fix things.” “I’m pretty optimistic,” says Brazil’s outgoing Minister of Culture Sergio Sa Leitao. “Brazil is already recovering from the huge economic crisis that we had here in 2015 and 2016. I think the new government, at least in the economic field, has the right agenda, which means doing the structural reforms that Brazil really needs in order to be a competitive player in the global arena.” ​But as a candidate and before, Bolsonaro expressed extreme views on everything from the uses of torture to the merits of dictatorships, and he has made patently offensive remarks about women, minorities and members of the LGBTQ community. “A dark cloud of intimidation and repression is looming over Brazilian civil society,” warns Andrew Fishman, Rio-based managing editor of investigative news outlet The Intercept Brasil. “Jair Bolsonaro is not ‘the Brazilian Trump.’ All signs suggest that he is far more extreme, far more violent and far less restrained by institutions.” At the recent Sao Paulo International Film Festival, which ran Oct. 18-31 and overlapped with the election, director Brunna Laboissiere, who premiered the doc Fabiana, about a trans woman truck driver, says, "The general climate [at the fest] was critical of the setbacks that the country is going through, fear and uncertainty about what is going to happen, but at the same time a feeling of unity to resist against future attacks." Read full story in The Hollywood Reporter here. Photo credit: De Alan Santos/Presidência da República. - Foto oficial do presidente da república, Jair Bolsonaro. CC BY 3.0 br, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75769915

​The European film industry should have an easier time pursuing gender equality than Hollywood, panelists suggested at a roundtable on the subject as part of the 31st annual European Film Awards weekend in Seville, Spain.​ ​ “It’s much easier when you have a public funder because you can really demand equality since there are as many women paying taxes as men,” said Anna Serner, CEO of the Swedish Film Institute, a pioneer in seeking gender parity in film. Serner was joined on the panel, "Gender Equality is THE Way Forward," by Sixteen Films producer Rebecca O’Brien, Girl director Lukas Dhont and Spain-based producer Valerie Delpierre.​​ The U.K.’s O’Brien, a member of the EFA board, pointed to the British Film Institute’s diversity standards for on- and offscreen representation, ​​creative leadership, industry access and training opportunities, and distribution and exhibition strategies. The standards are now a requirement ​​for the majority of public funding for film in the U.K., have been adopted by Film4 and BBC Films, and also are an eligibility requirement for ​​several top BAFTA categories.​​ ​​​​Many studio films wouldn’t meet the BFI standards, O’Brien suggested. Yet, according to Serner, if a company like Warner Bros. simply said, "Listen folks, we want to have 50 percent female directors or you can’t do your ideas," it "would find 50 very competent women, I’m totally sure. So, it’s just up to top management to make a decision: Do we want to change or not?" Read the full article here.

In an age when a Kardashian can “break the Internet” with nude photos, discovering understatement in art is like a Thanksgiving feast for the spirit. I recently came across two films available for home viewing that lingered on in my mind long after the end credits rolled. In both movies, directed by women and set in the Middle East, myriad obstacles require romantic tales be rendered with subtlety and delicate restraint. Even so, both films are quietly explosive. Take that, Kim.​​ “Cairo Time”​​ In Canadian-born director Ruba Nadda’s Cairo-set story of impossible love, Romeo and Juliet are replaced by Tareq and Juliette. An American magazine editor (played by Patricia Clarkson) travels to Cairo to meet her husband on break from his job for the U.N., but when work detains him in Gaza he sends an old colleague, Tareq (Alexander Siddiq), to keep her busy.​​ The two develop a bond as they stroll city streets, lounge in cafes, idle through bazaars, and talk. Nadda makes Cairo time feel slowed down, in a heat-induced daze, a sensation echoed in the film’s dreamy soundtrack featuring Egyptian legend Umm Kulthum. ​​The pair’s mutual admiration and desire grow steadily until they embark on a trip together to Alexandria. On the train ride home, the intense weight of their longing is registered entirely through the actors’ silent gazes. Voted Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2009, “Cairo Time” is a love letter to Egypt in all its contradictions. “They say once you’ve drunk the water of the Nile you will always come back,” Tareq assures Juliette. He seems to embody the contrasts himself: elegance combined with decadence, desires constrained by customs, a leisurely lifestyle contrasted against perpetual social problems, and the great gender inequalities of the region. Juliette offers the Westerner’s gaze as Nadda shows us Egypt through her eyes. When Juliette drags her armchair to the hotel balcony and cinematographer Luc Montpellier gives us a sweeping view of the Seine-like Nile River that cuts through Cairo, we discover the city ourselves. When Juliette gets herself into unnecessary danger — followed by a pack of men on the street, forcibly removed from a bus to Gaza — we share her alarm and embarrassment. Juliette wants to do something about the problems she sees — street children, unschooled girls put to work to earn money for their weddings — but Tareq accuses her and her U.N. husband of trying to “save” the Middle East.​ She has promised not to visit the pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo until her husband returns, but Nadda shows their peaks jutting out over the skyline at seemingly every turn, a perfect symbol for the unexpected attachment that’s arisen between these two adults. It’s fitting that the pyramids take on a central role in the film’s closing sequence. “Cairo Time” can be streamed on Netflix and Hulu Plus. “Caramel” “Caramel” (“Sukkar Banat”), co-written, directed by and starring Lebanese newcomer Nadine Labaki, turns on a group of women navigating social taboos in modern-day Beirut. It’s like a Lebanese “Steel Magnolias” as Layale (Labaki) and her lifelong friends juggle clients, gossip and romance in a local beauty salon. The film’s title alludes to the sugary concoction the women use for removing hair, pausing occasionally to voluptuously lick pieces of the sticky mass from their fingertips. These are modern women, judging by their style, their concerns and their playful blending of Arabic, English and French. But theirs is a world where a woman has to prove she’s married to rent a hotel room and undergo surgery to “restore” her virginity before marriage. The Beirut of “Caramel” is a city of crumbling edifices and omnipresent police where young and old lovers alike have to sneak around. And it’s a world where exchanged glances and brushed shoulders are thick with meaning, where shampooing a customer’s lustrous black hair or pruning a potential lover’s mustache are sensual acts. Layale pines after her lover, a married man who constantly disappoints, but she seems oblivious to the nice guy next door, a local policeman clearly besotted with her. Each of her friends has her own relationship troubles. Labaki takes her time developing the five lead characters, and as can happen in films with multiple tales interwoven, some subplots get short shrift. But the film, which premiered in 2007 at the Cannes Film Festival, holds the viewer’s interest throughout with affectionate portrayals of every character. When Layale packs to leave her parents’ home on the eve of her wedding, her mother tearfully passes on life advice. It’s a touching tribute to the endurance of tradition, and underscores the dichotomous realities generations of women inhabit. These reviews originally ran in The Daily Record.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is expected to announce the nine semi-finalists for the foreign language Oscar this week out of submissions from a record 83 countries. The list will be narrowed to a final five nominees in January. Foreign language may not be a category of particular interest to many Americans. But for filmmakers around the world, capturing even a nomination carries prestige and market value, and can mean the difference between securing distribution outside the home territory and financing on a future project — or not. For a film to make the initial list of entries, it has to jump through several hoops. Some countries host more than one round of voting, and the process regularly generates local controversies and claims of favoritism. Winning filmmakers are celebrated with banner headlines and treated like national heroes. When Italian director Paolo Sorrentino took home the foreign language Oscar last year for "The Great Beauty" ("La Grande Bellezza"), he was made an honorary citizen of Rome, where his film is memorably set, and received public congratulations from everyone up to the country's prime minister. The award was widely touted as a turning point for Italian cinema as a whole, coming a full 15 years after its last win for Roberto Benigni's "Life Is Beautiful" ("La Vita E Bella"). Italy still holds the record for the most foreign language Oscars of any country, and legendary filmmaker Federico Fellini, whose "La Strada" won the first official foreign language Oscar in 1956, is the most-awarded director in the category. So it was almost fate when "The Great Beauty," considered a tribute to Fellini and his classic 1960 tour de force "La Dolce Vita," scooped last year's honor. "The Great Beauty" Sorrentino's nod to Fellini is narrative as well as stylistic, from the aging-artist protagonist's existential crisis at the heart of the story to the film's ecstatic portrayal of the debauchery of the Roman creative class and its visual obsession with the wildly eccentric. We meet the chain-smoking, cheshire cat-grinning star of the film, Jep Gambardella (played by Toni Servillo), at his riotous 65th birthday party, then follow him for the nearly 2 1/2 hour movie as he meanders through Rome's outlandish night life. A respected one-time novelist turned journalist, the self-confessed "king of the high life" finds himself muddled by his own age-inspired questioning of the last four decades of his life. Nostalgic about the passage of time and depressed by the squandered potential all around him, Jep still has one tasseled loafer firmly planted in a decadent lifestyle that rarely gets him to bed before sunrise. Servillo is no Marcello Mastroianni, Fellini's handsome leading man, but he's attractive in his own Joe Biden way, exuding a sardonic charm in dapper suits and slicked back gray hair. It's a testament to his authentic performance that we feel any sympathy for this playboy, who never got around to writing a second book and sleeps off his hangovers in a hammock on the terrace of a luxury apartment overlooking the Colosseum. The historical landmark makes it easy to draw parallels between Jep's decay and Italy's own. Sorrentino spoke with the New York Times last year about his inspiration in Italy's “culture of excess,” which reached a fever pitch during former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's scandal-ridden era, and a general sense that "the nerve centers of the country had fallen asleep on their couches." And there is excess to spare in this film’s many seemingly whimsical sequences and manipulated dreamscapes, strewn together to convey deeper meaning: a 104-year-old "saint" subsisting on roots, omnipresent nuns attending underground botox parties, a wise dwarf doubling as editor and mother figure, and a giraffe that magically disappears, like life and art and presumably this very movie itself. "The Great Beauty" can be exasperating, and it's probably not for everyone. But Sorrentino's script clearly pokes fun of the world it (re)creates, mocking artistic artifice and the vacuity of an appearances-driven modern culture. It's this self-awareness that compels you to keep watching, drawn in by Servillo's charismatic presence, the captured beauty of the Roman setting and the script's many riddles. A voiceover in the final scenes offers some closure, bringing Jep full circle in his musings on life and death, on the world's "inconstant flashes of beauty" and its "wretched squalor and miserable humanity. All buried under the cover of the embarrassment of being in the world." It's the film and Jep's/Italy's dilemma and the human condition all in one. "The Great Beauty" is available to stream on Hulu Plus. This review originally ran in The Daily Record.

A documentary like this one provides a much-needed dose of hope about the next generation's potential to change a volatile world, one person at a time. Global realities like social unrest in Venezuela, mass emigration from Nepal, poverty in Nairobi, and hurricanes in Puerto Rico have negatively impacted millions, but they've also inspired young people to try to respond to these crises, as Own the Room illustrates. The focus of the film, which was shot in 2019, is on the people more than the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards; in fact, we see only snippets of the actual competition pitches. The directors dedicate the first 40 minutes of film time to introducing the five subjects, interviewing friends, business partners, and family members, and filming their homes and local communities. It perhaps takes the resources of a National Geographic to send cameras out to these far-flung locales to follow people around for days. But it's worth every penny. The filmmakers knew there was more emotion and human interest in the personal stories than in the actual event. (As a side note, it may be humbling for English-speaking viewers to be reminded once again what an effort people around the world make to learn to speak English with precision and grace.) Nepal struggles with the social cost of family dislocations in what a local newspaper editor gloomily terms their "gross national sadness," making Santosh's preternaturally smiley nature all the more appealing. A full-circle moment sees him connecting with immigrant Nepalese hotel staffers in Macau. Many young Puerto Ricans left the island following Hurricane Maria, but others stayed to help rebuild. Daniela had to abandon Venezuela for the US to continue her studies, and she talks about the immigrant experience and facing down gender stereotypes in her industry. It's an emotional moment when she's reunited with her mom in Macau. Thanks to the equalizing power of the internet, Henry's mentor says, Africans can address widespread problems of poverty. Addressing stereotypes and racism is another thing, which we witness when Henry is unjustly detained at the Macau airport. A Silicon Valley entrepreneur can maybe get away with traveling in shorts and sandals, but a young man from Kenya apparently cannot. Without wanting to spoil too much, it's unexpected who doesn’t get picked for the final round in the competition. It's interesting to consider how the filmmakers selected the five people to profile out of the 51 competition finalists from around the world. All of them likely had equally interesting and inspirational stories. Read the full review at Common Sense Media.

As much as you want to be repelled by the depraved characters and relentless violence of The Devil All the Time, this film manages to keep you curious. Maybe more impressively, it makes you care for some of the broken souls inhabiting its two map-speck towns. This is no easy feat. The well-known international cast pulls off playing evil while hinting at the weaknesses and trauma fueling their characters' actions, forcing you to grapple with comprehending characters even as they make appalling, morally questionable choices. At well over two hours long, the film could have done this even better by cutting out a couple of the less-developed stories -- for example, the corrupt sheriff's dealings with a mistress and local crime bosses. Director Antonio Campos seems fascinated by the darkest side of human nature, but he has set the film to a blend of period gospel, folk, country, and other music that keeps the mood from feeling as miserable as the stories warrant. Adapted from the novel (often labeled "hillbilly gothic") by Donald Ray Pollock, who narrates the film, Devil is set in the gloomy borderlands between West Virginia and Ohio between 1957 and 1965. This location and between-war period is characterized in the film by financial and spiritual poverty. Still, there are no easy moral lessons here, no heroes, and few characters or themes painted in black and white. It won't be for everyone, but given a chance, Devil could surprise more than a few initially reluctant viewers. Read the full review at Common Sense Media.

There's a moment in the compelling Spanish drama "Seven Years" ("7 Años") where a character, backed into a corner by colleagues he'd once called family, ponders the health risks blasted across his pack of cigarettes and suggests that perhaps friends, too, should come with warning labels. Harsh as it sounds, the rebuke makes sense in the context of this movie. If, as Hobbes advised, human life devoid of the rule of law would be nasty, brutish and short, this film provides the fictional conditions wherein that nature might flourish. Challenging in subject matter but modest in production scope and with clear international appeal, "Seven Years" was a promising choice to mark Netflix's first original movie produced and filmed in Spain. It premiered worldwide Oct. 28 in 190 countries on Netflix, a massive release for a small European movie, offering hope that the streaming service could provide an important new outlet for independent filmmakers in Spain and elsewhere struggling to find financing and exhibition platforms for their films. The Predicament Four equal partners in a stylish software firm in Madrid find they are under investigation for embezzling funds from their own company. Now they have hours to agree on which of them will take the fall for the others, spend seven years in prison and save the company. The predicament is set up swiftly, and a mediator is brought in to help the foursome negotiate a solution. But first, we see the characters gather on their rooftop terrace for a last smoke, four heavy shadows looking out across the twinkling city lights and an impenetrable night sky. It's a bittersweet final moment of freedom, the visual equivalent of a heavy sigh. And it’s the last breath of fresh air, suggestively smoke-infused, that they – or we, the viewers – will have before the action of the film returns to the calculatedly claustrophobic one-room setting of the firm's loft-style offices. The Ethics of Survival Marcel is the slick CEO with the French-Canadian wife and the privileged background. Carlos is the handsome, potentially vacuous playboy who keeps the clients happy. Their sharp accountant, Vero, is the sole female partner who runs a hotel business on the side. Luis, the insomniac programmer with substance problems, appears the weakest of the four and a natural fall guy. But not all is as it seems. More complicated layers to the partners' true characters, their relationships and their views of each other are gradually exposed. Under question is much more than just who is willing to sacrifice his freedom for the benefit of the others, but the ethics of making such a decision for oneself or for another. They psycho-analyze each other in an attempt to judge how each would handle the repercussions of this decision. Each argues why the others should be chosen first. One by one, loyalties crumble under the weight of their fight to survive. Alliances and bribes, grudges and secrets, accusations, class divisions and amorous deceits all bubble to the surface. Finally, it comes down to a vote. But how can you judge a person's right to live his or her life? What are the criteria that make one human life more valuable than another, not just in the context of their usefulness to a company but in their value to their families, to society at large and even to themselves? "Seven Years" can ask but it can't answer these questions. In doing so, it forces us to ask ourselves the same questions. It makes a statement about the greed of today's society, where nothing is ever enough, and it offers a revealing indictment of a country where citizens have lost faith in their institutions and feel justified working around the law. And it’s told, intentionally or not, from a distinctly male perspective. A Bit of Respect Written by newcomer Jose Cabeza, "Seven Years" marks a return to style for director Roger Gual, who made the understated 2002 comedy "Smoking Room" about a company man trying to convince his mostly male co-workers to create a space in the office for smokers. Both films rely heavily on dialogue rather than varied settings or action to carry the narratives. Both have a decidedly realistic look and feel, though "Seven Years," by necessity of the story, has a more self-consciously sophisticated style. And both films offer showcases for some of the Spanish-speaking world's most talented actors (in "Seven Years," two of the four lead actors are Colombian). Underscoring the significance of the participation of Netflix, which now boasts more than 86m subscribers worldwide, Gual told Spanish newspaper "El País" that his first movie didn’t make it outside Spain. "For those of us in the movie industry, the fact that a film can hit 190 countries at once calls for a bit of respect.” This review originally ran in The Daily Record.

Actress Jordana Spiro's impressive first feature as a director offers a thoughtful and unhurried portrayal of a young woman at a critical crossroads in her life. Night Comes On deftly guides us into a dark world where kids struggle to get by despite mistreatment or neglect by adults. Spiro drops in scenes of normalcy seen through 18-year-old Angel's eyes, of what life could be like for a girl her age, and keeps coming back to the recurring sound of waves crashing, evoking a sole positive memory for Angel. Spiro also plays with camera angles in key scenes and slow motion sequences as a transition device. These techniques threaten to call too much attention to themselves, but ultimately they work to support the development of Angel's character. Lead actress Fishback (who also stars in Netflix's Project Power) gives a convincing and sensitive performance as a teenager teetering between childhood and adulthood, between giving in to the negative forces holding her back or starting to piece her life together. When she smiles for possibly the first time in the movie and lets her hair down during a climactic scene, we realize just how tightly wound up and scarred her Angel is. We breathe a sigh of relief along with her, short-lived as it turns out. That's good storytelling, buoyed by perceptive acting. Read the full review at Common Sense Media.

The acclaimed film, set in Mexico in the 1970s, was subtitled from Mexican Spanish into Castilian Spanish. Fans of Alfonso Cuaron's Roma are up in arms over the decision of distributors in Spain to subtitle the Mexican drama from Spanish into, well, Spanish. Roma, which won the top prize at last year's Venice Film Festival and just picked up Golden Globes for best director and foreign-language film, is almost entirely in Mexican-accented Spanish. But for its release in Spain, both in theaters and on Netflix in the territory, the pic has been subtitled into Castilian Spanish, the version of the language most commonly spoken there. Many, including the director himself, question the necessity, or the rationale, behind the linguistic adaption. “I find it very offensive for the Spanish public that Roma has been subtitled into Castilian Spanish,” Cuaron on Tuesday told Spanish news agency Efe. "I think it's very, very ridiculous." Cuaron compared it to subtitling Spanish films in Mexico: “I don’t need subtitles into Mexican to understand [Spanish director Pedro] Almodovar.” On Wednesday, Spain’s El Pais newspaper quoted Cuaron from an email stating: “It’s parochial, ignorant and offensive to Spaniards themselves… One of the things I most enjoy is the color and texture of other accents.” The subtitling controversy has been slowly brewing on Twitter for the last few weeks since the film premiered Dec. 5 on five screens in Spain and Dec. 14 on Netflix, which offers subtitles in “European Spanish." Read the full story in The Hollywood Reporter. Netflix removed the Castilian subtitles following the controversy. Follow-up story here.