FILMS from AFAR

When I first saw  The Breakfast Club  at my local theater in 1985, I sat through two back-to-back screenings. My companion didn’t want to be seen in the lobby crying after the first show. That was the effect this film had on many of us Gen X-ers. Looking back now, it’s clear why—honest movies about teen life were rare back then. But today, I’m also a little embarrassed by  how  we were seen. When my teenage daughter first watched  The Breakfast Club  and predecessor  Sixteen Candles , she was shocked at what we had accepted as “normal” when we were her age. Ch-Ch-Changes Molly Ringwald, co-star of both iconic films, dropped a bomb in 2018 when she described those beloved artifacts as “racist, misogynistic, and, at times, homophobic.” Ringwald’s reassessment raised a question we’re still wrestling with—how to honor the cultural touchstones of our youth without ignoring what they got wrong. Forty years later, the film feels like a time capsule of everything we’ve outgrown—and everything we still haven’t. On the occasion of  The Breakfast Club  turning 40 this year, I took one of my best friends from high school to see it again in theaters. We were reminded of what we’d forgotten about those days, what this movie pioneered, and what its shortcomings reveal about a culture desperately due for change. One welcome difference: We were old enough to sip wine while watching this time. Continue article here ---> https://provokedmagazine.com/the-breakfast-club-turns-40-a-little-worse-for-the-wear/ Image courtesy of Universal Pictures

Buoyed by a nuanced and captivating performance from Brazilian star Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent is a mystery that twists and simmers its way to its only possible, reality-based, heartrending closure. The film took home top awards from last May’s Cannes Film Festival and has rightfully landed on year-end “best of” lists. Now it’s a major season awards contender, making the shortlist for the International Oscar and landing three top Golden Globe nominations (for drama, foreign language and – a first for a Brazilian man – dramatic actor). The story centers on Armando, a widowed former university professor turned political refugee using the pseudonym Marcelo as he hides out in 1977 Brazil. When a pair of hitmen are hired to take Armando out, he’s told to flee the country, but he won’t go without his young son, Fernando. He tells his story on a recorded audiotape (with some explanatory scenes fleshed out in flashback). Decades later, the tape is reviewed by a young university researcher who saves a copy and takes it to Armando’s son, now grown (also played by Moura). Even as details of Armando’s story are only slowly revealed, which could cause confusion for some viewers (or even turn some off from the purposefully meandering, nearly three-hour movie), Moura’s blend of sensitivity and strength – and the production team’s spellbinding capture of period details – infuse the mystery with a deeper significance that holds the viewer’s attention. In ways, Armando stands in for an entire nation facing a brutal, 21-year military dictatorship – and still living life in the meanwhile (as in a scene where the hitmen pursue their target through the busy streets of Carnival celebrations). He’s on the run, fearful for his life, still hopeful for his future, impossibly brave in the face of imminent threats – and ultimately doomed. In ways, he’s also the male counterpart to Fernanda Torres’ role last year as Eunice Paiva, a woman investigating the forced disappearance of her politician husband, based on real historical figures, in Walter Salles’ 1970s-set I’m Still Here . (It’s surely not lost on the Agent team that Torres became the first Brazilian actress to win an acting Golden Globe last year, and the film took home the International Oscar). Perhaps it’s telling that Agent is the second Brazilian film in as many years to tackle this ugly historical record. Could the current political climate be inspiring a cautionary revival of historical memory? While different, both films rely on simmering central performances, minute period details and a subtle rendering of the fear people lived with under the brutal regime. The violence is palpable in both films, but in Agent , it’s made more explicit in some very bloody scenes. And the regime, or the threat Armando faces, is likened to a predator shark via a substory involving a human leg found in the belly of a tiger shark and later imagined in an absurdly comical way to be terrorizing the city. The national obsession with the story of the shark and the leg is paralleled in the film’s storyline by the 1977 release of the film Jaws . This is just one of writer-director Kleber Mendonca Filho’s nods to the cultural role of cinema of that era, and just one of the elements of the film’s masterful period production detail, also including the music, a saturated color palette and the use of widescreen and split screen. The still used as the poster in the US, showing Moura in period wardrobe framed by a large mustard-colored oval phone booth with a red pay phone, perfectly captures that studied 70s look. Review originally published by AWFJ.org Images courtesy of Neon

Her 34-year-old son was inaugurated as New York City’s first Muslim, South Asian, and African-born mayor on New Year’s Day, following an election that shocked the old guard and thrilled a new generation. In mom Mira Nair’s words, Zohran Mamdani “more than won the weekend” with his election. Leave it to a filmmaker to draw the box office analogy. Nair, aka Momdani , may be trending now because of her son, but the India-born filmmaker, 68, has been blazing trails for decades. “I’m going to be the mother of New York City,” she told reporters after her son’s swearing in. Mamdani embodies a lot of firsts, but Nair came first. Her films have long tackled complex social issues and captured universal themes in individual stories from around the globe, earning her dozens of glass-ceiling-breaking accolades, including an Oscar nomination. It’s not hard to divine Nair’s legacy in her progressive son—yet he is just one of her creations. His political messages echo themes seen consistently in her work over the last four decades, not to mention in the tides of her exceptional life, where she has modeled balancing work and motherhood, art and commerce, creativity and public service. Continue reading in PROVOKED magazine Photo credits: Mamdani by Dmitryshein ; Nair at the 2008 IIFW Masterclass Directors Meet by Bollywoodhungama.com .

Published January 2026

This emotional documentary deftly combines foot-tapping concert footage with heartbreaking individual stories of living with—and searching for a cure for—a rare disease. It would be difficult not to be moved by the stories in Matter of Time of children and families living with a rare genetic condition that can shorten life spans and involve significant pain. We find out two of the profiled patients died before the film even premiered. Vedder is still himself on stage, cursing like a sailor, but he also chokes up and sings his heart out. Matter of Time deserves viewers' time. This review was originally published by Common Sense Media Images courtesy of Netflix

This article was originally published by The Alliance of Women Film Journalists Non-English-language feature films received a   record number of nominations to the Oscars this year. The nominations show the Academy is "Becoming a Citizen of the World,”  The Hollywood Reporter  proclaimed on Jan. 22, citing the #OscarsSoWhite backlash from a decade ago that prompted the Academy to diversity its membership, including now a full 25% of voting members from abroad. But there’s another way to look at this. This year’s international diversification might also reveal that the Academy is cognizant of two simultaneous trends that are likely to shape its future. On the one hand, the Oscars have become increasingly less relevant to US audiences – their viewership is aging and relatively stagnant, which suggests their cultural significance for US audiences is sliding. On the other hand, international audiences and filmmakers still pay very close attention to the Oscars. The Academy seems to finally be waking up to the fact that the future of the Oscars may well depend on the international, not the domestic, market. Oscar Who ? The Oscars audience has been flagging for years. Although viewership has been growing slightly each year since hitting an all-time low of 10.4 million viewers in 2021, reports suggest that those 55 and over still make up the largest demographic loyal to the ceremony. Anecdotally, I surveyed a small group of my US college students, all enrolled in at least one film course, about the Oscars. The majority (60%) expressed interest in the awards, and 73% said an Oscar nomination or win would motivate them to watch a movie. But the other 40% said they don’t pay much attention to the Oscars (60% said the same of the International category), and less than half had watched the ceremony in full more than once in the last five years. The Oscars have tried to appeal to younger audiences by moving away from a solely linear-TV model, including a livestream on Hulu last year that was reportedly glitchy and added fewer overall viewers than hoped. This year, the Academy announced the Oscars will move from ABC to YouTube in 2029. The kinds of films nominated have also changed in the last 15 years, shifting from blockbuster films with mass appeal, like 1998 sensation Titanic (a time when the show was watched by almost three times as many people), to artsier, international and more message-driven films, like Best Picture winners The Artist (2012), 12 Years a Slave (2014) and Moonlight (2015). This was all before the Academy introduced new diversity and inclusion requirements for Best Picture nominees in the 2020’s but after an unfavorable 2012 LA Times investigation found the Academy membership of the time was 94% white and 77% male, with a median age of 62. Of course, that only reflected the realities of Hollywood: “the academy's demographics mirror the industry's,” the LA Times wrote. Sluggish ratings today might still have to do with that demographic disconnect (or perception thereof), or perhaps a rising “America First” conservatism in the US less interested in artsy or international films (some suggest this year’s big studio nominees, One Battle After Another and Sinners , are a response to that). The explosion of streaming post-COVID, and more fragmented viewing options in general, has surely contributed as well. “Viewership for the annual Oscars show has long served as a cultural barometer — a way for Hollywood to gauge its relevance amid shifting political winds, fracturing media habits and changing social values,” The New York Times summarized last March. Yet, as the same article pointed out, that viewership could also count “people watching overseas, people catching a recording a few days later,” not just “live viewing in the United States.” The “International” Ghetto The fact that so many international films earned nominations this year is a welcome and long overdue awakening. In its domestic PR role, the Academy has naval gazed year after year, nominating almost exclusively US productions in top categories and ignoring dozens of remarkable and deserving global films for anything beyond the International category, turning this into a kind of ghetto expected to accommodate any and all films made outside the US or not in English. But only one per country, of course. And let’s not get started on the ethnocentrism of the official category’s previous name, “Foreign-Language” from its inception in 1956 until its rebranding as “International” in 2019. Foreign to whom? It’s also noteworthy that Academy voters have long shown a preference for European films, which are far and away the most frequent nominees and winners of the category. There are other issues. Nationality is rarely clear-cut in international co-productions. When the Academy rules changed in 2006 to allow for films in non-national languages, France was shortlisted with films like Turkey-set  Mustang  (2015) and Iran-set  It Was Just An Accident  (this year), Iran-shot  The Seed of the Sacred Fig  (2025) represented Germany, and Germany-set  The Zone of Interest  won for the UK. Another eligibility restriction – that minimum 50 percent of dialogue be in a language other than English – has also caused issues. In 2019, the Academy refused the entry of Nigerian film "Lionheart" in the International category because it was filmed mostly in English, although English is the official language of Nigeria. Meanwhile, controversies regularly surface over individual countries’ management of their nominations and claims of government interference. In 2023, the Academy tinkered with the International nomination process, requiring each country’s selection committee to have at least 5 members, 50% of whom are “filmmakers, artists and craftspeople,” in order to minimize political interference. Even so, in 2024 , dozens of Greek filmmakers protested their country’s selection process, withdrawing their films from consideration and publicizing “serious doubts on the credibility and validity of the procedure.” Some have called on the Academy to create its own International Oscar selection committee. Netflix wants to do away with the minimum 7-day theatrical release requirement . Right now, around 1,000 Academy members volunteer to vote in the International category, agreeing to watch 15 pre-selected films each. The most voted of those make the first shortlist of 15, all of which must be watched by members voting on the final shortlist of the five official nominees. Oscars’ Sway Abroad Despite it all, more than 90 countries faithfully submit films each year for consideration in the International Oscar category, demonstrating the status the awards still have globally. The obvious expectation is that an Oscar, even just a nomination, will have a direct impact on distribution sales, audience interest and box office. Marketers take advantage of a nomination to publicize films that might otherwise elicit little notice, even in their home markets. After South Korea’s Parasite became the first non-English film ever to win the Best Picture Oscar (it also won Best Director, International Film and Original Screenplay) in 2020, it went on to earn more than $262 million at the worldwide box office, including $53.8 million domestically, making it the fifth top-grossing non-English-language film of all time at the domestic market. In fact, most of the films on that top grossers list received at least one Oscar nomination in their day. For a filmmaker from Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and so on, an Oscar nomination can mean the difference between making a next film, or not. It can help ensure interest and a hope for financing in fragile industries around the world. It serves as a calling card to the international industry and Hollywood. Nominees are often positioned back home as representing their entire industry and even country at the Oscars. “There's no doubt that winning an Oscar for a foreign film is a huge, important thing in terms of career potential,” Danish director Susanne Bier, twice nominated and one-time winner of the International Oscar, told me in an interview for AWFJ in 2023. “It opens a door where you can actually meet people, which is the first step, and it’s important. Then your work has to kind of live up to that because there are no guarantees, but it does actually matter.” Oscar nominee Joachim Trier, whose Sentimental Value earned a whopping nine Oscar nominations this year, told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month: “Part of being a filmmaker is what I call paying promo tax. It’s a privilege. It means that you are being seen and people care. I don’t take it lightly. I come from Norway, a tiny country, the suburbs of Europe. We’re very grateful when anything we make travels.” Kleber Mendonca Filho, director of The Secret Agent , the Brazilian film with four nominations this year, explained the importance of the American awards season for the film’s trajectory back home: “The reaction in Brazil is huge. The film is still doing very well in cinemas. It’s gaining more screens now because of the Golden Globes and this week with the [Oscar] nominations, so it’s a great moment,” he told Deadline . In becoming more international in its membership, and in nominating international films in categories beyond the International ‘ghetto,’ the Academy is acknowledging that the Oscars today are arguably more closely followed and hold more significance for audiences abroad than they do back home. If delayed viewers are counted in future ratings, and if the ceremony begins inviting more presenters from abroad (and not just from the handful of films nominated), that international audience may well be the Oscar ceremony’s best bet for the future. Images, from top: This year's International Oscar (among other categories) nominees Sentimental Value (Neon), The Secret Agent (Neon), It Was Just An Accident (Neon), Sirat (Neon), The Voice of Hind Rajab (Willa), and Parasite director Bong Joon-ho in 2020 ( Oscars.org ).

This review was originally published with The Alliance of Women Film Journalists Calle Málaga  is a warm and surprising tale about aging, family and sense of place. Veteran Carmen Maura stars as an elderly Spanish woman, raised as part of an immigrant community in Tangier, Morocco, who steadfastly refuses to spend her sunset years doing anything other than living the life she desires. She is a quiet yet determined 70-something heroine. Tangier-born director Maryam Touzani, who co-wrote the script with regular collaborator (and husband) Nabil Ayouch, has constructed a nuanced and sensitive film that infuses its story, star and setting with layers of meaning.  It’s a cliché that people often treat older women as invisible. In  Calle Málaga , Maura’s María Angeles makes invisibility an asset. It allows her to covertly move back into her empty apartment after her daughter, Clara (Marta Etura), forces her to put it on the market and sell off her things. It permits her to skirt the law and mount a makeshift speakeasy, earning enough money to slowly buy her furniture back. It lets her embark on a passionate affair in the privacy of her own space. In her refusal to leave Tangier and move to Madrid with Clara, María Angeles shows she knows her place and values her heritage there. In Moroccan society, as Touzani gently suggests, that also means knowing how to maneuver within male-dominant public spaces. María Angeles has friendly relations with all the local shopkeepers, police officers and young men on street corners, who happily extend her tabs, run her errands or even turn a blind eye on her legal evasions. Here she’s not invisible, but the strings she pulls are. She nods knowingly at the matronly lady on an adjacent balcony and relies on female neighbors for help with her affairs; the women control what goes on inside. Like her best childhood friend, nun Josefa (María Alfonso Rosso), who lives in a cloistered convent and keeps a vow of silence, and who may end up having enjoyed the most freedom of all – in full control of her environment and even her own thoughts. But men aren’t the bad guys in  Calle Málaga . When antiques dealer Abslam (Ahmed Boulane) finds himself drawn by María Angeles’ quiet determination, the two embark on a tender affair. He dotes on her needs, physical and emotional, in a way that surprises her after a lifetime of a comfortable but passionless marriage. Touzani captures the pair naked, slowly swaying to music, each savoring the touch of the other’s body. If there’s an antagonist in this story, it’s daughter Clara, whose inability to manage her own life leads her to nearly deflate her mother’s full one. But Touzani crafts Clara as a character to be pitied, not feared, a sad contrast to María Angeles’ vitality and sense of self. Dressed in drab colors, her straight hair tugging down her makeup-less features, Clara is a middle-aged mom reeling from a nasty divorce, denying herself dessert and scrambling as life passes her by. Lacking her mother’s pluck, she weeps at her plight but is seemingly incapable of changing it.  Clara's dourness colors the film’s grayer first act. It’s not until she leaves town, and María Angeles breaks out of the stifling senior residency where Clara has placed her, that the film – which won the Audience Award in the Spotlight section at last fall’s Venice Film Festival and was selected to represent Morocco in the International Oscar race (and will open the Málaga Film Festival in March) – really finds its rhythm. Maura’s charming performance is at the core. Through it all, María Angeles keeps her nails painted an impeccable red, one of several touches of symbolic coloring Touzani and DP Virginie Surdej keep coming back to. They convey her unyielding passion in scarlet nails and lips, clothing and décor. The ruby flowers she nurtures on her balcony and sprinkles as a romantic gesture for Abslam suggest her ability to blossom where planted. And when she leaves roses on family members’ tombstones, including one she pieces back together after it’s shattered, we understand her determination to stand her ground. If the damask rose is Morocco’s national flower, Touzani’s María Angeles may be the unofficial mascot of the Spaniards who have made Tangier their permanent home.   Images courtesy of Strand Releasing

This review was originally published by The Alliance of Women Film Journalists. This complex psychological drama from Scandinavian filmmaker Joachim Trier has emerged as one the most prominent and award-winning films of the year. If you haven’t seen  Sentimental Value  before hearing all the hype, you may be surprised by its nuanced and unhurried take on very mature topics. It won the Grand Prix at Cannes, swept the European Film Awards, topped critics lists and is now entering the Oscars with nine nominations, including Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, International Film, Editing and acting nods for all four of its leads.  Much of the writing about this film has focused on the family relationships. The story follows depressed theater actress Nora (Renate Reinsve) and sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), who have a tense relationship with their estranged father, the well-known, self-absorbed filmmaker Gustav (Stellan Skarsgard). When Gustav returns to Oslo after a long absence and asks Nora to star in his new movie, his first in 15 years, she flatly turns him down. He brings in American star Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) instead and creates a second version of the script in English, but it’s clear that the film – based on the real story of Gustav’s mother’s suicide and set in the family home where Nora and Agnes grew up – is a delicate family affair. The rapprochement of father and daughters, and the mutual support the sisters have long offered each other in light of their absentee parents, are certainly at the story’s heart. They, like Gustav, are still dealing with the effects of childhood trauma. Moreover, Gustav’s mother experienced acute physical trauma in her adult life as a tortured political prisoner, a grueling storyline that comes to light slowly but resolutely through the film’s occasional third-person narrator and the historical records and shocking photographs Agnes digs up.  But there’s more to the family’s struggles than just events in their lives; Trier is showing us how trauma and genetic predispositions play out across generations, symbolized in the objects, which may or may not have sentimental value, the sisters are left to sort through after their mother’s death. Nora’s inability to feel joy or accept intimacy, despite a resoundingly successful theater career and an attentive (but married) lover, can’t just be chalked up to her difficulties with her father – even though a montage of their and others’ faces dissolving into each other might seem to suggest otherwise. She’s as fragile as her mother’s heirloom vases. Sister Agnes shoulders the stress of worrying about Nora’s moods following a prior suicide attempt, and Nora is on the receiving end of Gustav’s regular drunken phone messages. The artistic personalities in the film – Gustav, Nora, Rachel – seem especially vulnerable, open as they are to exploring emotional states, something the three actors demonstrate skillfully and sometimes humorously. (Here, Trier manages to slip in some winking allusions to film industry shifts, from veterans feeling they’ve aged out of meaningful work to Netflix’s stinginess with theatrical releases.) Trier has tackled mental health themes before, most notably in 2011 literary adaptation  August, Oslo 31,  a devastating portrayal of a troubled man (played by Anders Danielsen Lie, also in  Sentimental Value ) on a very personal goodbye tour of his native city. It forms part of what’s known as Trier’s melancholic “Oslo Trilogy,” including  Reprise  and  The Worst Person in the World , all co-written with Eskil Vogt and starring repeat performers like Reinsve and Danielsen Lie. And Oslo makes the perfect setting for these themes, with its harsh white light casting shallow shadows. Much of the action revolves around the family home, which has a symbolic foundation-to-roof crack running through it and has been the site of little joy. The house is an evocative example of what’s known as Norway’s “dragon style” architecture, according to the Norwegian Film Commission, representing the craft tradition of both the Viking era and medieval wooden churches. When the house’s interior is redecorated on a soundstage for Gustav’s film, its newly stark modernity and clean lines suggest a possible clearing out of emotional cobwebs and cracks as well. Trier has a deft hand for leading viewers gently but seriously through challenging, layered stories without simple resolutions, and  Sentimental Value  is no different. Be prepared for a full 130 minutes of that emotional weight.  Images courtesy of Neon.

This Paul McCartney-focused documentary is an informative and entertaining look at the period between the break-up of the Beatles and the death of John Lennon. Man on the Run starts in a frenzy, with an expected montage of footage, photos, and music amplified with quick-paced collages and animations edited together. It's all very Yellow Submarine, but in a subtle touch, the style gets progressively more mellow over the course of the movie. This ties in nicely with the film's theme of McCartney having to "grow up'" following the Beatles' dissolution. There's certainly enough material out there about the Beatles, but the limited time frame here is curious and leaves the viewer wanting more. It's also an interesting choice to have no talking heads in the film, just voiceovers. They're not missed visually, but it does freeze the image of McCartney in time in his late 20s and early 30s—even while he's narrating much of the action now, in his 80s. This is a creative and engaging entry to the surplus of materials about the Beatles and their former members. Read the full review at Common Sense Media Images courtesy of Amazon Prime

In some ways, the title of this film is misleading—it sounds like we are looking at another Nat Geo nature documentary, but this is something very different. First of all, Elephant Ghosts seems more focused on the humans than the animals, which makes sense considering how elusive the elephants are. Legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog narrates the tale, reminding himself not to "romanticize" the native bushmen but still finding them endlessly fascinating—the cradle of humanity, the ancestors of all humans, the site of the "awakening of the human soul." These are people who still hand-start fires and can mimic animal sounds in the wild but are also speedy on a cell phone. Herzog explains some of the traditions we see, but leaves a lot unexplored as well (and no female Africans speak in the film). But Herzog also infuses the film with his usual touch of magic, from the dreamy musings of protagonist Boyes to the transcendent African landscapes set to mystical intonations. He keeps his camera just a moment longer than you'd expect on the mapped faces of elderly tribesmen and a local leopard-print-clad king. He follows a dung beetle home and admits he's weirded out by (but can't seem to look away from) a poisonous spider with a vibrating backpack of baby spiders—also poisonous. He somehow captures an elephant from under water, double rainbows gracing the plains, and trackers falling into trances where they may be possessed by elephant spirits. Originally published 3/6 by Common Sense Media Images courtesy of Disney+/Hulu.

This 3.5-hour extravaganza, released simultaneously with a companion documentary series, might feel like self-aggrandizing overkill—but only to non-Swifties. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour – The Final Show captures Swift's joyous, clear-eyed, flirtatious, youthful energy and her connection with her fans, even from a stadium stage. She makes a point of telling them they're the ones who created the community feel of her historic tour, and the "glorious" feeling of singing together in a stadium (especially post-pandemic). As the camera pans around the packed Vancouver stadium (60,000 people!), we see audience members—mostly women, but some men, and lots of little girls—crying, screaming, laughing, singing, filming, and all around having a moment. Swift puts on a real show, and you get the sense her fans would be just as wowed if she were alone on the stage instead of surrounded by the multitude of screens and dancers. If you weren't one of the 10 million who could afford a ticket to the actual tour, the filmed version offers an enjoyable substitute. Read the full review on Common Sense Media. Images courtesy of Disney+

Like the magazine itself, this documentary will speak mainly to a core and loyal audience of sophisticated readers, and it provides insights and historical narratives they will appreciate. The New Yorker at 100 moves at a brisk pace and flips engagingly through decades. With chief editor Remnick as guide, the film puts faces to names on some of the highest profile reporters as well as the unknown fact-checkers, designers, and office manager-slash-archivist who maintain this institution's reputation for meticulous, thoughtful, culture-capturing work and keep its storied history alive. It shows how the magic is made. It's not clear why Julianne Moore was selected as narrator, and the star interviewees weren't entirely necessary, but that connection to celebrity is undoubtedly also part of the magazine's mystique. Read the full review on Common Sense Media Images courtesy of Netflix.