At the start of Turkish auteur Zeki Demirkubuz’s long-awaited and frustratingly miscalculated “Life” — the filmmaker’s first movie in seven years, now serving as Turkey’s international feature submission to the Academy Awards —a young woman named Hicran flees the claws of an impending arranged marriage and goes into hiding. We learn as much, not from […]

The Academy Awards are still months away but the best picture landscape is already taking shape. Some question marks remain — for example, both “Nosferatu” and the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” have yet to be widely seen. And the staying power of smaller indies like “A Real Pain” and “The Nickel Boys” has […]

For nearly two decades, being nominated for an Academy Award in the documentary feature category required not only a beautifully crafted film constructed by a talented director and crew, but also a high-six-figure or more awards season campaign budget. But if last year is any indication, scoring a slot on the Oscar shortlist and the […]