The Venice Film Festival continued its ascent this year, rivaling Cannes — long the undisputed king of all film festivals — in its capacity to draw stars, spark debate and drive sales of first-rate art films. While some of the bigger titles fizzled (Todd Phillips’ gonzo musical sequel to 2019 Golden Lion winner “Joker” disappointed, and Kevin […]

In “Amy,” Asif Kapadia’s Oscar-winning gut-punch about pop icon Amy Winehouse (and to a lesser extent in biographical docs “Senna” and “Diego Maradona” too), the British director employs an emotional rhythm by which his subject’s tragic end seems foredestined right from the start. Perhaps “2073,” his new hybrid docufiction is a natural expansion of that […]

Norwegian director Dag Johan Haugerud’s “Love,” which premiered in Venice competition, and received the film critics’ prize Bisato d’Oro, has sold to additional European territories. The film will screen in Busan’s World Cinema strand next month. The film has secured distribution for Greece (One from the Heart), Baltics (Best Film Baltics), Ex-Yugoslavia (MCF MegaCom), Poland […]

With the documentary “Sudan, Remember Us,” filmmaker Hind Meddeb gives herself a rather difficult task. She sets out to tell the story of four significant years in the history of this African nation through the faces and words of a few young people. Within that time frame, a 30 year dictatorship was overthrown by a […]

For “Vermiglio” director Maura Delpero, winning Venice Film Festival’s Silver Lion grand jury prize is a dream born from a dream. The drama is set at the end of World War II in an Alpine village, where the arrival of a soldier causes disruption in the dynamics between three sisters. “Vermiglio” marks Delpero’s follow-up to […]

Both a bold historical drama and a penetrating psychological study of a delusional authoritarian, “Quisling -The Final Days” is perhaps the strongest work yet from veteran Norwegian helmer Erik Poppe (“1,000 Times Good Night”). It serves as a bookend of sorts to “The King’s Choice,” his 2016 hit, which dealt with the first three days of Germany’s […]

French-speaking Belgium hit a high-water mark at the Cannes Film Festival in May, with 11 Belgian co-productions claiming accolades and acclaim across the Croisette. Alongside Critics’ Week opener “Ghost Trail” and the Cannes jury and best actress prize-winner “Emilia Pérez,” eight of those co-productions received support from Belgium’s Federation Wallonie-Bruxelles, while just as many shared […]

Nicole Kidman won the best actress prize at Venice Film Festival for her performance in “Babygirl” on Saturday night, but was not on hand to accept the prize because of some devastating news. After Kidman’s name was announced, “Babygirl” director Halina Reijn took the stage and delivered written remarks in place of Kidman, revealing that […]

It’s been a good week for Basque directors Jon Garaño and Aitor Arregi, who, along with Jose Mari Goenaga, world premiered “Marco” at Venice and landed a spot on the shortlist for Spain’s Oscar entry.  Sold by Film Factory Entertainment, with market screenings in Toronto and upcoming stops at San Sebastian, London and Vancouver, “Marco” is […]

With six Luxembourgish projects on display, this year’s Venice Film Festival served as a victory lap for a modest state with an outsized impact. Boasting 1,200 professionals, a vibrant animation sector, and an output of 25-30 titles per year, the Grand Duchy’s co-production driven ecosystem is all the more remarkable for its relative youth and […]

The Venice Film Festival draws to a close this evening with its glamorous awards gala, and though the feeling on the ground was that the 21-title-strong main competition was a touch off the pace of recent years, still the festival is looking pretty good for an 81-year-old. Especially one who has spent the past 11 […]

There’s an enormous amount to describe, but very little to actually say about Kevin Costner’s bedraggled “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2,” the second of a planned four installments in his sprawling, multistranded western, that plays, after “Chapter 1″‘s muted reception in Cannes, out of competition on the final day of Venice. Doubling down […]

As late-life dates go, for octogenarian widow Ruth, it seems like a good one. The guy is younger, quite personable, and has an interesting job in sustainable architecture, even if she’s embarrassed to initially admit that she’s forgotten his name. She prepares them her favourite brunch — salmon and cream cheese on toast, assembled with […]

Vietnamese Director Duong Dieu Linh’s horror-comedy “Don’t Cry, Butterfly” is the big winner of the Venice Critics’ Week where it scooped the grand prize and the award for most innovative feature. Written and directed by Duong Dieu Linh, the Hanoi-set film follows a housewife who uses voodoo to try and get her cheating husband to fall […]

Kevin Costner spoke on the scrapped theatrical release of his second “Horizon” film on Saturday during its Venice Film Festival press conference, saying that “it probably was a reaction” to the underperformance of the first movie at the box office. “It didn’t have overwhelming success,” Costner said of the first film. “I’ve had a lot […]

From Palestinian filmmaker Scandar Copti, the Israel-set “Happy Holidays” is a piercing, realistic family drama, the inflection points of which reveal deep cultural and political dimensions surrounding gender and ethnicity. Like his Oscar-nominated crime drama “Ajami” (which he co-directed with Yaron Shani), Copti’s second feature follows an ensemble of characters — Arab and Jewish alike […]

“The Quiet Son,” a French film exploring family dynamics amidst far-right radicalization, has won the 2024 Collateral Impact Award at the 81st Venice Film Festival. The award, presented by Think-Film Impact Production and Impact Europe, recognizes films with significant societal impact potential. Written and directed by Delphine Coulin and Muriel Coulin, the cast features Vincent […]

Porn king Riccardo Schicchi was, according to Giulia Louise Steigerwalt’s bubbly, shallow “Diva Futura,” named after Schicchi’s now-defunct multimedia adult-entertainment enterprise, a really sweet guy.  Moreover, the film insists, his vision for pornography was similarly wholesome: a means to liberate prudish late-20th century Italian society by celebrating the beauty of women as he saw it […]

We live in a transitional era regarding relationship politics, as more people carve romantic and sexual lives for themselves outside the prescribed trajectory of love, marriage, procreation and nuclear family. The emergence of LGBT identities into the mainstream has had much to do with this, of course, but our collective understanding of opposite-sex partnerships —  […]