In 2024, there is no shortage of possible imagined dystopian futures. Not just because there’s an ever-growing canon of films that dream up humanity’s worst-case scenarios but because news about climate disasters, headlines about dwindling natural resources and well-founded fears about the encroaching power of AI dominate our day-to-day lives. That’s perhaps what makes Leticia […]

The scream that pierces through the opening of “Semmelweis” sets the tone for the 19th century-set drama from Lajos Koltai, about the groundbreaking Hungarian obstetrician Ignaz Semmelweis, immediately showing its concern for a very pregnant young woman desperately roaming the streets for a proper place to give birth. Loath to check in to local clinics […]

Engaging, yet tantalizingly withholding, the contemporary drama “Drowning Dry” offers a nonlinear portrait of two sisters, their marriages and children while depicting a family tragedy during a summer holiday. As it unfolds in a kaleidoscopic manner, the narrative snaps into sharpest focus just as the film ends. It’s the sophomore feature of Lithuanian multi-hyphenate Laurynas […]