Listening to Peter Hujar’s Day by Ira Sachs makes you wish you’d trade places with Ivan Denisovich. Live from the Panorama at Berlinale.
Rosenkrantz and the Real Slow Burn
Category: Festivals
Reviews and dispatches exploring the best new cinema premiering around the world.
Sirens Call. Mermaids and All.
Sirens Call, Miri Ian Gossing and Lina Sieckmann’s impassioned look at modern-day merfolk, reinvents ancient myths for an increasinly fascist age.
The Good Sister. A Great Movie.
The moral difficulty of realising your loved one might be a monster is explored in great detail in Sara Miro Fischer’s The Good Sister.re
Home Sweet Home. Giving Care.
The burdens of working as a full-time caregiver are depicted in microscopic detail in Frelle Perersen’s assured Home Sweet Home.
Living The Land. Weddings and Funerals.
The rhythms of village life are perceptively captured in Huo Meng’s intimate epic Living the Land, which is handsomely made but holds the audience at a remove.
Das Licht. Bitte Nicht.
Hitherto undiscovered depths of cringe are plumped in Tom Tykwer’s misguided and offensive familial drama Das Licht (The Light), opening Berlinale 2025.
Move the Berlinale To Charlottenburg
The Berlinale is in a vibe crisis. Here’s how moving the festival to Charlottenburg would make it fun again.
Blind Love. Tunnel Vision.
References to Alfred Hitchock and Edward Yang does the paper-thin queer Taiwanese love story Blind Love no favours.
Screen Rotterdam
Rotterdam Film Festival has more films in its 2025 edition than days in the year. We tried to hold its offerings, like collecting water in a sieve.
Perla Ponders the Perils of the Communist Patriarchy
While Perla looks and feels extremely well-made, its surfeit of style overwhelms the emotional heart of this communist-era tale. Live from Rotterdam!