Author: CWB News Department

Here is a strangely exhausting movie, quaintly imagining the frenzied atmosphere of a New York restaurant kitchen as a microcosm of exploited migrant workers, full of macho shouting and self-conscious acting, with every speech a drama school audition piece. The Mexican film-maker Alonso Ruizpalacios has given us some terrific work in the past, such as his debut Güeros, his drama-thriller Museum and his rather amazing docudrama A Cop Movie, but I couldn’t make friends with this strained and histrionic picture. It is in English and Spanish, shot in black-and-white, but sometimes shifting to different colour filters, and inspired by The Kitchen, the 1957 stage…

Alain Guiraudie’s Misericordia is an existential drama masquerading as a comedy masquerading as a thriller. The French director, whose best-known film Stateside remains 2014’s sunny, rambling queer mystery Stranger by the Lake, specializes in these kinds of slippery genre hybrids, movies that start off as one thing and eventually become other things, all without ever betraying their essence. Misericordia was a major critical hit in France, where it was nominated for mountains of awards and was named the best film of the year by Cahiers du Cinéma. The director’s shape-shifting narratives, forever flirting with the metaphysical, are obviously a known quantity there. It’ll be interesting to…

A B.C. film focusing on Indigenous food sovereignty has received the most nominations at a social-justice film fest in Surrey. Tea Creek is a finalist for Rogers Group of Funds Best Canadian Documentary, Best Environmental Film, and Best British Columbia Feature Film at the Sundar Prize Film Festival 2025. Ryan Dickie, a Fort Nelson resident of Dene descent, directed Tea Creek. It tells the story of an agricultural-training centre for Indigenous people in northwestern B.C. Tea Creek owner Jacob Beaton, a mixed-race member of the Tsimshian Nation, offers mentorship on his family farm in Kitwanga to aspiring Indigenous food producers. “Jacob and his wife,…

The first feature-length documentary by Irish director Gar O’Rourke, Sanatorium , which is world-premiering at CPH:DOX, in the DOX:AWARD competition, is set in the imposing Kuyalnyk Sanatorium in Odesa. Over the course of one summer, it follows the lives of staff and guests as the war encroaches in the background. We chatted with O’Rourke about the film and his playful approach. Cineuropa: How did you discover this sanatorium? Gar O’Rourke: I first went to Kyiv in 2018, when I was developing the short documentary Kachalka, and since then, I’ve had a strong love of, and interest in, Ukrainian culture. But the origins of Sanatorium started during the…

For its second year, the Latin American Film Festival of Dallas will return to Spacy, a microcinema in the heart of Tyler Station. From March 21–23, LAFFD 2025 will feature 11 films that demonstrate the breadth of contemporary Latin American cinema alongside repertory screenings of classic films from the region. While these are mostly contemporary works, there are also curated repertory screenings on the schedule (including the 1949 Mexican comedy Tender Pumpkins). LAFFD remains the only film festival in DFW solely dedicated to Latin American cinema; other festivals may program these films or have a specific block acknowledging Latin American movies, but no one else…

ohn Williams is among cinema’s most known and respected composers. He has a knack for crafting brilliant arrangements that so perfectly capture the mood and tone of their respective films. His work is often thought to be timeless, carried through the years via a number of vessels, from exciting video games to blockbuster sequels. Williams has collaborated with equally prolific filmmakers, from the varied concepts brought to life by Steven Spielberg to the galaxies explored by George Lucas. With over 30 awards under his belt, including five Oscars, Williams’ accomplishments have not gone unsung, but we’d love to offer our…

Breakfast With Giraffes – A Comedy by Soroush Sehat will be screened in  Los Angeles & Orange County https://youtu.be/NTXo6NDYnt4?si=mgrYyJkPEHBuJK1- Pouya, Shahin, and Mojtaba have been invited to Reza’s wedding. Reza, the groom, has been trying for years to get the approval of the bride’s family, and he has finally succeeded in organizing the wedding tonight. The bride’s family is traditional, and Mojtaba, who is a close relative of the groom, has been advised by Reza not to drink alcohol tonight. However, his friends, seeking to have a good time, turn to drugs like cocaine and offer some to Mojtaba and…

“Flow,″ a wordless cat parable, won the Oscar for animated feature at Sunday’s 97th Academy Awards. The win gives Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis his first Academy Award. “Flow” was made with Blender, a free, open-source graphics software tool using computer generated animation. The result is a dreamy aesthetic paired with a peaceful, yet post-apocalyptic, fable about a black cat, dog, capybara, ring-tailed lemur and secretary bird trying to survive a catastrophic flood. The film has no dialogue and forces viewers to be mesmerized by the unlikely relationship and understanding between the species trying to escape the rising waters. https://youtu.be/edcULvPtKDs?si=TC11kQNWxfzUYK6V “I think you…

I’m Still Here, wins the OSCAR for the Best International Film https://vimeo.com/1061897644 I’m Still Here (Portuguese: Ainda Estou Aqui ) is a 2024 political biographical drama film directed by Walter Salles from a screenplay by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s 2015 memoir of the same name. It stars Fernanda Torres and Fernanda Montenegro as Eunice Paiva, a mother and activist coping with the forced disappearance of her husband, the dissident politician Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), during the military dictatorship in Brazil. Soon after its release in Brazilian theaters on 7 November 2024 by Sony Pictures Releasing International, the film was the target of an unsuccessful boycott by the Brazilian far-right, which denies that the dictatorship was tyrannical.[5][6][7] Grossing $29.9 million…

Andre Anderson can still recall the feeling of watching Ava DuVernay’s 13th for the first time. The Preston-raised African Nova Scotian actor—and now filmmaker—had been so moved by the 2016 documentary on the US prison-industrial complex that he screened it for his classmates at Saint Mary’s University. Then again at the Marquee Ballroom. Anderson says he “told everybody” he knew about the Emmy-winning film and felt so inspired by the stories he watched on-screen that he picked up a camera of his own. “I felt that if somebody could really impact me that deeply that it caused me to take…