After a long career as writer-producer, Ilmar Taska’s second feature, Thy Kingdom Come, moves the Estonian-born talent not only more confidently into the director’s chair, but through new territory in the horror genre as well. This Spanish-Italian co-production with a polyglot cast steers what might have been a standard-issue tale of monster-haunted yuppies into fresh turf tackling the darker side of artistic expression, the cancerous creep of fear in a post-9/11 society and, as a consequence, our global insecurities about how to confront and survive the changing norms of whatever we call the “real” world. The movie’s artistic themes and…
Author: James Ulmer
Anyone who thinks the hugely popular and sentimental Cinema Paradiso is typical of Giuseppe Tornatore’s cinematic style – or at least typical of the way we’d like him to shoot movies — only has to watch the first few minutes of his most recent feature, The Unknown Woman (La Sconosciuta), to realize that one of Italy’s best-known directors has become something of an unknown man. https://youtu.be/DblDnJ5k1rk Here, Tornatore has gone way beyond the populist realm of Paradiso’s first-blush love, darling naughty boys and the all-embracing soft heart of the Sicilian piazza to embrace instead the cold, horrifying heart of the…
CLUJ, Romania – Last year, filmmakers from this often-overlooked country conquered Cannes with a double whammy: the Palm d’Or for Cristian Mungiu’s abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, along with the top prize in the sidebar Un Certain for California Dreamin’ (Endless) by 27-year-old Cristian Nemescu. (Unfortunately, the director never lived to enjoy his first feature’s success; he was killed in a car crash during post production.) Two years before that, the Un Certain Regard prize was bestowed upon Cristi Puiu’s extraordinary black comedy, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. Not since Vlad the Impaler shish-kabobbed his enemies…
BERLIN — For the past five years the Cinema for Peace celebrity gala has been one of the city’s hottest annual events, a fusion of film, fundraising and philanthropy that lures over 400 notables to honor films and individuals who create “a platform for peace and tolerance.” The grand tradition continued Monday night (Feb. 11) with the red-carpet welcome of luminaries such as Sir Ben Kingsley, Sir Bob Geldof, Hillary Swank, Joseph Fiennes, Catherine Deneuve, Garry Kasparov and Russian opera star Anna Netrebko. Tuxed and gowned, they all mounted the monumental marble steps of Berlin’s domed Konzerthaus, which was doused…
CLUJ, Romania — The Transylvania International Film Festival (TIFF) concluded its successful 10th edition — and its first as a newly accredited A-level film festival by the international film organization FIAP — by handing out two of its top prizes to the Argentinean filmmaker Miguel Cohan for his debut feature, No Return. Cohan was awarded the 15,000-euro Transylvania Prize for his detective yarn after sharing the screenwriting trophy with co-writer Ana Cohan at the festival’s closing gala June 11, before an audience of 1,000 guests at the National Theatre of Cluj. Cohan’s film was cited by the competition jury as…
As I am waiting to find out whether my flight will take off as planned – or whether the blizzard everyone is afraid of, will keep us grounded, I took the time to check the Berlinale program and made some first notes to see what is playing and what I want to check out. What follows is my first Berilnale list – which I am sure will go through multiple permutations as I arrive in Berlin, pick up my press badge and get immersed in the festival. I am curious to see Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS – the new – original,…