Guerilla concludes Steven Soderbergh’s broad-canvas biopic in a more subdued style, finding Che Guevara as he resurfaces in Bolivia, preparing the Latin American Revolution. Lead by another tremendous performance from Benicio del Toro, who won the Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
The first part of a project not just split down the middle, but fractured in a more abstract sense, this bold reconstruction of the Che’s life (charting the revolutionary’s time in 50s Cuba) challenges our every expectation. An unconventional biopic from the always risk-taking Steven Soderbergh.
Romanian director Cristian Mungiu delves deep into the subject of religious faith in this chilling drama, framing life in an orthodox monastery with atmospheric and beguiling cinematography. Intense and disconcerting, the two lead performances were awarded a double award for Best Actress in Cannes!
Our annual collaboration with the Human Rights Watch Film Festival kicks off with this Academy Award-nominated, Republic of the Congo-set drama. Diving headfirst into the calamitous world of its protagonist, War Witch carves a necessary reckoning with the scars of a tragic war.
A rare convergence of three of Hong Kong’s biggest stars: Sean Lau, Louis Koo, and Nick Cheung meet in this sprawling crime story in China’s metropolis. A throwback to the bombastic stylings of John Woo’s films, The White Storm is a fiery rage of action, baroque melodrama, and games of deception.
With images from 70 countries shot by 62 cinematographers, this satirical essay-film travels the world to deliver a treatise about… Nothing. With an absurdist charm all of its own, existential meditations are pondered with whimsical lightheartedness. What’s more, Iggy Pop narrates—in verse!
With Citizenfour Laura Poitras captured lightning in a bottle when whistleblower Edward Snowden reached out to her to share his case against the NSA and the state of mass surveillance. Six years have past and yet the imperative issues this brave film challenges remain. An exemplary political film.
Nocturama auteur Bertrand Bonello aligned some of the biggest stars in French cinema for this parable of human nature and artistic creation. A farce with welcome shades of darkness, On War follows Mathieu Amalric, curiously playing a cipher of Bonello, immersing into the world of a mysterious cult.
Realized in a language which less than 20 people now speak, Edge of the Knife is a singular act of lingual preservation and a mythic story of revenge, family, and the supernatural amidst the breathtaking landscapes of British Columbia’s Haida Gwaii. Presented in collaboration with Canada Now.
Be warned: this is no placid summer’s tale! Isabella Eklöf’s sun-drenched debut is as intoxicating as it is brutal. An unflinching study of female oppression whose perspective on abuse has stirred up controversy, Holiday is daring filmmaking that exudes confidence while asking crucial questions.
Modern-day traffic in Rome and the life of Julius Caesar collide in this radical adaptation of a Brecht novel. Straub-Huillet continue to fearlessly remove the gap between Roman history and Italy’s 20th century by revealing Caesar’s transformative impact through ancient characters and modern images.
Starring a host of Canadian cinema luminaries, from Sandra Oh to David Cronenberg, actor-turned-director Don McKellar made a Y2K infused cult classic of the apocalypse genre with Last Night. Delightfully conversational, mysterious, and bittersweet, this is one of the hidden gems of the 1990s.
Realized from a first person account of being marooned on the Japanese island of Anatahan after WWII, Josef von Sternberg controversially recreated the disputed events with his baroque, magnetic touch. Whether truth or fiction, Anatahan offers a potent look at social power structures in microcosm.
The second feature by Virgil Vernier spins unusual stories from within its socially and politically charged Riviera setting with a wry sense of humor and supple poetic touch that never dampens its sharp critique. It’s a state-of-France portrait that is as idiosyncratic as it is surprising.
With the beguiling 16mm Mercuriales, Virgil Vernier emerged fully formed as one of the most original & distinctive new aesthetes in French cinema. A disorienting debut feature that elevates the most everyday and banal situations of contemporary life to the metaphysical, otherworldly, and ethereal.
“Restored from the pristine original 35mm negative, the film is presented in its correct 1.85 widescreen aspect ratio, unlike previous poor home video versions. The estate of the director maintained excellent materials, so we were able to use the quality source for this ultimate camp treasure.” —NWR
Eugène Green brings his delightfully idiosyncratic touch to this unusual version of the Nativity story involving a quest to find a boy’s true father, a hilarious satire of the French literature scene, and, as always with this filmmaker, moving doses of profound emotional and spiritual sincerity.
Next subject in our What Is an Auteur? series is French-by-way-of-America director Eugène Green, whose movies are spare—he counts Bresson as an influence—yet refreshingly funny, forthright, and touching. With its stunning architecture tour, this wistful delight intertwines art into its drama.
Written in high contrast, impressionistic images, Avishai Sivan’s sophomore film Tikkun is a rare immersion into an Israeli Orthodox Jewish community. One young man’s near-death experience sets him on a path of discovery in this darkly dreamlike intimation of a crisis of faith and sexuality.
Intertwining lost love, the melancholy of aging, and the magic of movies, this film is a tribute to actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, who since The 400 Blows has embodied France’s modern cinema. Nobuhiro Suwa’s expert, easy-going direction results in a serene film of warm gentleness and sublime simplicity.
We leave Germany for imperial Italy in our next Straub-Huillet film, a brazen historical drama that fuses 1969 Rome with Corneille’s 17th century play to invoke the drama of power struggles across the centuries. The past is shown as fiercely alive and old texts speak vividly of the present moment.
Part of Viewfinder, our globetrotting strand showcasing fascinating stories, this beguiling and unpredictable drama is a dark yet frequently comic look at identity, love, religion, and small-town community in Poland. It won director Małgorzata Szumowska her second Silver Bear award at the Berlinale.
Alongside Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, this harrowing Palme d’Or winner from Cristian Mungiu may be the defining film of the Romanian New Wave. Nail-biting and suspenseful, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a stirring socio-realist thriller, led by the exceptional Anamaria Marinca.
Academy Award winner Alejandro González Iñárritu’s humanist vision was already fully accomplished with his groundbreaking first feature, which also made Gael García Bernal a star. Amores Perros, with its kinetic, mosaic sense of storytelling, is a landmark film from contemporary Mexican cinema.
Valerie Donzelli arrived on the French independent cinema scene as a sort of UFO with her low-budget eccentric and bubbly films. While her second feature (which stars as always her partner in crime Jeremie Elkaïm) tackles illness with emotional honesty, it still bursts with heart-warming vivacity.
Following the explosive 13 Assassins, the iconoclastic Takashi Miike revisited the samurai genre with this underrated remake of the 1962 classic Harakiri. Scored by the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto, Death of a Samurai is a elegant reckoning with notions of sacrifice and duty in the 17th century.
Director Arnaud Desplechin has a new film in Cannes this year, inspiring us to revive one of his strangest yet most compelling melodramas. A poignant character portrait of a unique cross-cultural friendship, the film is also a tremendous showcase for actors Benicio Del Toro and Mathieu Amalric.
Two years before his compatriot Cristian Mungiu won the Palme d’Or, Cristi Puiu won a prize at Cannes for this ingenious 21st-century classic, a key film from the Romanian New Wave. A pitch-black and Kafkaesque contemporary comedy, it reveals the myriad nuances involved in the quest for human care.
Not since 1992’s Unforgiven has a western at once revived and furthered the waning genre. Tommy Lee Jones’ sublime The Homesman and its revelatory consideration of the white woman’s experience on the frontier, does just that. Starring Hilary Swank, Meryl Streep, James Spader, and Jones himself.
Breaking from tradition, two-time Palme d’Or winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne—who are back in Cannes this year with a new film—cast a star, Belgian actress Cécile de France, for this bright and buoyantly optimistic socially-conscious fairytale. Winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Grand Prix.