DAY 1 got off to a strong start with two films that are hopefully a harbinger of things to come in this 68th edition of the Cannes Festival. I just finished watching the Matteo Garrone THE TELLER OF TALES, which was screened before the press at 7pm. I will talk about that film in a later post. French filmmaker Emmanuelle Bercot's LA TETE HAUTE is an uncensored and deftly-lensed look at youth in perdition. Her portrait of Malony

Chaos, wrath and bucketfuls of drumming. The movie score that Dutch-born musical artist Junkie XL composed for MAD MAX: FURY ROAD punches up the film’s post-apocalyptic scenery like nobody’s business. The Grammy-nominated producer and composer was approached by Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures to stamp his sonic signature unto the George Miller-directed action-thriller that stars Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron

The 68th Cannes Film Festival will open next Wednesday under the jury presidency of a pair of brothers from Saint Louis Park, Minnesota. The Coen Brothers aren't strangers to Cannes since most, if not all, of their films have been shown here over the years.

The brothers will be in good company: A-listers, stars and outstanding actors and actresses and filmmakers--the likes of

From this year’s Cannes Festival selection. Mexican filmmaker David Pablos’s […]

My name is Nathanael Hood and I’m autistic. And in my twenty-six years on this earth I have never seen a film that treated autism with the same level of respect and dignity as Matt Fuller’s AUTISM IN LOVE. It examines four subjects: Lenny, a twenty-something living with his parents who agonizes over his inability to get a girlfriend; Dave and Lindsey, two Autistics who have managed to overcome their disabilities to sustain an eight-year relationship; Stephen, a middle-aged

Adrián García Bogliano’s SCHERZO DIABOLICO can best be described as a near-perfect engine of human cruelty. Any other attempt to qualify it within the terms of established genre traditions are futile. Is it an abduction procedural? A psychological character study of a criminal à la John McNaughton’s HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1986)? A female revenge thriller? SCHERZO DIABOLICO is all three and

On August 24, 1992 the German city of Rostock was slammed by a wave of xenophobic riots which culminated in the burning of a residential building housing over 120 Vietnamese immigrants. Known as “The Night of Fire,” it was a defining moment in post-reunification German history. 23 years later, Burhan Qurbani reconstructs the events of that terrible night with his film We Are Young. We Are Strong. As an American who had never heard of this event before, I

Laura Bispuri's SWORN VIRGIN ("vergine giurata" in the original italian title) feels incomplete, a partial film missing a final reel. SWORN centers on Hana (Alba Rohrwacher), a young Albanian woman who invokes the traditional right for females to become honorary males known as “burrnesh” in exchange for taking an oath of virginity. Years later Hana, now known as "Mark," flees the countryside to live in Italy and rediscover her lost femininity.

This year’s Cannes Selection was announced this morning and in fact features a less american-centric selection of films than in years past. That’s not to say Cannes's programmers won’t indulge a little of their flair for filmmakers representative of the commercially-viable but frankly independent fringe made in USA. Two of our best filmmakers alive today, Gus Van Sant and Todd Haynes, will be both competing for the Palme D’Or

Although Isabella Rossellini is less known stateside than in Europe the pedigreed doyenne of the moving pictures is bona fide cinema royalty. Her father is filmmaker Roberto Rossellini and her mother, Ingrid Bergman. Oh, she was married to a certain Martin Scorsese in the late seventies and later dated David Lynch. Naming her head of the jury of the Un Certain Regard (U.C.R.) program at this year’s Cannes Festival will add cachet and a dash