A fishing boat in which Senegalese men from different ethnic backgrounds will have to huddle for two weeks during an ocean crossing. Filmmaker Moussa Touré ‘s “La Pirogue,” currently shown in the Un Certain Regard section, wants to incite a dialogue between people confined in a small living space. But the stakes are very high, and the fiction film is very much based on reality. Thirty men (a mixture of Peuls, Guineans, and Muslims

A community slides into mass hysteria after accusations of child molesting surface. But instead of a full-blown witch-hunt or courtroom drama story we’re treated to a cool-headed and transfixing tale of a life coming undone. Thomas Vinterberg co-founded Dogme 95 along with Lars Von Trier and several others. He’s the brain behind “The Celebration,” having written and directed the 1998 feature film which came to embody the nascent

Opening shot: a bird’s eye view of Naples, with Mount Vesuvius in the background, as if God were gazing at his Creation. Director Matteo Garrone’s camera glides toward some unknown destination, a shot which is set to the sound of the enchanted Alexandre Desplat-composed score (in affect, at least, it’s reminiscent of the “Nutcracker Suite”). We get closer to earth when, steadily, a white horse-drawn carriage, festooned with tall

The reserve of goodwill directed at filmmaker Benh Zeitlin is […]

There’s potential for vice in the leitmotif of Ulrich Seidl’s […]

For the Bondurant gang, purveyors of apple brandy in the depression-era south, legend--their own, that is--is the stuff that makes the world turn; their illegal business thrives on it. That they are viewed as invincible by foes helps keep the deck stacked in their favor and keeps the moonshine dollar flowing in, the occasional shootout with a rival notwithstanding. When Forrest (Tom Hardy), the eldest of the Bondurant brothers gets

The Un Certain Regard (U.C.R.) program was officially launched during […]

Judging from the line of people waiting to get into a still-closed Théâtre Lumière (seating capacity: 2,281) at 7:45 this morning the anticipation was high for Jacques Audiard’s return to the Croisette, “Rust and Bone.” It was in this same theatre that three years ago we discovered the history- and career-making “A Prophet,” one of the best films made in the last twenty years. One can’t help wondering if the self-effacing Audiard felt any sort

There are a million stories to be told from post-revolutionary Egypt but they won’t be told by an Egyptian filmmaker. The narrative of Yousry Nasrallah’s “After the Battle” which he wrote himself and which will have its premiere today in Cannes, held promise: as Egypt is still in the throes of revolutionary fervor an unlikely alliance forms between two people from different ends of the social spectrum who, under normal circumstances, might

If Standard & Poor’s assessed film production values Wes Anderson would remain a AAA-rated cineaste year in and year out. The level of detail that went into every square inch of “Moonrise Kingdom,” which had its premiere here in Cannes a few hours ago, is above perfection. But “Moonrise” fails on other levels. Adult characters wretchedly watch as their kids go about resolving the problems of their day (only to finally prevail, at the very