European Films
Some cinematic landmarks of the 1960s in Stalinist East Germany
By Bernd Reinhardt, August 3, 2011
Signs of social dissatisfaction with the Stalinist state in the 1960s were captured in a series of East German films, which were either immediately banned or dropped by cinemas after a short time.
The political tone at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival
By Jordan Mattos, May 14, 2011
The recent Tribeca Film Festival screened some interesting works from Serbia, Hungary, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Korea, France and Romania in particular.
I am Love and The Leopard: Italian cinema new and old
By Joanne Laurier, July 27, 2010
Numerous critics argue that director Luca Guadagnino’s I am Love represents something of a revival of Italian cinema, and compare the new film favorably to Luchino Visconti’s 1963 masterpiece, The Leopard.
San Francisco International Film Festival 2010 Part 2: Susa—The type of life that requires illusions
By David Walsh, May 11, 2010
Susa, directed by Rusudan Pirveli and written by Giorgi Chalauri, comes from Georgia, the former Soviet Republic. The title character (played by Avtandil Tetradze) is a boy living in bad conditions, somewhere outside the capital city of Tbilisi.
Jacques Audiard’s Un prophète: An extreme case of making a virtue out of necessity
By Joanne Laurier, April 20, 2010
A 19-year-old homeless youth of North African descent is jailed in a French prison, where he develops into a new type of gangster.
60th Berlin International Film Festival—Part 6
The jurist Fritz Bauer and Germany’s Nazi past
By Bernd Reinhardt, March 17, 2010
The documentary Fritz Bauer—Tod auf Raten (Fritz Bauer—Death by Instalments), directed by Ilona Ziok, celebrates the German jurist and prosecutor Fritz Bauer (1903-1968), who now—unjustly—is almost forgotten.
60th Berlin International Film Festival—Part 5
Romania, Bosnia, and the problems of immigrants
By Stefan Steinberg, March 11, 2010
Romanian cinema has won a reputation in the last few years with a series of films by younger directors attempting to come to grips with the consequences of the introduction of the capitalist free market following the collapse of Stalinism.
60th Berlin International Film Festival—Part 4
This year’s German films: In general, a more serious tone
By Bernd Reinhardt, March 6, 2010
A number of trends currently find expression in German cinema. On the whole, this year’s feature and documentary films on view at the Berlinale adopted a more serious tone.
Vincere—the tragic life of Ida Dalser, Mussolini’s first wife
By Richard Phillips, November 28, 2009
Vincere is about Ida Dalser, the first wife of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Directed by Marco Bellocchio, this audacious work should encourage audiences to examine the dark history of this period in more detail.
Germany: Berlin cinema shows films commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall
By Bernd Reinhardt, August 11, 2009
On the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, a cinema in the German capital showed a retrospective of films dealing with the event.
Everlasting Moments: The world to be explored and preserved
By Joanne Laurier, April 30, 2009
At the age of 77, Swedish director Jan Troell is one of Europe’s more distinguished filmmakers. His latest film, Everlasting Moments, tells the story of Maria Larsson, a Finnish-born mother of seven and wife of Sigge, a flamboyant, militant docker.
La Fille Coupée En Deux, the new film from Claude Chabrol
By Hiram Lee, December 29, 2008
Veteran French New Wave director Claude Chabrol returns to the screen with an interesting but limited work inspired by the life of Evelyn Nesbit.
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