Ioncinema

A Jazzman’s Blues: Gee Strikes the Right Chords in Tender DocudramaE

British filmmaker Grant Gee, heretofore best known as a documentarian of various musical artists, such as the band Radiohead and Joy Division, turns in a stellar narrative feature with Everybody Digs Bill Evans. For those unfamiliar with the subject, jazz pianist Bill Evans (and the eponymous album), the film serves as a formidable recuperation, while jazzophiles should find this a dour, respectable homage. Anders Danielsen Lie, muse of Norwegian auteur Joachim Trier, gives an exceptionally internalized performance as Evans, reflecting a transitional period in the musician’s life in 1961 following the tragic death of his bassist, Scott LaFaro.… Read the rest

Continue reading…

How to Beat the High Cost of Fascism: Çatak Flounders in Blaring Treatise

Following his Academy Award nominated The Teacher’s Lounge (2023), Turkish-German director Ilker Çatak conjures a more overt political exercise in Yellow Letters (Gelbe Briefe). Set in Ankara and Istanbul (with German cities Berlin and Hamburg standing in for Turkey), a well-heeled artistic family finds themselves unnecessarily maligned by the state amidst a growing wave of fascism in the country. The exact political ramifications aren’t exactly spelled out as the family scrambles to regain their bearings after their views find them receiving the titular correspondences which run them out of their professions and then their home, but it’s clear any sort of criticism or resistance to those in power is cause enough.… Read the rest

Continue reading…

A Death in the Family: Bouzid Explores the Tolls of Open Secrets

What’s most expertly encapsulated in Tunisian filmmaker Leyla Bouzid’s third feature In a Whisper (À voix basse) is the quiet cruelty of the closet, the apparently immortal mechanism which continues to define the global experience of queer identities. As Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick expertly explored over thirty years ago with The Epistemology of the Closet (1990), the public suppression of queerness is a specifically calibrated performance of silence, and something that maintains an intergenerational chokehold across even the most progressively defined of contemporary cultures. Bouzid takes us to her native country, where homosexuality is still archaically penalized as an illegal ‘activity,’ though, as if often the case, it’s a law mainly applied to homosexual men, as women who are same sex lovers aren’t considered to be real, or, at the very least, not a serious ‘threat.’… Read the rest

Continue reading…

In the Realm of Defenses: Friedrich Examines Turmoils of the Working Class

Even in the democratic and social federal state of contemporary Germany, all is not sublime in the low-wage sector, relayed with an agonizing spasm in director Kilian Armando Friedrich’s first solo directorial feature, I Understand Your Displeasure (Ich verstehe Ihren Unmut). The sinister title also happens to be a line of dialogue from one of the many terse and tense conversations experienced by the lead protagonist who’s caught between a rock and a hard place whilst trying to balance an impossible chasm between humanity and capital.… Read the rest

Continue reading…

Love Audit: de la Rosa Defies the Odds with Star-Crossed Lovers

Much like the shifting ideals and hard won identities defining the protagonists of Ian de la Rosa’s directorial debut Iván & Hadoum, the nexus of clashing intersections symbolically defines the parameters of a romance discouraged by the expectations of a rigid environment. Perhaps most significantly, economic and class factors prove to be the difficult hurdles obstructing a budding relationship between titular characters existing on opposite sides of the proverbial fence—the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. It’s the stench of exploitation, eventually, which suffocates, and de la Rosa deftly examines how a threat to private enterprise proves to be the bridge too far, shifting the dramatic catalyst away from gender identity.… Read the rest

Continue reading…

YouBETcha! is back, this time for our Berlinale edition, where we guess the odds of the films most likely to pick up the converted top prize: The Golden Bear. We accurately predicted the film that had the best chances of winning Sundance – and Josephine happens to be one of the two films featured in the twenty-two competition film line-up that is not a world premiere. German-Turkish filmmaker İlker Çatak’s Yellow Letters starring Tansu Biçer and Özgü Namal is our top pick following his lauded Panorama section 2023 Berlinale sophomore feature The Teacher’s Lounge. Following couple Derya and Aziz moving to Aziz’s parents’ place in Istanbul after losing their jobs due to illegal state pressures the film promises to be a poignant mix of defiance, acceptance and morality when life is turned completely upside down.… Read the rest

Continue reading…

Up Close & Personal: Sadat Subverts the Spotlight in Stellar Melodrama

In her third directorial feature, No Good Men, which is part of a five film cycle with co-scribe Anwar Hashimi, Shahrbanoo Sadat creates something of an anomaly with a potent period piece which also exists on a rom-com continuum. The result is certainly a novelty in Afghan cinema, and moments of feminist centered levity feel heightened and empowered by the drastic political shifts about to consume its characters. Set in early 2021, on the eve of the Taliban’s return to power due to the withdrawal of US troops, the hard won respect of an outspoken, recently single camerawoman is about to be erased, though daily domestic issues make it difficult to glance too far ahead into the future.… Read the rest

Continue reading…

After competing for the Golden Bear back in 2018 with The Heiress (read review), Paraguayan filmmaker Marcelo Martinessi returns to the Berlinale with the birth of authoritarianism and how one artist was snuffed out during the brutal dictatorship circa 1959. Narciso (originally titled “Who Killed Narciso?) is a meditation on how desire, fear, and collective faith intertwine to produce authoritarian power—exploring repression not only as a political system, but as an intimate condition embedded in bodies, institutions, and inherited memory. As per our exclusive clip below, there is no greater threat to conformity than what the sounds of rock & roll brought along.… Read the rest

Continue reading…

Before he began his maiden voyage into Cannes (being selected for the Un Certain Regard section and winning a Special Mention for the Caméra d’Or – see video coverage), Akinola Davies Jr. showcased his roots with the 2020 short “Lizard” – the Grand Jury Prize winner in Sundance. His work blends personal mythology, cultural memory, and experimental visual language to explore identity in all its layered, the British-Nigerian filmmaker teamed with his brother Wale Davis to further explore lineage and inheritance with My Father’s Shadow.

This delves into small stories, traumas, and rituals passed down through generations shape a person’s sense of self.… Read the rest

Continue reading…

Invisible Missiles: Blaževičius Offers Chilly Portrayal of a Couple & Country in Crisis

Given its title, Andrius Blaževičius’ third outing, How to Divorce During the War, invites expectations of a very different kind of film than the one the filmmaker ultimately delivers, shaped by a distinctly imposed style. Instead of melodrama, terror and sensationalism, Blaževičius closely follows a Lithuanian couple and their young daughter when one spouse seeks a divorce just as Russia begins its invasion of Ukraine. Keeping viewers at arm’s length, there is a precise and chilling effect to the direction which offers a unique alternative to a Marriage Story but keeps the viewer at arms length.… Read the rest

Continue reading…