Nominated for Best Documentary Short Film at the 98th Academy Awards, perfectly a strangeness marks the first short from Canadian filmmaker Alison McAlpine, director of the wondrous 2017 feature Cielo. Ahead of a Criterion Channel debut on March 1 and the Oscars ceremony on March 15, we’re pleased to present an exclusive conversation between McAlpine […]
The post Alison McAlpine In Conversation With Walter Murch on Her Oscar-Nominated Perfectly a Strangeness first appeared on The Film Stage.
No one moves abroad in Ted Fendt’s Foreign Travel; people walk plenty—mostly around Kreuzberg, Berlin—but the kind of wandering this erudite film is concerned with is chiefly of the mental variety. It is triggered by books, those of Italian writer Anna Maria Ortese, who rose to fame after her death but is yet to find […]
The post Berlinale Review: Foreign Travel is a Rousing Ode to the Transformative Powers of Reading first appeared on The Film Stage.
Shortly before the 2025 edition of the Berlinale, incoming festival head Tricia Tuttle was outspoken about filmmakers shunning the event over fears they would be censored out of political pressures. The 2024 edition ended with German politicians outright condemning the team behind the prize-winning No Other Land for “antisemitism”––culminating in a scene straight out of […]
The post Berlinale Review: Yellow Letters Targets Authoritarianism with Timidity first appeared on The Film Stage.
From Biblical tales of the prodigal son to Zach Braff’s Garden State, stories of returning home after an extended absence are ripe territory to explore reconciliation and changed identity. With his rigorous debut feature Trial of Hein, Kai Stänicke distills these ideas to their core essence, creating dramatically rich territory for his ensemble that also […]
The post Berlinale Review: Trial of Hein Is a Rigorous Debut Feature Questioning Identity and Memory first appeared on The Film Stage.
Deep into the second week of another tumultuous (and freezing cold) year at the Berlin Film Festival, Angela Schanelec arrives with a welcome reminder of what summertime in the city feels like: a place where young people meet and chat and go for bike rides; a place where the uniform black and greys of winter […]
The post Berlinale Review: My Wife Cries Is Another Poetic Tapestry From Angela Schanelec first appeared on The Film Stage.
In Home Stories, a young woman from the town of Griez in East Germany is selected to compete on a TV talent show—an opportunity that will require her family to do a rare bit of self-reflection. The writer of this conceptually rich idea is Eva Trobish, among the lesser-known directors to emerge from the Berlin […]
The post Berlinale Review: Home Stories Tells an Ambitious If Uneven Intergenerational Tale first appeared on The Film Stage.
Premiering to acclaim at the 2025 FIDMarseille, Caroline Golum’s second feature Revelations of Divine Love was acquired by Several Futures, who will give it a theatrical release beginning March 27 at NYC’s Anthology Film Archives. Ahead of the theatrical roll-out––which includes Nitehawk Prospect Park (April 5), Low Cinema (April 11), Roxy Cinema (April 17-April 19, April 24-April 26), Spectacle (April 24-26), and more cities to be announced––the first trailer […]
The post Revelations of Divine Love Trailer: Caroline Golum’s Acclaimed Medieval Tale Arrives This March first appeared on The Film Stage.
The ever-increasing accessibility of filmmaking means that anyone with basic technology can shoot and edit a film. However, only those with a story worth telling can hope to reach an audience and build a sustainable career. Before they were even teenagers, a group of boys in northern Nigeria started making their own movies. Thirteen years […]
The post Berlinale Review: Crocodile is a Choppy Yet Inspiring Portrait of Resourceful Filmmaking first appeared on The Film Stage.
Sooner or later, conversations around the ever-growing oeuvre of Hong Sangsoo all land on the same word: repetition. That’s kind of inevitable: few could ever dream of putting out new stuff at the Korean’s pace, his filmography—now spanning 34 features—expanding at the same speed with which his characters down their soju. Hence the almost forensic […]
The post Berlinale Review: The Day She Returns Is One of Hong Sangsoo’s Most Elemental and Revelatory Gems first appeared on The Film Stage.
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (Nia DaCosta) In 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, the Jimmy gang is back, led by Jack O’Connell in a role that oddly mirrors […]
The post New to Streaming: Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, No Other Choice, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple & More first appeared on The Film Stage.
