A brisk docu-thriller that could do more with the richness of the players it chronicles, Mohammed Ali Naqvi’s Hanging by a Wire is not without thrills and human drama. Yet it seems focused more on a death-defying rescue than on what could be done to prevent this from happening again. Mixing archival materials—including cell phone, […]
The post Sundance Review: Hanging by a Wire is a Brisk Docu-Thriller Lacking Depth first appeared on The Film Stage.
Taking a genre familiar to Sundance audiences and creating something distinct, if not entirely original, Ramzi Bashour’s road-trip drama Hot Water finds subtle humor in two characters who feel entirely disconnected from each other despite the home and DNA they share. Layal (Lubna Azabal) is a Lebanese professor living in Indiana, teaching an Arabic class to students […]
The post Sundance Review: Hot Water Offers a Distinct Take on Familiar Genre first appeared on The Film Stage.
Winner of the the Best Directing Award at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), as well as a selection at Hot Docs and more, French filmmaker Auberi Edler’s An American Pastoral goes deep inside the Pennsylvanian community of Elizabethtown to expore the political divide as it relates to key decisions in its public school system. […]
The post A Pennsylvania Community Clashes in Exclusive Trailer for An American Pastoral first appeared on The Film Stage.
Among Sundance’s great pleasures is the experience of a film steadily building buzz to the point where it becomes the talk of the fest. Seats become scarce and a unique electricity imbues a charge to those screenings. Just as trying to get into a showing of Celine Song’s Past Lives became a herculean task, so […]
The post Sundance Review: The Invite is a Knockout Relationship Comedy first appeared on The Film Stage.
It’s a tall tale out of a Borges story, the wildest conspiracy theory you’ve never heard. In the 1960s, Italian Benedictine monk Pellegrino Ernetti claimed to have invented a machine that allowed one to see and photograph the past. A contraption made of cathode rays, mysterious metals, and all kinds of strange antennae, the “chronovisor” […]
The post Rotterdam Review: Chronovisor Uncovers the Greatest Conspiracy Never Told first appeared on The Film Stage.
Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, where it picked up the Grand Jury Prize, Hailey Benton Gates’ debut feature Atropia has taken some time to find distribution. However, the Luca Guadagnino-produced satire starring Shawkat, Callum Turner, Zahra Alzubaidi, Tony Shawkat, Jane Levy, Tim Heidecker, Lola Kirke, and Chloe Sevigny will open before […]
The post Atropia Trailer: Alia Shawkat Goes Through the Motions of War in Sundance Winner first appeared on The Film Stage.
In Die My Love, Jennifer Lawrence is Grace, a writer whose life is disrupted when the arrival of a baby leads to a move to the sticks of Montana to be closer to the family of her husband Jackson (Robert Pattinson). Whether it’s from a lack of sex, postpartum depression, writer’s block, a mental disorder, […]
The post “I Want Somebody to Surprise Me”: Jennifer Lawrence on Die My Love, Lynne Ramsay’s Confidence, and the Directors She’d Love to Work With first appeared on The Film Stage.
Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2025 Sundance coverage. Peter Hujar’s Day opens in theaters on November 7. When I look at Peter Hujar’s portrait of poet Allen Ginsburg, taken on December 18, 1974, it’s strikingly nonchalant. Ginsberg is standing on the sidewalk, one hand in pocket and the other looped […]
The post Peter Hujar’s Day Review: Ira Sachs Blends Documentary with Performance to Consider the Artist’s Life first appeared on The Film Stage.
Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2025 TIFF coverage. Nuremberg opens in theaters on November 7. Stanley Kubrick, in one of the most famous director disses ever, remarked that the failing of his friend Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List was that the Holocaust was six million people being killed, while the film […]
The post Nuremberg Review: A Historical Drama Lacking Complexity first appeared on The Film Stage.
A world-cinema fixture who’s earned the support of Martin Scorsese, M. Night Shyamalan, Olivier Assayas, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Béla Tarr, Claire Denis, Christian Petzold, Tilda Swinton, and Ryusuke Hamaguchi––among many others––Carlo Chatrian reshaped the festival landscape with his work as artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival and Berlinale, his influence such that an abdication of […]
The post Emulsion Ep. 18 – Carlo Chatrian on the Tokyo International Film Festival and Future of Cinema Culture first appeared on The Film Stage.
