Despite Saudi Arabian officials refusal to budge on the rules concerning male-only driving and threatening the arrest of women activists who are planning a protest, repressive laws and customs directed at Saudi women are changing slowly. Women may now ride bicycles, can sit on the national advisory council, and a decision has been made by…
The social and psychological effects of bullying are graphically observed in Emir Baigazin’s remarkable first feature Harmony Lessons. Honored at Tribeca and Seattle, the Kazakh-German co-feature also won a Silver Bear for best artistic contribution at the Berlinale, honoring the cinematography of Aziz Zhambakiyev who brilliantly captures the stark beauty of the desolate Kazakhstan landscape….
Israeli director Rama Burshtein’s powerfully moving Fill the Void (original title, “Lemale et ha’halal”), Israel’s submission to the 2012 Oscars, is about love and marriage but, in the Orthodox Hasidic community in Tel Aviv, they do not necessarily go together like a horse and carriage. Hadas Yaron, winner of the Best Actress Award at the…
Albert Camus said, “The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.” These words become prophetic in Romanian director Cristian Mungui’s Beyond the Hills, a powerful tale of religious and emotional obsession that leads to tragic consequences. Like…
As a result of their parent’s separation, 12-year-old Koichi (Koki Maeda) lives in Kagoshima with his mother (Nene Ohtsuka) and grandparents (Kirin Kiki and Isao Hashizume) while his younger brother Ryunosuke (Oshiro Maeda) lives with his intermittently employed musician father (Jo Adigiri) in Fukuoka. Both talk to each other daily on their cell phone but…
The Andean story of how the world was created by a tall white, blue eyed man with long blond-reddish hair and beard who arose from Lake Titicaca in Bolivia has been passed down by word of mouth through generations of South American Indians. Known to the Aymaras as Viracocha (he was also called Kon-Tiki), Quetzalcoatl…
For scrawny 12-year old Simon (Kacey Mottet Klein), life is up and down. Going up, however, does not mean moving up the ladder of success but only riding a cable car to do his “work” at the top of a mountain ski resort, a playground for wealthy tourists. Ursula Meier’s heartbreaking Sister, Switzerland’s submission for…
