Berlin Review: Post-Apocalyptic Thriller ‘Tides’ From Exec Producer Roland Emmerich

Jessica Kiang Beneath the eerily calm surfaces of Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s terrific “Rose Plays Julie,” a transgressive story bides its time. It’s a tale that feels ancient in structure, but terrifyingly modern in detail, mapping MeToo-era revelations and a contemporary preoccupation with fractured identities onto a deceptively simple revenge plot that could have been plucked directly from a Greek drama, then plunged into liquid nitrogen to achieve its deep-freeze aesthetic.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorCanada-based actor Colm Feore, whose credits include Netflix’s “The Umbrella Academy,” “My Salinger Year,” “The Amazing Spiderman 2” and multiple Oscar winner “Chicago,” is to star in post-apocalyptic Western “Six Guns for Hire,” which has just started principal photography in Toronto, Canada.

Nick Schager Film Critic“Come True” wears its many influences on its sleeve, notably the work of David Cronenberg and Philip K. Dick, “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Donnie Darko,” with nods to “The Shining,” “Night of the Living Dead” and “The Terminator” thrown in for good measure.

Filmed in glossy black and white, and adopting a non-judgmental vérité approach, director Carlos Alfonso Corral’s debut is a humanizing look at a small section of the homeless population in El Paso, Texas. “Dirty Feathers,” is a short, but thematically rich, film about those on the margins of society.

It’s 1943. A particularly cruel winter has swept through the occupied Soviet Union.

One year in the life of a teenager can feel like an eternity. The intensity of the fleeting romances, the wild swings between happiness and despair, the thrilling yet uneasy anticipation of a future that seems simultaneously imminent and distant — it’s a wonder that we come out of adolescence intact.

How often does the cosmos grant us love at first sight? What if you were to be given such an exceptional gift, derived from an impossible encounter in the middle of the street, only for it to be teasingly snatched away? You may think it far from likely, but this is precisely what happens to Giorgi (Giorgi Bochorishvili), and Lisa (Ani Karseladze) in “What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? Continue reading ‘What Do We See When We Look At The Sky?’: Alexandre Koberidze Creates A Compelling Fable

The first thing to understand about the social dynamics in Mexico around police is that they differ greatly from how the public in the United States relates to law enforcement officers. Stateside, both the uncritical reverence some feel toward them—namely the Blue Lives Matter crowd—and the terror they incite among BIPOC communities emanate from their violent efficaciousness and status as inflexible figures reveling in a lack of accountability.

As industry guests enjoy the Berlinale from home this year, eagle-eyed viewers will take pleasure in spotting a familiar location in the latest film from South Korean auteur and festival-regular Hong Sang-soo. If we can’t stroll around Potsdamer Platz this year, at least the characters in “Introduction“ can share a moment there.

The two most mature and emotionally insightful seven-year-old girls you’ve ever encountered in your life are the subjects of Petite Maman. Magnetically attentive to the serious “things of life,” as the French put it, Céline Sciamma’s 72-minute study of an intense brief friendship between two girls of extraordinary similar looks prioritizes insight and emotional awareness over any artificial plot constructs. The result is a piercingly satisfying chamber drama with a lovely intimate feel.

The latest from T.J.Martin and Daniel Lindsay, directors of “Undefeated” and “LA 92,” “TINA” looks like another documentary that came off of a factory line, complete with the usual panning shots of contact sheets, dramatic zooms into rolling tapes, cross-cutting between audio interviews and their published print versions, melodramatic score cues doing their best to emulate Philip Glass.

There is an unavoidable distance in life between ourselves and those who came before. Parents, grandparents; no matter how open and honest they are with their children or younger relatives, there is a sense that their pasts remain partial enigmas.

There’s no shortage of movies about kids who discover they possess special powers. Most of these, however — from The Incredibles to the Harry Potter franchise to the Razzie-nominated Tim Allen-starring Zoom: Academy for Superheroes(no, we didn't bother either) — are very much aimed at a younger audience.

For the students at a remote boarding school for Kurdish boys, survival is a matter of course, particularly during the frigid depths of winter. The meals are meager, the heating doesn’t work, and even the principal’s car won’t start.

Danis Goulet’s Night Raiders, executive produced by Oscar-winning Jojo Rabbit writer-director Taika Waititi, is no typical sci-fi thriller. An entry in this year’s Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama section and Goulet’s feature debut, the film flips the genre on its head by using the future to confront Canada’s past colonization and subjugation of its First Nation peoples.

It’s always interesting to see what an actor will deliver as they make the step towards directing, and for “Next Door” director and star Daniel Brühl has not shied away from a premise that closely parallels, yet distorts, his own life. It’s a film that explores a space of conversation highlighted to great effect in Bong Joon-ho’s recent towering success, “Parasite,” toying with societal dichotomies and opening up discussions around wealth, class, gentrification, and spatial divides.

South Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo has been a particular favorite at the Berlin Film Festival for quite some time — he won the Best Director prize there last year for The Woman Who Ran — and he’s back again this year with another competition entry, Introduction.

Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin co-directed the sports documentary Undefeated in 2011, and their Berlin Film Festival Special Gala, Tina, could have shared the same title.

A teacher comes under fire for a sex tape in Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn, the Berlin Film Festival competition entry from Romanian writer-director Radu Jude (Aferim!). We first meet Emi (Katia Pascariu) when she is engaged in graphic sex with her husband, who’s filming an amateur video.

Two fine actors volley for advantage across 90 minutes in the tastily insidious little melodrama Next Door (Nebenan).