'Laila in Haifa': Film Review | Venice 2020

Apple TV+’s new spy thriller, the Israeli but Iran-set Tehran, is as much about the human cost of espionage as it is about the thrills of infiltration.

Not since Jeff Goldblum stocked his penis in a jar or Bryan Cranston tore apart his meth lab has a fly played such a pivotal role on screen as in Mandibles (Mandibules), the latest comic whatchamacallit from French one-man-band Quentin Dupieux.

The film and television industries of Israel and the United Arab Emirates capital of Abu Dhabi unveiled a historic agreement on Monday that will see the two Middle Eastern regions cooperate on training, co-productions, and a joint film festival.

Tom Grater International Film ReporterThe Abu Dhabi Film Commission has signed a cooperation agreement with the Israel Film Fund and the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film & Television School to foster film and TV ties in the region.The agenda focuses on four initiatives, which interestingly include plans for a new regional film festival.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Film agencies in Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced an agreement Monday to collaborate on television production, the latest development to follow a U.S.-brokered deal between the countries to normalize relations.The Abu Dhabi Film Commission, an Emirati government agency, said it reached an understanding with the Israeli Film Fund and a Jerusalem film school seeking to strengthen commercial ties through training programs for film and television

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThe recent U.S.-brokered agreement under which Israel established diplomatic relations with two Arab states has rapidly prompted formal film industry ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).The Abu Dhabi Film Commission, the Israel Film Fund and Jerusalem’s Sam Spiegel Film & Television School (pictured) on Monday announced a wide-ranging agreement with the stated goal of “promoting tolerance, education and developing a deeper cultural

Shira Haas is all smiles while appearing at the 2020 Emmy Awards on Sunday (September 20).

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentBoaz Yakin ‘s romantic dance drama “Aviva” has been sold by Alief Film Company to several big territories. An exploration of gender identity and self-expression through body language, “Aviva,” shot on location in Paris and New York and revolves around a pair of transatlantic lovers, Aviva and Eden.

Veteran Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui, one of Venice’s two Career Golden Lion recipients this year alongside Tilda Swinton, brings prewar Hong Kong to exquisite if restrained life in her latest historical drama, Love After Love (Di Yu Lu Xiang).

Nellie Andreeva Co-Editor-in-Chief, TVOn the heels of the historic deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, the two Middle Eastern countries are also set to make TV history.

There are still idealistic young writers out there aiming to transform the world, at least in China, and the newsroom drama The Best Is Yet to Come (Bu zhi bu xiu) catches the viewer up in the fast-paced story of an untutored youth from the provinces who breaks a scoop on hepatitis B.

Inching forward on a rocky if deeply felt cinematic path that has rarely strayed far from reflections on himself and his mother, Azerbaijan filmmaker Hilal Baydarov opens up his vistas, somewhat, in the fiction feature In Between Dying (Sepelenmis Olumler Arasinda). It’s beautiful to look at, but the story of a young man on the run who encounters death at every turn of the winding road doesn’t really make much sense even in metaphorical terms.

An accidental death in the family turns the lives of five orphaned sisters upside down in The Macaluso Sisters (Le sorelle Macaluso), the second of Emma Dante’s theatrical works to be filmed by the author and playwright. The story is set in lower middle-class Sicily, where five young women struggle to fend for themselves in a big apartment overlooking the sea.

It’s not easy to grab hold of Julia von Heinz’s And Tomorrow the Entire World (Und morgen die ganze Welt), an attempt to describe what motivates a young political activist of the German nobility to embrace the warm chaos of a social commune, where she mulls over the use of violence in the class struggle with like-minded souls.

Set in 1940 in Kobe, Japan, with an epilogue during the bombing of the city in 1945, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s intriguingly titled Wife of a Spy (Spy no Tsuma) bookends the Second World War in an absorbing, exotic, well-paced thriller with moments of disconcerting realism and horror. Its spot in Venice competition is a well-earned promotion for the director after his many accolades for films like Kairo, Tokyo Sonata and Before We Vanish.

For a lot of Americans, words like “West Bank,” “Palestine,” and “Israel” exist more as political ideas rather than actual places, denoting a struggle that transcends a particular location. To understand this region and the reasons people live the way they do there (behind walls, passing through checkpoints, in the midst of one’s fiercest enemies) takes a nuanced understanding of history spanning World War II, conflicts in 1948 and 1967, and a series of accords over the last 20+ years.

The three children of a poor Portuguese couple (Lucia Moniz and Ruben Garcia) living in London are forcibly removed from their home by social services, raising questions about responsible parenting and duty of care in director Ana Rocha de Sousa's emotive feature debut Listen. Although the script by Rocha de Sousa, Paula Vaccaro and Aaron Brookner tries to be at least a little bit balanced, the rules-obsessed authorities don’t come out of it well.

At a time when America looks like it's tearing apart at the seams, there’s something altogether reassuring — even downright inspiring — about Frederick Wiseman’s new documentary, City Hall, which chronicles municipal life in his old hometown of Boston.

Malina Saval Associate Editor, FeaturesThough born and raised in Haifa, Israel, filmmaker Amos Gitai (“Kadosh,” “Rabin: The Last Day”) had never heard of Fattoush, a popular restaurant-cum-club located in the port city.“I discovered this club through one of the actresses from one of my previous films.

In Night of the Kings (La Nuit des rois), a young man thrown into the infamous La Maca prison in Cote d’Ivoire is forced to invent a story that lasts until sunrise or face the consequences like some kind of modern-day Scheherazade.