#Berlin Hidden Gem: ‘Demba’ Is A Meditation on Grief and Redemption in Northern Senegal

#Berlin Hidden Gem: ‘Demba’ Is A Meditation on Grief and Redemption in Northern Senegal

In Senegal, depression is considered so taboo there’s no word for it. For his second feature film, after 2019 Nafi’s Father, Senegalese director Mamadou Dia returns to his hometown in West Africa to explore a deeply personal subject that, he says, is not discussed enough. The film tells the story of a middle-aged retiree named Demba, played by Ben…

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#Berlin: ‘Love Lies Bleeding’ Director Rose Glass on Bodybuilding and ‘Saturday Night Fever’ Influences

#Berlin: ‘Love Lies Bleeding’ Director Rose Glass on Bodybuilding and ‘Saturday Night Fever’ Influences

“There’s something so completely undeniable about it. There’s just nothing to hide behind. You only get looking like that one way and it’s by an undeniable amount of work,” says director Rose Glass of bodybuilding, the sport that is one of the focal points of her sophomore feature, Love Lies Bleeding. The film, the follow-up…

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#‘White Plastic Sky’ Review: From Hungary, Richly Realized Dystopian World-Building

#‘White Plastic Sky’ Review: From Hungary, Richly Realized Dystopian World-Building

‘White Plastic Sky’ Review: From Hungary, Richly Realized Dystopian World-Building Impressively bleak animated Hungarian sci-fi feature White Plastic Sky imagines a grim dystopia a hundred years from now where, like in Soylent Green (1973), older people are harvested at age 50, turned into trees so that they can become food for the younger generation. Except…

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#‘Art College 1994’ Review: Chinese Director Liu Jian Looks Back in a Wistful Animated Film

#‘Art College 1994’ Review: Chinese Director Liu Jian Looks Back in a Wistful Animated Film

‘Art College 1994’ Review: Chinese Director Liu Jian Looks Back in a Wistful Animated Film Art College 1994, a deadpan slice of comic-sad social realism from Chinese animator Liu Jian (Have a Nice Day), offers reassuring evidence that although cultural specificities can shape artistic traditions — and fashion and tastes fluctuate — art students are…

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#‘Talk to Me’ Review: Mingling With the Spirit World Brings Bone-Chilling Shocks in  Australian Horror Debut

#‘Talk to Me’ Review: Mingling With the Spirit World Brings Bone-Chilling Shocks in Australian Horror Debut

‘Talk to Me’ Review: Mingling With the Spirit World Brings Bone-Chilling Shocks in Australian Horror Debut There’s a stabbing, a violent suicide and a disturbing accident involving kangaroo roadkill in the opening minutes of Talk to Me, and from there, the adrenaline rush of this nightmarish collision of the living and the dead rarely lets…

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