What makes a father? Filiation through blood or just the time spent with a son? This is the question that director Eda Hirokazu Kore tries to answer since the birth of his child. In Like Father Like Son, a wealthy family learns that the child they have been raising for 6 years isn’t theirs, 2 babies having been swapped at birth [...]

Here is one the films that some might call a masterwork but beware … Since his previous success with A Separation, the Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi has become one of the rising figures on the international film scene. Far from being handicapped by the language barrier, he directs his actors with acute precision, even if it means filming in France, with [...]

Young and pretty, she certainly is; newcomer Marine Vacth has the looks and talent to give life to her role, infusing her performance with fragility, absence and rebellion. French director François Ozon (Swimming Pool) certainly knows how to choose his muses. This promising actress is radiant throughout the film, carrying it on her frail shoulders. She assumes her nakedness, offered [...]

Although the title doesn’t refer to any religious belief – at least that’s what the director is saying – it is impossible to not establish a connection with the harsh journey a family has to endure in this movie: with Heli, Amat Escalante delivers the uncompromising and violent portrait of contemporary Mexico. If the film includes a few scenes that [...]

Ken Loach’s filmmography is quite contrasted, the British director usually alternating between heavy fares and light comedies, like if he was trying to breathe some air into his tense body of work. Whether his movies tackle politics –The Wind That Shakes the Barley – or social struggles – Sweet Sixteen – his films always brush a gritty portrait of a [...]

While Mexican and Brazilian cinemas have slowly been building a strong presence on the international film circuit, mostly thanks to emblematic onscreen ambassadors such as  Alfonso Cuarón, Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna – to name a few – other countries are still struggling to get their productions across the border; this, of course, doesn’t mean that their movie industry [...]

Following 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days, which had been crowned with a Golden Palm at the Cannes film festival, Romanian director Cristian Mungiu is back with his much-anticipated new feature. While his new story is as strong as in his previous film, which dealt with illegal abortion, the only similarity between those 2 movies is the presence of [...]

Following Certified Copy, which was taking place in Italy, the Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami is now using Japan as a setting. Telling the story of a young escort girl, harassed by her jealous boyfriend, Like Someone in Love – the title is a reference to a jazz song – is fully in line with Mr. Kiarostami’s body of work. For the most [...]

Since the White Ribbon, which won a well-deserved Golden Palm award in Cannes, Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke seems to have found peace, having abandoned his taste for gratuitous provocation. Filled with sadness, Love shows the director’s – sometime exasperating – aspirations to take spectators hostage of his film mechanisms. This time, Mr. Haneke expresses some affection for his characters, his camera following them [...]

After Lucia is the second feature from Mexican director Michel Franco (Daniel and Ana). The film, which follows a girl’s excruciating journey as she gets relentlessly bullied at a new school, has become a symbol of the anti-bullying movement in Mexico; in the process it also became the country’s entry for the 2013 Academy Awards. Attending Q&A’s with filmmakers can [...]