Article by: Martina Oliva
Translation by: Carolina de Joannon and Paola Pesenti
Filmed in 65mm, Black Ox by Tetsuichiro Tsuta is inspired by the Zen tradition’s Ten Ox-Herding (or Ten Bulls) images. From the first one (“In Search of the Bull”) to the last (“Return to Society”), the film stages the different steps of the spiritual path toward Buddhist enlightenment.
Continua la lettura di “BLACK OX” BY TETSUICHIRO TSUTA (ENG)Article by: Mirko Serra
Translated by: Carlotta Anna Antonacci
With Erupcja, a bohemian portrait of Warsaw in four-thirds format, Pete Ohs returns to an authorial register after exploring various genres.
Continua la lettura di “ERUPCJA” BY PETE OHS (ENG)
Article by Beatrice Bertino
Translation by Chiara Ventura
Not all stories end up being what the author had imagined. This is what happened to Otso Tiainen, a Finnish director dealing with his first documentary. The story he intended to tell about arcane rites and forms of worship ended up reporting recent news events related to domestic abuses that emerged during filming.
Continua la lettura di “SHADOWLAND” BY OTSO TIAINEN (ENG)Article by Ludovico Franco
Translation by Patrick Zaffalon
In 1982, a mysterious disease strikes the inhabitants of a remote Chilean village. The “plague”, as they call it, seems to stem from one of human beings’ primal impulses: the scopic drive. This killer gaze is not that of some petrifying Gorgon, nor that of the mechanical eye of a cinematographer who’s filming, trying to capture death. The deadly mirada (“gaze” in Spanish) is that of a Medusa whose snakes are replaced with eccentric jewelry and colorful sequins.
Continua la lettura di “LA MISTERIOSA MIRADA DEL FLAMENCO” BY DIEGO CÉSPEDES (ENG)Article by Vittorio Barbieri
Translation by Giulia Zanotto
In November 1945, an ambitious psychiatrist (Rami Malek) is in charge of drawing up the psychological profiles of the Nazi leaders who are detained by the Allies, among whom the disturbing Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe) is included. While trying to understand the prisoners’ motives and defense strategies, Judge Robert Jackson (Michael Shannon) fights to establish an international court that will guarantee impartial justice even for the perpetrators of World War II.
Continua la lettura di “NUREMBERG” BY JAMES VANDERBILT (ENG)Article by Elisabetta Pala
Translation by Valeria Marconi
Presented at the 43rd TFF in the “Zibaldone” section, Peter Marcias’ Quasi Grazia is a film adaptation of the homonym theatrical novel written by Marcello Fois and played by Michela Murgia. It was made in order to investigate the person beyond the writer, starting from the title itself which took inspiration from Cosima, Quasi Grazia, the posthumous autobiography by Grazia Deledda. The figure of the author, narrated through three previously unknown moments of her life, is brought to the screen thanks to the performance of Irene Maiorino, Laura Morante and Ivana Monti.
Continua la lettura di “QUASI GRAZIA” BY PETER MARCIAS (ENG)Article by Greta Maria Sorani
Translation by Giacomo Patterlini
“A systematic destruction of a population, a lineage, a race or a religious community”. This is the definition of the word “genocide”, a term that today is more relevant than ever and which, since 7 October 2023, seems to have become a taboo. The documentary The Encampments, directed by Kei Pritsker and Michael T. Workman, shows the ultimate consequences of this expressive repression within American universities.
Continua la lettura di “THE ENCAMPMENTS” BY KEI PRITSKER AND MICHAEL T. WORKMAN (ENG)Article by Elena Sartore
Translation by Virginia Milazzo
An old man is sitting in his studio, reading a periodical: news from the Middle East. He comments on them, visibly in distress, then surrenders himself to something merrier: music. He’s Emilio Jona, 98 years old, a member of the Italian folk band “Cantacronache”, to whom Stefano Di Polito dedicated his documentary Nel blu dipinti di rosso, presented to the 43rd edition of the Torino Film Festival.
Continua la lettura di “NEL BLU DIPINTI DI ROSSO” BY STEFANO DI POLITO (ENG)Article by Francesco Soprana
Translated by Luca Perrone
A group of Cambodian women describes the joys and struggles of being mothers. Three Italian women talk about the difficulties they faced in having children and the path they chose to follow in order to build a family. Lia, a girl from Rome, recounts her daily challenges, both big and small, and reflects on what it means to be a daughter. All these stories, ordinary and extraordinary at the same time, have something in common: surrogacy.
Continua la lettura di “MOTHERS” BY ALICE TOMASSINI (ENG)Article by Mirko Serra
Translation by Maria Iacovone
In New Mexico’s most remote areas, marked by drought and arson, the last cowboys survive, shadows of a bygone era who move in silence through isolation and solitude. With Land With No Rider, Tamar Lando carries out an anthropological analysis of a myth’s slow sunset: there’s no sign of the manly hero on horseback; instead, there are lonely men, tired and weak, remains of an America that decided to forget its past. Under their hats, they still wear flannel shirts and old leather boots and, between cigarettes and country songs, the three protagonists reveal the dark reality concealed behind the everyday life of the Southwest, where time stands still, in contrast with an ever-changing country.
Continua la lettura di “LAND WITH NO RIDER” BY TAMAR LANDO (ENG)Article by Francesco Soprana
Translation by Alessandra Di Paola Seminara
“Have you ever been with a biker?” With this teasing question begins the erotic and emotional odyssey of Colin (Harry Melling) in Harry Lighton’s feature debut, a film that delves into the intricate universe of dominant-submissive relationships. Winner of the Screenplay Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, Pillion is presented in the Out of Competition category at the 43rd TFF.
Continua la lettura di “PILLION” BY HARRY LIGHTON (ENG)Article by Alessandra Sottini
Translation by Francesca Corino
Family bonds are just as hard to break as they are to mend. However, if our reality is not enough to fill the emotional gap caused by unexpected and senseless separations, virtual reality transcends dimensional boundaries, offering unforeseen support in the search for a solution. «Reality is what you make of it» and LUZ, the VR game that lends its title to Flora Lau’s film that was presented out of competition at the 43rd Torino Film Festival, promises to deliver this experience.
Continua la lettura di “LUZ” BY FLORA LAU (ENG)Article by Carlotta Profico
Translation by Alice Ivaldi Lessona
Ritratti di cinema explores cinema through the personal and analytical gaze of nine leading figures on the international scene: Jane Campion, Tim Burton, Ruben Östlund, Asghar Farhadi, Pablo Larraín, Damien Chazelle, Paul Schrader, Peter Greenaway and Martin Scorsese.
Continua la lettura di “RITRATTI DI CINEMA” BY PAOLO CIVATI (ENG)Article by Francesca Strangis
Translated by Giorgia Cattaneo
On a farm in northern Germany, four generations across four different eras — the 1910s, the 1940s, the 1980s and the 2000s — take turns inhabiting the same space over the course of a century. They appear separated by time, yet they are linked by the same thoughts, fears and desires. What happens in the past resonates in the present, and unresolved traumas return with force in the generations that follow.
Continua la lettura di “SOUND OF FALLING” BY MASCHA SCHILINSKI (ENG)Article by Luca Delpiano
Translation by Giulia Zanotto
Presented in the feature film competition at the 43rd Torino Film Festival, Morgan Knibbe’s The Garden of Earthly Delights explores the connection between body, city and identity. In Manila’s Red Light District, two stories are intertwined: that of Ginto, a young boy who dreams of rising in the criminal world alongside the friend he is secretly in love with; and that of Michael, a Dutch tourist who arrives in the Philippines and ends up giving in to his darkest impulses, becoming a symbol of white privilege that continues to exert power over vulnerable bodies.
Continua la lettura di “THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS” BY MORGAN KNIBBE (ENG)Article by Beatrice Bertino
Translation by Virginia Milazzo
Julia Kowalski presents her second feature film, Que ma volonté soit faite, in Turin, which had already been selected for the Quinzaine des Cinéastes (Directors’ Fortnight) in Cannes. The director tells a dark-toned tale, completely immersed in the French rural areas, where a family of Polish immigrants – just like her parents – runs a cattle farm. An obscure sequence of events unfolds between cowsheds and farmland, firmly bound to faith and sin, redemption and damnation.
Continua la lettura di “QUE MA VOLONTÉ SOIT FAITE” BY JULIA KOWALSKI (ENG)Article by Sveva Keiko Abbatantuono
Translation by Carlotta Anna Antonacci
The death of a brother, son, or friend is one of the worst tragedies a human being can experience. But how much time is left for individual mourning when an entire country is falling apart under the siege of settlers?
Continua la lettura di “THE TEACHER” BY FARAH NABULSI (ENG)
Article by Giada Franzoni
Translation by Viola Suria
With Always, competing in the documentaries section of the 43rd Torino Film Festival, Deming Chen delivers a work of rare delicacy, a film that tiptoes into the solitude of a child gifted with extraordinary sensitivity.
Continua la lettura di “ALWAYS” BY DEMING CHEN (ENG)Article by Elena Sartore
Translation by Giacomo Patterlini
What if one day the sun won’t rise again? This absurd hypothesis becomes reality in Levers, the second feature film by Canadian director Rhayne Vermette.
Article by Francesca Strangis
Translation by Patrick Zaffalon
Death is looming over a small Slovenian village, incarnating in the mysterious figure of a man covered in flowers and colorful ribbons. It will fall to a young girl to deal with him. Unable to understand the inevitability of fate, she joins a choir in the attempt to keep her grandmother alive, believing that a song heard coming from afar once saved her grandmother when she was at death’s door.
Continua la lettura di “IDA WHO SANG SO BADLY EVEN THE DEAD ROSE UP AND JOINED HER IN A SONG” BY ESTER IVAKIČ (ENG)
