Calogero (Vincenzo Nemolato) is a young Sicilian man who wanted to do the right thing for himself, for her companion and for his still unborn daughter Marcella. This is the reason why Calogero denounced the killer that had once shot two men right in front of his granita cart. And this is the reason why he ended up in Trentino, in a tiny forgotten village, living in a guesthouse called Paradise.
Article by: Cristina Danini Translated by: Ilaria Roma
The Alpenrose is the typical Styrian guesthouse where you can taste local food and beer in a traditional atmosphere. The waitress, who is also the owner of the place, is not satisfied with her life even though her husband, a Styrian cook, tries to give her some comfort while tenderizing some meat by using his bare hands. He is also watched by a stuffed groundhog which is obviuosly Styrian as well.
What do six abandoned people on a desert island turn into? Algunas Bestias tries to give an answer. The second featured film directed by the Chilean Jorge Riquelme Serrano opens the contest Turin 37.
Ana (Millaray Lobos), Alejandro (Gastón Salgado) and their teenage children decide to take Ana’s parents (Paulina García and Alfredo Castro) to a desert island to talk about their own project: building a holiday eco-resort. But all of sudden, the keeper disappears and the family remains without water, phone signal and at the mercy of cold.
Article by: Chiara Perillo Translated by: Anna Benedetto
The title Dreamland perfectly captures the essence of Bruce McDonald’s latest film, as it revolves around the fundamentals and the basic logic of the dream world. From the very first scenes, the audience gets lost in a daydream in which the two main characters end up being caught in criminal activities. A kind-hearted hitman and a drug-addicted jazz musician, both played by the talented Stephen McHattie, have also a strong connection that causes them visions of their possible future or a remote past that involves them both. The plot becomes more and more complex as the film goes on, introducing a variety of stone-cold and grotesque characters that results comical at times.
«I have been living in Czech Republic for some time. I have been discovering its culture little by little and, above all, its great cinematographic history. For this reason, I decided to make a movie which was a tribute to the sixties Czech cinema.» that is how the Chilean director introduced the first screening of his film at Torino Film Festival.
Article by: Noemi Castelvetro Translated by: Francesca Massa
Jill (Jocelyn DeBoer) and Lisa (Dawn Luebbe), hectic mothers, trophy wives and frenemies, live in a small, thoroughly organized residential district, with disgusting pastel colors, where people go around with golf carts. Jill is a people pleaser, and she decides to give her newborn to Lisa, whom accepts: the people around the two women smoothly approve this exchange, and surreal events full of symbolic elements increase.
Film critics in Cannes have branded it as a childish play, a bundle of tangles or a formal experiment which has failed the expectations. On the other hand, the crowd of the enthusiasts present at the display is quiet and has praised it as much as its detractors have booed it. The new movie made by the Romanian director is actually a bundle of tangles: a postmodern but not a pimped one.
Article by: Silvia Gentile Translated by: Lucrezia Villa
After his debut as a director with Finchè c’è prosecco c’è Speranza (2017), Antonio Padovan presents his second film, which is an atypical combination along the lines of Spielberg’s science-fiction films and Italian comedies, not to mention the great influence of director Carlo Mazzacurati, with whom Padovan shares roots.
Article by: Ottavia Isaia Translated by: Francesca Massa
Made in Bangladesh, just like the labels we find on our clothes: from the first frames, the film focuses on the harsh working conditions under which the women who produce them are subjected, in overcrowded rooms and without security measures. The leading character Shimu (Rikita Nandini Shimu), after the death of a colleague in a factory fire, fights against these conditions and begins to collaborate with a journalist to start a union that protects women workers (all women, because they are considered more easily manageable and they are paid less than men).
Article by: Maria Bruna Moliterni Translated by: Viola Locci
In 2015 Bill Condon obtained a good success with Mr Holmes, a film inspired by Mitch Cullin’s book. Today Condon grapples with a new film based on Nicholas Searle homonymus’s novel, The Good Liar. The two main actors are Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen who play together for the first time on the big screen.
Whatever foreruns the future, so innovations and changes, is often perceived as a choc from those who live in the present, since they’re still busy figuring out the past. From this point of view, Le choc du futur is emblematic, considering that the main issue concerns the creative process of a new kind of music: the music of the future.
Article by: Giulia Leo Translated by: Francesca Massa
A confident illustration about knowing how to laugh. Laugh about the pain and turn it into something else: this is what Leticia Jorge does in her second work Alelí. The Mazzotti family is warm, enchanting, insane; the father’s death is the backstory of the odd and absurd misfortunes that occur in a day. A family black comedy that follows a classic pattern: as a member of the family passes away, the relatives attempt to deal with the emotional and material heritage which the departed left behind.
Article by: Alessandro Pomati Translated by: Alice De Vicariis
Creatures that move around in the darkness, some limping, others standing on their feet. Creatures that live in some sort of ruins of an ancient city. Creatures that don’t talk, they just act, like animals. Creatures that, once they are pierced through by the dim light that comes from cracks, finally appear to us for what they are: human beings, mostly men.
Article by: Giacomo Bona Translated by: Ilaria Roma
When you lose someone you care about, you feel lonely and the only person who can understand your pain is you. Besides the drama of losing her best friend Grace (Christina Masterson), Aubrey (Virginia Gardner) feels bad for not being there for her when she needed her the most. That is why, after her friend’s funeral, she decides to break into Grace’s apartment and spend the night there. The next morning, she wakes up and finds out that the entire town is strangely silent and empty. There are some abandoned suitcases, scrap metal and blood on the snowy streets.
“Death is thriving”, or “the death’s business is going really well”: these are the cynical but trustworthy words said by Spencer, a psychic played by Zachary Spicer, who also produced the film. That definition describes also the films revolving around this theme: it is quite rare to find a new approach to the everlasting issue of the end of life, but the second film by director Paul Shoulberg gives us a new surprising perspective.
Article by: Valentina Velardi Translated by: Lucrezia Villa
Noura (Hend Sabri) dreams of finalizing the divorce proceedings as soon as possible to be able to live with her lover Lassaad (Hakim Boumsaoudi) at last. Her life has not been easy so far; her husband is in jail and she has had to raise her three kids alone while trying to keep a roof over their heads by working in a hospital’s laundry room. Nevertheless, she is happy, she has managed to emancipate and find her own balance. However, when Jemal (Lotfi Abdelli) is unexpectedly released from jail, he comes back abruptly in her life, upsetting her balance.
Article by: Noemi Castelvetro Translated by: Anna Benedetto
A diaristic voiceover adornes a steady stream of moving images: Ne croyez surtout pas que je hurle, in English “Just don’t think I’ll scream”, belongs to the cinematic trend of “spoken” films, in which the writer-director combines powerful images with meaningful words. Switching between personal stories and digressions, the director reveals some autobiographical events and private thoughts that led him to an almost self-destructive “addiction to cinema” from April to October 2016. During this short amount of time, he watched nearly 400 films, whose brief clips pieced together form the unique visual feature of the movie.
In the U.S., the expression blood quantum is used to refer to Native Americans as opposed to other ethnic groups: those whose percentage of Native American ancestry is at least 51% are labelled as Native Americans. This can often lead to racial discrimination in one of history’s darkest times as far as inclusion is concerned. The film, by Mi’gMaq director Jeff Barnaby, serves as an allegory for the cannibalisation carried out by white culture to the detriment of Native American culture, slowly leading to its disappearance.
Article by: Elio Sacchi Translated by: Ilaria Roma
There is a double bond between Taika Waititi and the city of Turin. After the mockumentary What We Do In The Shadows, where the director explored the daily life of a group of vampires, Waititi comes back in town to open the 37thedition of the “Torino Film Festival” with Jojo Rabbit. The movie, focused on one of the most tragic episodes in the history of mankind – the fall of the Third Reich – , is characterized by irony and lighthearted tones. The filmmaker started working on this movie during the post-production of What We Do In The Shadows, but he had to wait for the right time to release it.
After King of the Belgians (2016), King Nicholas III (played by Peter Van den Begin) is back with an unconventional sequel directed by Jessica Woodworth and Peter Brosens, The Barefoot Emperor, which depicts the crisis of identity in Europe and satirizes the major powers. The sovereign, who had crossed Europe in order to go back to Belgium, split by a coup d’état carried out by the Walloons, now has to face a new surreal threat: the disbandment of the European Parliament and the crowning of an emperor of Nova Europa.
