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7 July 2023

KVIFF 2023: Our festival highlights

There are few better ways to spend the first weekend of July than roaming between the picturesque pastel-coloured buildings of Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic, sipping a glass of Becherovka and revelling in the vibrant energy and summery glamour of KVIFF. This year, Russell Crowe was in attendance, opening the festival with a performance by his band Indoor Garden Party.

Ben Nicholson / Karlovy Vary
20 April 2023

Interview: Albert Serra, dir. Pacifiction

Albert Serra is a filmmaker with uncompromising vision. Whether he is reworking Cervantes’ Don Quixote with Honour of the Knights (2006), throwing together Dracula and Casanova in Story of My Death (2013), or depicting the final days of an aging monarch in The Death of Louis XIV (2015), Serra’s singular perspective shines through.

Ben Nicholson / Interviews
26 November 2022

Interview: Alejandro Loayza Grisi, dir. Utama

Coming from a background in photography and cinematography, Alejandro Loayza Grisi embarked on his directorial career with Utama, the tale of an elderly Quechua couple wrangling llamas in the Bolivian highlands.

Ben Nicholson / Interviews

Ben Nicholson

DVD Review: Stuff and Dough

★★★★☆ Cristi Puiu’s Un Certain Regard-winning sophomore feature The Death of Mr Lazarescu was the film that catapulted what has come to be known...

DVD Review: The Assassin

★★★★★ Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s The Assassin is not quite like other wuxia movies. It shares a reverie in the natural world with King Hu’s A...

DVD Review: Creed

★★★★☆ When Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) first stepped into the ring, onto the screen, and into the hearts and minds of cinema audiences back...

DVD Review: The Hateful Eight

★★★☆☆  Even at the best of times it’s impossible to entirely untangle the work of Quentin Tarantino from the whirlwind of soundbites and personality...

Criterion Review: Speedy

★★★★☆ Watching Ted Wilde’s silent comedy Speedy is like reading a palimpsest coloured by layer upon layer of nostalgia. In the first instance, there...