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Film Review: Dogs Don’t Wear Pants
★★★★☆ After his wife drowns in a tragic accident, Juha (Pekka Strang) enters a lengthy bout of depression, unable to connect with either his daughter, Elli (Ilhona Huhta), or his own feelings. A chance encounter with dominatrix Mona (Krista Kosonen) sets him on a new path of discovery. An erotic, blackly comic drama, Finnish director…
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Film Review: Vivarium
★★★★☆ It’s easy to think that our lives have become bottle episodes in recent weeks: single location stories cut off from the grand narrative of our ordinary lives and the usual onrush of world events, culture and sport included. Current uncertainty makes this hiatus feel like it’s stretching out to a vanishing point on an…
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Film Review: System Crasher
★★★★☆ System Crasher is the outstanding feature film debut of German director Nora Fingscheidt. A tremendous slice of life filled with light and energy, which doesn’t shy away from the tough realities of what social care is like for children with severe developmental issues. Benni (Helena Zengel) is a foul-mouthed, rebellious nine-year-old who struggles to contain…
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CPH:DOX 2020: The Fight for Greenland review
★★★☆☆ The opening film of this year’s digitised CPH:DOX festival, Kenneth Sorento’s The Fight for Greenland offers a balanced, clear-eyed view of an indigenous populace grappling with the prospect of autonomy from the Kingdom of Denmark.
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Hollywood’s holy box office trinity
Hollywood certainly knows how to churn out a blockbuster or three. There are now nearly 50 movies that have generated over a billion dollars in revenue, and the vast majority of them were released in the last decade. Even though there are still some box office bombs (Cats, for instance) that underperform and fail to…
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Film Review: The Truth
★★★☆☆ Fabienne (Catherine Deneuve) is an ageing star of French cinema. Her self-aggrandising memoirs have just been published and her screenwriter daughter Lumir (Juliette Binoche), along with her husband Hank (Ethan Hawke), return to Paris with their daughter to celebrate the occasion. One immediate consequence is the resignation of Fabienne’s factotum, whose implacable calm has…
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Film Review: Radioactive
★★☆☆☆ On paper the story of Marie Curie, a pioneering woman of science, seems like prime awards bait: with a big central role for Rosamund Pike, playing an eccentric proto-feminist. Sadly, Radioactive is as lifeless and inert as a rock, badly let down by a dismal script, and carrying all the half-life of an unfinished…
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Film Review: Fire Will Come
★★★★★ It’s 1989 and convicted arsonist Amador (Amador Arias) has just been released from prison after setting forest fires in the Spanish countryside. Returning to his maternal home in the autonomous community of Galicia in northwest Spain, the quiet Amador tries to settle into the slowed quotidian rhythms of the landscape. French director Oliver Laxe’s…
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CPH:DOX 2020: Digital programme preview
With the Cannes Film Festival now postponing its 2020 edition in light of the global Covid-19 epidemic until late June at the earliest, and other major fests either cancelling or delaying in recent weeks, CPH:DOX has arguably led the way in adapting to the current situation.
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Cryptocurrency: The future of Hollywood?
It’s hardly surprising that Hollywood has embraced cryptocurrencies. The rich and famous are always looking for safe and profitable places to invest their earnings, while the cryptocurrency market is always on the lookout for a little celebrity endorsement to help promote its wares. Just like the film industry, cryptocurrencies thrive on the buzz of publicity…
VENICE 2026
