Corneliu Porumboiu returned to Cannes ten years after 2009's Police, Adjective with The Whistlers, one of the freshest genre hybrids in a festival full of them. Set in Porumboiu's native Romania, it concerns a corrupt cop who is in league with gangsters based on Gomera in the Canary Islands. But what makes this film…
Since his 2005 Sundance winner 40 Shades of Blue, Ira Sachs has been synonymous with the U.S. indie sector, so it was a huge leap for the director to make the leap into this year's Cannes competition. With a strong international cast headed by Isabelle Huppert and including Marisa Tomei, Brendan Gleeson, and Jérémie…
Although Pedro Almodóvar is considered a fixture in the Cannes competition, he's only ever won the main prize once, with 2006's Volver. Indeed, after 1999's Cannes hit All About My Mother was pipped at the very last minute by the Dardenne brothers' Rosetta, the director briefly followed Woody Allen's example by…
In just under 20 years, Austria's Jessica Hausner has made a name for herself as a director of beguiling and provocative films that explore the mysteries of modern life. With her sixth film, the Cannes Competition entry Little Joe, she takes on the concept of happiness, casting Emily Beecham as a woman who thinks she…
It's hard to believe but Midge Costin—who worked on bombastic '90s action classics such as Con Air, The Rock and Armageddon—used to be intimidated by the field she now specializes in: sound on film. "It always seemed so technical," she laughs. But after embracing her fears, Costin has become an expert in the history…
South Korea's Bong Joon-ho has been a familiar sight in Cannes since 2006, when word of his delirious Han River monster romp The Host swept the Croisette after screening in Directors’ Fortnight. Since then, while his English and dress sense quietly improved, director Bong has always returned with a surprise, making…
“In terms of dramatic creativity there are three Spanish icons," says academic and critic Maria Delgado. "Miguel de Cervantes, Federico García Lorca and Pedro Almodóvar." But while Cervantes has been dead for over 400 years, and Lorca over 80, at the age of 79, the filmmaker from La Mancha continues to represent his…
It's fifth time lucky for Austria's Jessica Hausner, who has had a strong Cannes presence since her unsettling debut Lovely Rita premiered there in 2001. After returning with the Lynchian 2004 thriller Hotel, Hausner took 2009's provocative French religious drama Lourdes to compete in Venice before coming back to the…
"I've always loved fables and parables," says Lorcan Finnegan. "Stories that entertain but carry a message or warning. I grew up on faery stories, ghost stories and reading Greek and Roman mythology, and being Irish, I'm genetically drawn towards the liminal, twilight world."
Finnegan caused a stir on the genre…
Pippa Bianco doesn’t take awards for granted. At this year's Sundance Film Festival she premiered her debut feature Share and hopped back on a flight to her native New York. "I was back at work when we got the call that we needed to come back for the awards ceremony," she recalls. "I was not anticipating that part at…
UPDATED with full list of winners: The Berlin Film Festival crowned its winners tonight at a ceremony in the Berlinale Palast. Big winners included Synonyms (Synonymes), which took home the festival’s top prize Golden Bear for Best Film and By the Grace of God, which won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize. I Was at Home…
There can only be one winner, but each of the Best Picture nominees overcame creative, financial and logistical hurdles to get this close to the finish line. Here are their war stories.
Black Panther
Fifty years ago, the phrase 'Black Panther' carried more political baggage than it does today, immediately summoning up…
