Category Archives: movies

the other lives of a monster (film: Das Verschwinden des Josef Mengele – Kirill Serebrennikov, 2025)

Director Kirill Serebrennikov is a leading figure in contemporary Russian theater and film, and a man of great talent and courage. His most recent films are both author films and biographies of complex and very different personalities. The composer Tchaikovsky … Continue reading

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the monster finds love (film: The Bride! – Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2026)

Maggie Gyllenhaal seems to me to be one of the success stories among actors who have gone behind the camera and became directors. After the remarkable debut with ‘The Lost Daughter’ now comes ‘The Bride!‘ which is more than a … Continue reading

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the chronicle of a failure in the Balkans (film: Sorella di Clausura – Ivana Mladenovic, 2025)

Ivana Mladenovic, the director of the film ‘Sorella din Clausura‘ (‘Cloistered Sister‘ in the English distribution), was born in Serbia, but studied theater and film in Romania, where her four feature films to date have been made. The film’s title, … Continue reading

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banality of good and evil (film: It Was Just an Accident / Yek tasadof-e sadeh – Jafar Panahi, 2025)

Jafar Panahi‘s ‘It was Just an Accident‘ (the original title is ‘Yek tasadof-e sadeh‘) would deserve all the awards for courage and verticality, if they existed at the Academy Awards or international film festivals. The Iranian director, the actors and … Continue reading

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life as a boxing match (film: Gipsy Queen – Hüseyin Tabak, 2019)

Romanian cinema has only recently begun to deal more intensely with the fate of the over 5 million Romanians who live and work outside the country’s borders, with several very interesting films being released in the last year. These films … Continue reading

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Barbie on Wuthering Heights (film: Wuthering Heights – Emerald Fennell, 2026)

A few years ago, when I watched ‘Promising Young Woman’, the debut feature film of English actress and screenwriter Emerald Fennell, I set out to follow the career of this promising filmmaker, who with that film won an Academy Award … Continue reading

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who is the monster? (film: Frankenstein – Guillermo del Toro, 2025)

Movies inspired by Gothic novels are back in fashion. The famous triptic that has inspired directors and actors for a century has given birth to a new generation of remakes in the last year: first there was Robert Eggers’ ‘Nosferatu’, … Continue reading

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dr. Jodie Foster from Paris (film: Vie privée – Rebecca Zlotowski, 2025)

I have always had a healthy dose of distrust in the ‘psy-‘ experts, i.e. psychologists, psychoanalysts or psychiatrists. Call it skepticism or prejudice, the fact is that I have never resorted to their services. The film ‘Vie privée‘ (‘A Private … Continue reading

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Lanthimos strikes again (film: Bugonia – Yorgos Lanthimos, 2025)

‘Bugonia‘ is apparently a relatively ‘light’ film in Yorgos Lanthimos‘ filmography. It’s a remake of ‘Save the Green Planet!’, the 2003 black fantasy comedy by Korean director Jan Joon-hwan, who appears as an executive producer on the American film’s credits. … Continue reading

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farewell rituals (film: Ani wo mochihakoberu saizu ni / Bring Him Down to a Portable Size – Ryôta Nakano, 2025)

‘Bring Him Down to a Portable Size‘ (2025 – in Japanese the title is ‘Ani wo mochihakoberu saizu ni‘) by Ryôta Nakano reminded me of another Japanese film that deals with funeral details – ‘Departures’ (2008 – in Japanese the … Continue reading

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