Ioncinema

Uncanny Valley: Mungiu Explores Liberated Prisons Totalitarian mentality is driven to logical extremes in Fjord, Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu’s first foray outside of his native country, named for the deep, underwater valleys formed by glaciers common to the geography of...

Years We Fell Apart: Razo Resurrects the Final Throes of Childhood For his first narrative feature, documentary filmmaker Bruno Santamaría Razo utilizes a docu-hybrid in Six Months in a Pink and Blue Building, an enigmatic title grasping at the wisps...

The Romanian master filmmaker Cristian Mungiu moves away from a backdrop he knows far too well to explore the family unit way further up north. Winner of the Palme d’Or in 2007 for his sophomore feature 4 Months, 3 Weeks...

She Who Is Not: Harari Explores Existential Identity Issues in the Body Swap “A woman, for me, must remain a woman,” stated Andrey Tarkovsky when once asked what he thought about women, proposing their innate femininity and weakness as their...

French director Arthur Harari might be best known as the co-writer of Anatomy of a Fall, but prior to that he saw 2013’s Peine perdue land at the Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week and his 2021’s Onoda: 10,000 Nights in...

Monster Squad: Hong-jin Goes Full-Blown Extraterrestrial For his fourth feature, South Korean director Na Hong-jin goes for breakneck, relentless mayhem in the curiously titled Hope. Always tending to blend genre elements in his previous efforts, Hong-jin has increasingly leaned into...

Fruit on the Vine: Marrakchi Harvests Bitter Justice “We give our bodies. All that for peanuts,” is an anguished remonstrance from the protagonist in Strawberries, the first feature film from Moroccan filmmaker Laïla Marrakchi in over a decade. A story...

Rosé is the Warmest Color: Herry Explores a Liver of No Return In several ways, Jeanne Herry’s latest socially conscious drama Garance (unfortunately outfitted with the inconspicuously bland international title, Another Day) serves as a maturation of her storytelling style,...

Elevator the Gallows: Nemes Aims to Exhaust in Homage to the French Resistance Jean-Pierre Melville’s classic account of the French Resistance, Army of Shadows (1969) opens with a quote from the French novelist Georges Courteline – “Bad memories! I welcome...

Another first time filmmaker to the competition but no stranger to Cannes, South Korean filmmaker Na Hong-jin has showcased 2008’s The Chaser (Midnight Screening), 2010’s The Yellow Sea (Un Certain Regard) and 2016’s The Wailing (Out of Competition) in the...