Each year, countless films premiere at festivals across the world. Filmmakers are celebrated for their artistic vision. Projects are praised for their ability to push the boundaries of what we expect from national cinemas. Then, just as quickly as these films burst on the scene, many disappear from the public eye. Some fall through the cracks of distribution. Others are snapped up by discriminating studios but languish in the vault as executives work to puzzle out the perfect date and platform for their release.

Continue reading The 25 Best Movies Of 2020 We’ve Already Seen at The Playlist.

Oliver Laxe’s new film “Fire Will Come” has a fitting and powerful title. It’s both an immutable truth in certain regions and a portent of things to come, depending on the speaker it could read as wisdom or a threat. Laxe’s film uses a dreamy minimalism to explore that most fundamental conflict of man versus nature, but also the tensions of a man struggling against his own nature.

Continue reading ‘Fire Will Come’: Oliver Laxe’s Latest Is A Mesmerizing Meditation On Man And Nature [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

It consumed, delighted, and maddened many of us, even from afar, but the 2019 Cannes Film Festival is finally done. South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho‘s social satire “Parasite” won the coveted Palme d’Or prize (a first for South Korea), and Mati Diop’s “Atlantique,” won the runner-up Grand Prix prize, becoming the first Black female director to win a Cannes prize (after 72 years, she was also somehow the first Black female director in competition).

Continue reading Best & Worst Of The 2019 Cannes Film Festival at The Playlist.