Festival Reports

Korean film festivals, like the industry itself, have wrestled with an existential crisis since the COVID pandemic, with declining audiences and many ...

"even scratched to death a simple rectangle of thirty-five millimeters saves the honor of all of the real. " – J.-L. Godard, Histoire(s) du cin...

Festivals, like films, begin life before they officially open. For Il Cinema Ritrovato, the trickle of information about the programme becomes somethi...

Shanghai is a city where time seems to run faster. New metro stations are built within just two or three months, and urban redevelopment has completel...

At this year’s Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), the first film I saw – at its Thursday evening press screening – was Gelbe Briefe (Yell...

A funny thing has often happened to me on the way to the Berlinale. I’ve attended each of the last three years’ festivals; you’d think I’d know my way...

In the final moments of the closing party of the 2025 Yamagata International Documentary Festival (YIDFF), two city mascots dance around the hotel ban...

When Jean Epstein wrote about “approaching the promised land, a place of great wonders,” in the early 1920s, he was referring to a metaphorical topos,...

Arriving in Marrakech at the end of November to attend the Marrakech International Film Festival means being embraced at once by a warm, golden light ...

The 31st Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) screened over 200 films from 39 countries across 21 venues. With 2025 marking the birth centenary ...

A fish rots from the head. No surprise, then, given the lack of integrity shown by a series of UK governments, that the 2025 London Film Festival shou...

In my write-up in Senses of last year’s 58th KVIFF, I led with commentary on the ubiquity of celebration of Jiří Bartoška’s 30 years as festival Presi...

In ocean-lapped spots like San Sebastián on Spain's Atlantic coast, the tide turns twice a day. In the wider world, the process can take rather longer...

Palestinian flags held aloft by protesters lined the length of the red carpet leading into the sleek, prismatic cubes of the Kursaal Congress Centre, ...

Every so often it becomes necessary to rewatch this iconic bit from Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, "Where is Balkan?", a lighthearted reminder of...

The 30th Busan International Film Festival was a curious mixture, both a continuation of the festival of the past decade as well as a return to the fe...

On the back wall of the Māoriland Hub, in the Toi Matarau Gallery on the main street of Ōtaki on the Kāpiti Coast of Te Ika-a-Māui (the North Island o...

“Hi there, this is the open address of our venue for today’s screenings.” I scroll through the email. There’s a Google Maps link followed by more inst...

Berwick-upon-Tweed is a seaside town located on the border between England and Scotland. Such porous identity is reflected in the town’s only film fes...

In Dubai’s warm winter sunshine, throngs of cinema goers queued up outside Cinema Akil. Many sported keffiyehs and some held cups of bright yellow bar...

Since its launch in 2014, Open City Documentary Festival – based within University College London’s (UCL) Public Anthropology program – has been dedic...

This review considers analogue 16mm films in the Rotterdam International Film Festival; shorter, marginal works experimenting with form; Tiger Award w...

People often ask us if we are a political festival. And yes, while I’d say we are a social festival, politics is in our DNA. We are the only major A-l...

The inaugural Black Europe Film Festival (BEFF) took place in Minneapolis/Saint Paul during the early winter days of Black History Month in America. T...