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Ben Affleck set the story of Good Will Hunting (1997) in Boston, when he wrote the script with his childhood friend Matt Damon, which earned them a Golden Globe for Best Screenplay. When the actor made his directorial debut in 2007, he chose to adapt the 1998 novel by Dennis Lehane Gone Baby Gone, set in his hometown of Boston.

In recent years, we have witnessed a surge of films about women made by women. Yuni, Indonesia’s frontrunner this year belongs to this generation.

A family drama that explores the long shadow that one man’s bipolar disorder casts over his loved ones, Belgium-born filmmaker Joachim Lafosse’s The Restless enjoyed its world premiere in competition at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Damien Bonnard – who after a decade’s worth of screen credits burst onto the international film scene playing a conflicted police officer in Ladj Ly’s Golden Globe-nominated Les Misérables – here portrays Damien, a bipolar but loving father and successful artist who feels his best and most creative work comes when he is not taking his prescribed medication.

It was late 2020. Midnight Sky had just opened over the holidays.

The end of the 90s, a party in a big Altbau apartment in Moscow. It is full of intellectuals who are enjoying not only food and drinks but also academic parlor games.

One of the most in-demand young Russian actors at the moment opened up to me over Zoom about his challenges of working on his latest role as the titular Captain Volkonogov in the 2021 Russian drama film directed by Natalya Merkulova and Aleksey Chupov. This stylish, retro utopian thriller tells the redemption story of a Stalin-era enforcement agent and was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at this year’s 78th Venice International Film Festival.

To escape the toxic pollution, streets overflowing with garbage, constant power outages and social unrest of Beirut, the Badri family has moved to an idyllic quiet retreat in the mountains above the city. There, Walid (Saleh Bakri) and Soraya (Nadine Labaki, director of the Golden Globe-nominated Capernaum), their two girls and the grandmother enjoy an isolated eco-conscious and self-sufficient lifestyle.

What if the end of a world war does not bring freedom? What if personal freedom is something that has eluded you all your life? And what if – when you finally attain it – you don’t know what to do with this gift?All these questions are raised by Great Freedom (Grosse Freiheit, the original title). The film starts with homosexual men being secretly taped in compromising situations on the toilet and the backrooms of clubs.

Kubat Aliev (Marat Alyshpaev) seems like a regular retiree, a man of few words who just wants to spend his last years in peace. His apartment is located in a brutalist building from the Soviet Times in a residential area of Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek.

Julie (Renate Reinsve) is a confused woman in her 20s. She has had a hard time picking her career path when she meets a 15-year older guy, the graphic novelist Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie) and falls in love with him.