film

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

Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Regina King, LaKeith Stanfield, Zazie Beetz, and Delroy Lindo are just a handful of the acclaimed actors who appear in the western The Harder They Fall. The revenge-filled story follows a charismatic assortment of gunslingers, bandits, and outlaws in a fictional tale about real historical figures.

AIDS remains a major public health issue that still affects the entire world; it's estimated that close to 38 million people have HIV right now. Although the world has made significant progress in recent decades, there are still important goals to reach.

Writing With Fire, Rintu Thomas and Shushmit Ghosh’s feature documentary debut tells the story of Khabar Lahariya, a female-run newspaper in northern India whose journalists are all Dalit, the lowest group in the Hindu caste system. Highly acclaimed, the film has won an audience award and special jury award at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and is nominated for best feature honors by the International Documentary Association (IDA).

In tick, tick… Boom!, Andrew Garfield tackles his first major musical role by stepping into the shoes of the acclaimed American composer and playwright Jonathan Larson. The Netflix movie is based on the autobiographical musical by Larson, who also wrote the award-winning musical Rent, and it serves as the feature directorial debut of Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Thought-provoking themes of mental anxiety, mourning and manipulation all stir to the surface in the biographical feature The Electrical Life of Louis Wain. The movie’s story follows the life of the eccentric English artist and illustrator Louis Wain, played by three-time Golden Globe nominee Benedict Cumberbatch.

A good film festival is defined by its programming: diversity and inclusion play as much a role as does variety in all genres of filmmaking. The New Orleans fest distinguishes itself by also paying attention not only to local filmmakers but to local stories: topics that resonate with or were born from the city, the state, or the region.

Kenneth Branagh’s wistful homage to his childhood in Northern Ireland arrives on the big screen in the form of the semi-autobiographical movie, Belfast. Written and directed by Branagh, the story chronicles the life of a working-class family in the late 1960s in a narrative set against the backdrop of social tumult during the Northern Ireland Conflict.

Not even hurricane Ida could stop this festival, which started on Nov 5. New Orleanians do not like when we call them resilient, so let’s just say they are masters at success against all odds.

14 months ago, during the unprecedentedly difficult, pandemic-ravaged Venice Film Festival, a movie had its world premiere without the usual fanfare, with no receptions and a sad and empty red carpet where no fans cheered from the bleachers. The film was called The Duke and it deserved better.