Film

Tokyo Story, Good Morning, Early Spring, Floating Weeds, Late Autumn, Equinox Flower, The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice are just a few of the most movingly memorable films directed by Yasujirō Ozu.   Besides a legacy of many unsurpassed masterpieces, the prolific filmmaker also left 32 pocket agendas in which he diligently recorded facts and events of his daily life, from 1933 until a few months before his death in December 1963, at age sixty.

Oliver Stone’s latest project JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, is a documentary which explores the factual side of the events he dramatized in JFK (1991), which earned him a Golden Globe exactly 30 years ago. JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, narrated by Donald Sutherland and Whoopi Goldberg, premieres at the Cannes Film Festival on July 11, while JFK will be screened on the giant Plage screen.

In his new documentary, The Velvet Underground, the quintessentially indie filmmaker Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven, Carol) tells the story of the legendary, seminal rock 'n' roll band, led by Lou Reed and John Cale, by situating their work in the broader cultural contexts of New York City of the 1960s.   The feature world-premiered out of competition at this year’s Cannes Fest, ahead of its October 15 release by Amazon in select theaters, and later on Apple TV+.

Jean-Jacques Annaud occupies a unique position. A rare French director with international stature and reputation.

In today’s culture, where endless virtue signaling and the perpetual outrage machine of social media co-exist alongside authentically distressing news stories, it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish between considered, sincere disapproval or agitation and performative offense. But in 1995, Larry Clark’s Kids, starring a blend of unknown and non-professional actors, provoked genuine scandalous reactions.

The historical path of Iranian cinema from the East India Company film studios in India where the very first Iranian films were made, to major European film festivals, has been long and winding and indicative of the social and cultural history of Iran. Talking about Iranian cinema at a press conference with the HFPA, director Asghar Farhadi rightly pointed out, “There’s a great deal of talent in that region.

A world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, where filmmaker CJ Hunt was feted with a Special Jury Mention for Best New Documentary Director, The Neutral Ground is a timely, remarkable, and engaging work of social inquisitiveness. The film is set for a limited theatrical run in advance of its national broadcast premiere across PBS stations, to be followed by a period of exclusive streaming.

Published in 1987, ten years after his death at age seventy-one, “Fragments d’une Autobiographie” is Roberto Rossellini’s fascinating self-portrait and literary testament. A slim volume written in French, (“the first language I learned growing up before being taught Italian, or rather the Roman dialect.

The massive difficulties of consensus-building in a polarized world are ably highlighted in The First Step, a sociopolitical documentary that should find engaging reception with both those acutely interested in the sharp-elbowed realm of American political gamesmanship as well as those just contemplating real-world events of the past several years. Taking as its central subject lawyer, author, and activist Van Jones, director Brandon Kramer’s movie, fresh off its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival and accompanying presentation at AFI Docs, focuses on the efforts of his nonprofit organization #cut50 (now Dream Corps) as it lobbies for criminal justice reform.

An idiosyncratic and engaging work that finds a way to mimic the at-odds kineticism and inherent melancholy present in its subject’s music, Moby Doc serves as both a bouncy nonfiction exploration of pioneering electronica artist Moby and a document of therapeutic self-examination. Directed and edited with considerable aplomb by Rob Gordon Bralver, the movie holds at bay some of the (very present) clichés of rock star bio-docs, from drug abuse to suicidal ideation, by way of an atypical structuring and the use of various narrative end-arounds and filters.