Film

Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov revisits the subject of escalating classroom drama in his new film (M)uchenik. Well received at the Cannes Film Festival, (M)uchenik just earned Serebrennikov the “best director” award at the 27th Kinotavr Open Russian Film Festival in Sochi.

A wunderkind? Self-aggrandizing filmmaker? Ambitious careerist?  All of these labels have been applied, with varying degrees of accuracy or truth, to the Quebecois director-writer-actor Xavier Dolan.  Only 27, the Montreal-based director has been nothing if not prolific, already claiming six features to his credit.

Ken Loach, one of the greatest living British filmmakers – alongside Mike Leigh and Terence Davies – may become the oldest working director in the UK.  At 80, with a solid body of work that consists of 19 films, he still shows his strong, unfailing commitment to social issues cinema – slanted toward left-wing politics.

After making the inconsequential airplane farce I’m So Excited! (arguably his weakest film in a career spanning 36 years), Pedro Almodovar is back on terra firma with Julieta, a femme-driven tale that justifies his title as a great woman's director, or rather a filmmaker who has specialized in telling emotionally touching stories about all kinds of women--of various ages, social classes, professions. Julieta has already opened in Spain, but it receives its high-prtofile international premiere at the Cannes Film Festival (in competition).

Any self respecting A-list festival needs a film that rocks the boat and ruffles some feathers. Controversy can be like fuel to a Cannes festival, sparking debates that bubble late into the post-screening dinner conversations at the sidewalk cafés.

With Paterson, Jim Jarmusch, the quintessentially indie director--one of the few left in the U. S.

Writer-director Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Mud, Midnight Special) showed his fifth feature at this 69th Cannes and Loving immediately garnered plenty of buzz, with some unequivocally declaring it one of the festival's best. Loving is a quietly understated telling of one of the lesser known and yet crucial episodes in the American struggle for civil rights: the landmark (and never more  appropriately titled) case of Loving v.

A visually and musically thrilling picture, American Honey, British director Andrea Arnold's fourth film, is also the first one that is set and shot entirely in America. The US rights to this picture, which premiered at Cannes Festival (in competition) were acquired during the festival by Focus Features.

One of the great sidebars in Cannes is the Classics selection, a favorite of cinephiles and a tribute to the history of cinema and the festival. This year fans can feast their eyes on great movies from Jean-Luc Godard’s Masculin Féminin, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris and Milos Forman’s Valmont.

Soko and Lily Rose Depp star in the true story of Loïe Fuller and Isadora Duncan, women whose dancing reverberates 100 years on. The fascinating and little known story of Loïe Fuller, a young woman who improbably left the wilds of the American frontier to become a dancer in turn-of-the-century New York and ultimately a star of the Paris opera, makes for a fascinating film story.