In this road movie directed by Shahad Ameen, a grandmother and her granddaughter embark on a perilous journey across Saudi Arabia in search of another granddaughter who suddenly vanished during a pilgrimage to Mecca.
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‘Hijra’ Review: A Saudi Tale of Disappearance, Family and Female Bonds
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‘Father’ Venice Review: A Harrowing Slovak Drama of Love, Loss, and Guilt
A Slovak drama from director Tereza Nvotová, «Father» follows a couple through the aftermath of an unimaginable tragedy.
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‘Short Summer’ Venice Review: Childhood Games in the Shadow of War
Told through the eyes of an eight-year-old, ‘Short Summer’ captures the fragile mix of play, family discord, and the distant but looming specter of war in the Russian countryside.
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‘Writing Life’ Venice Review: Claire Simon Captures Annie Ernaux in the Classroom
Claire Simon’s documentary enters French classrooms to observe how teenagers read and debate the works of Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux, finding echoes of their own lives in her brutally honest prose.
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‘Mother’ Venice Review: Noomi Rapace as a Hard, Complex Teresa of Calcutta
Teona Strugar Mitevska reimagines Mother Teresa not as a saintly icon but as a conflicted woman torn between selfless devotion and personal ambition, with Noomi Rapace delivering a strikingly human performance.
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‘The Roses’ Review: A British Take on Marital Warfare
Jay Roach brings Warren Adler’s classic tale of marital strife back to the screen with Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman as a couple caught between love, ambition, and resentment.
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‘Eenie Meanie’ Review: A Flashy, Fun, Forgettable Mix of Action, Comedy and Crime (Hulu)
A messy mix of shootouts, sharp banter, mobsters, and an unexpected pregnancy, ‘Eenie Meanie’ tries to revive the spirit of those pulpy, Tarantino-inspired crime comedies of the ’90s.
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‘White Snails’ Locarno Review: Two Lost Souls, One Tentative Connection
A Belarusian model dreaming of a career in China finds herself drawn to a mysterious loner who works the night shift at a morgue. Their encounter unsettles her sense of body, beauty, and mortality.
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‘Two Seasons, Two Strangers’ Locarno Review: The Poetry of Fleeting Encounters
In summer, Nagisa and Natsuo meet by the sea. In winter, Li, a screenwriter, travels to a snow-covered village. There, she finds a guesthouse run by Benzo.
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‘Dry Leaf’ Locarno Review: A Disappearance, A Road Trip, A Nation
In Alexandre Koberidze’s «Dry Leaf», a father’s search for his missing daughter becomes a whimsical journey through Georgia’s backroads and football fields.