„A journey into the heart of Bangland, a city in a dystopian America now under the presidency of Steven Spielberg, who has declared war on the African nation Mahaba, thereby launching his own war on terror, the gist being that anyone who isn’t white is a potential terrorist.“

This first sentence of the teaser-text for Bangland, an animation movie by Lorenzo Berghella, should honestly be enough to get you excited about it. So just start praying that this 60-minutes-gem reaches cinemas outside Italy already! Well, that was a bit short of a review, so here’s a short reply to some negative criticism of what is actually the biggest and most pleasant surprise of the Festival so far. weiterlesen →

When directing a film about a couple’s break up, there is one question that has to be dealt with: How do you let the audience partake in the repetitivness of the dysfunctional relationship that is stuck running in habit circles, yet still make a gripping, diverse and interesting movie? La prima Luce by Vincenzo Marra tells a story like that. Martina is stuck with her passive aggressive, oppressive partner Marco, who would like to but can’t catch up the the distance that she puts between the two of them. Right between those ‚lovebirds‘, and at the centre of both of their seperate lifes, there is 8 year-old son Mateo, who is the core of the parents‘ conflict: Martina wants to leave Italy, return to her home country Chile – and take Mateo with her for good, a thing Marco cannot allow. Prepare for some drama and a lot of dialogue about the dire situation. A lot of poorly orchestrated dialogue, that is. weiterlesen →