Once Upon a Time in the Middle East: The death of innocents (and innocence)
The title Once Upon a Time in the Middle East may sound like a fairy tale, but it is instead a grim reminder of how war is often death of both innocence and innocents.
Tag: Official Oscar entry
The Condor Daughter: The old ways are passing
The key to happiness may not be always be found in the excitement of modern life. Sometimes it may be in the discovery of what one already has.
AFIFest 2025: Day 2
“Welcome, film lovers. You’re in good company.” These words come up on the screen before every...
Flow: Hopeful post-apocalypse
We have gotten used to the idea of a post-apocalyptic world filled with violence and greed. The...
Memories of a Burning Body: Women’s lives
“Being a woman is beautiful. But there is also an ugly side of it…” Okay, first off, I’m male, so...
AFIFest – I’m Still Here – A Family’s Trauma
Walter Salles’s film I’m Still Here is the story of a family that is torn apart by the acts of an...
The Promised Land: Eden in negative
“God isn’t civilized. God is chaos. Life is chaos.” I look at The Promised Land as the story of...
Four Daughters – Psychodrama of grief
How does one speak of losing not just one child, but two? In Four Daughters, Kaouther Ben Hania...
Bye Bye Tiberias – A home left behind
Lina Soualem’s Bye Bye Tiberias is essentially a way for the filmmaker to get a better...
The Missing: Recovering what was lost
As I watched Carl Joseph E. Papa’s animated film The Missing, I spent most of the first half...
Rojek: Meet ISIS
ISIS (or Daesh or the Islamic State) often seems like a monstrous evil. I’m not saying it isn’t,...
The Taste of Things – Food for the soul
Films about cooking aren’t usually about cooking. That just serves as the framework to tell a...
Shayda – Celebrating strong women
An Iranian woman and her daughter hope for a new life while in an Australian women’s shelter....