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  • The Top Gaming Countries — Every Movie Has a Lesson

    The Top Gaming Countries — Every Movie Has a Lesson



    The United States takes the lead as the biggest gaming nation of 2025 with a score of 98.24, leading the global gaming rankings with over 28K prize-winning esports players and nearly $290 million in esports earnings. The country combines a high gaming population (83% of residents play video games) with major competitive success, creating the largest gaming market globally.

    Denmark comes in 2nd with a score of 84.46, achieving exceptional per capita competitive gaming results with 35.6 prize-winning esports players per 100K residents—over four times higher than the United States. Denmark has the highest percentage of Steam users (10.56%) among all ranked nations and total esports earnings of $61.9 million, which is substantial compared to its population size.

    Sweden ranks 3rd with a score of 80.88, with a strong gaming culture where 77% of the population plays video games and 8.88% are active on Steam. Similar to Denmark, Swedish gamers excel in per capita competition with 31.05 prize-winning players and total earnings reaching $56.8 million. Though slightly behind Denmark in Steam usage and per capita winners, Sweden has produced more total prize-winning players (3,309 vs. 2,137).

    China ranks 4th with a score of 78.50, generating the world’s highest total esports earnings at $321.9 million (10% more than the United States) and having the second-highest percentage of gamers (86%). Unlike the Nordic countries, China has very low Steam usage (0.80%) and per capita competitive participation (only 0.64 winners), but its massive population results in 9,100 prize-winning players.

    Finland takes 5th place with a score of 78.39, having the highest concentration of prize-winning esports players globally at 38.3, surpassing even Denmark. With 71% of Finns playing video games and 8.23% using Steam (slightly lower than Sweden), Finland has accumulated $33.5 million in esports earnings.

    South Korea ranks 6th with a score of 65.09, known as the early pioneer of esports with $153.3 million in tournament earnings (the third highest after China and the US) and 5,941 prize-winning players. With 80% of the population playing video games but only 2.90% using Steam (much lower than in Nordic countries), Korea’s gaming market relies on local platforms.

    Singapore ranks 7th with a score of 62.22, having the highest percentage of video gamers (87%) among all top nations, even higher than China. The city-state has good per capita competitive participation with 20.52 prize-winning players despite modest total earnings of $7.6 million. Unlike South Korea, Singapore lacks signature game titles where its players consistently excel.

    Canada takes 8th place with a score of 61.96, with balanced performance across metrics including 84% of the population playing video games (matching Australia and slightly higher than the US) and 7.50% using Steam.

    Australia ranks 9th with a score of 61.33, with a strong gaming community where 84% of residents play video games (identical to Canada). Despite geographical isolation, Australian esports has grown with 4,307 prize-winning players, accumulating $32.8 million in earnings. Australia’s performance is quite good given its distance from major gaming regions and tournaments.

    Norway rounds out the top ten with a score of 60.89, with high Steam adoption (9.59%, second only to Denmark) despite having the lowest percentage of video gamers (69%) among top nations. Norwegian competitive gaming has produced 24.19 prize-winning players.

    A spokesperson from an online gaming company commented on the study: “There are two distinct paths to success: mass participation versus targeted competitive excellence. Population size proves less important than digital infrastructure and cultural investment in gaming ecosystems. Most significant is how smaller tech-forward regions consistently outperform in per capita metrics while larger markets capitalize on scale advantages in total earnings. Beyond the visible metrics lies a complex interplay between public investment, private sponsorship, and cultural attitudes toward gaming as a legitimate career. Regions that approach gaming through coordinated policy rather than viewing it merely as entertainment are reaping disproportionate economic returns.”



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  • Growing Down by Bálint Dániel Sós

    Growing Down by Bálint Dániel Sós


    Growing Down (Minden rendben) is Bálint Dániel Sós’s first feature. It had its world premiere in the new Perspectives section at this year’s Berlinale. The plot follows Sándor (Szabolcs Hajdu), a widower who is cautiously rebuilding his life after the death of his wife. He is hopeful about blending his family with that of his girlfriend, Klára (Anna Háy), who has a daughter named Sari (Zonga Jakab-Aponyi). Sándor has two children of his own: 12-year-old Dénes (Ágoston Sáfrány) and his older brother Zsiga (Milan Zikkert). The story begins optimistically as the two families unite, culminating in a joint 12th birthday celebration for Denes and Sari at Klara’s home. However, things will soon take a sharp turn.

    A terrible incident involving Sari caused by Dénes occurs during the party, which tests Sándor’s loyalties. Will he reveal what he witnessed or keep quiet out of fear that his son will end up in juvenile detention? In any case, what happened seriously damaged not only Sari but also the relations and trust between Sándor and Klára. The remainder of the film revolves more around the increasingly fragile relationship and distrust than about Sari’s condition. Sándor’s initial act of protection spirals into a web of guilt, secrecy, and mounting tension as the truth threatens to arise from the contradictions in his and Dénes’ different statements.

    Growing Down
    Szabolcs Hajdu and Ágoston Sáfrány in Growing Down.

    Everything is not fine in Growing Down

    The original title, Minden rendben, means “everything is fine”, which is far from the case in the film. There is tension in Sándor’s family already before the horrific occurrence. On the way to the joint party, he tells his sons that it would be nice if they could act like a normal family for once. The party is actually going well until the shock that changes everything. The director has said that one of the sources of inspiration was a situation with his own children. It sparked an ambiguous reaction where he felt like scolding and protecting his children. The script, co-written by Gergő Nagy, handles this kind of ambivalence remarkably well.

    There is nobody to root for nor any clear antagonist, but we see people in real pain for different reasons. The superb script is deftly handled by the actors, who are uniformly excellent. Szabolcs Hajdu may be most known as a director, even though he was an actor before he started directing. In a challenging part, he never puts a foot wrong. Ágoston Sáfrány is as remarkable as Dénes as well. The whole cast is perfect, which is a testament to Sós’ directing skills in his first film. The black and white cinematography by Kristóf M. Deák is also outstanding, with a fluidity that is almost Medvigyan in parts. It is, obviously, different from the colours in Cat Call.

    Bálint Dániel Sós Szabolcs Hajdu
    The director, Bálint Dániel Sós, holding the microphone, surrounded by members of his remarkable cast.

    Growing Down is a mere 86 minutes long, and the runtime is tightly paced while still managing to be impressively nuanced. Credit should also go to the editor, Márton Gothár, and not least, the two composers Ambrus Tövisházi and Máriusz Fodor. Bálint Dániel Sós’s first film is a triumph in several aspects, and I can’t wait to see his sophomore effort.

    Growing Down by Bálint Dániel Sós
    Daniel Featured - The Disapproving Swede

    Director:
    Bálint Daniel Sós

    Date Created:
    2025-04-14 03:01

    Pros

    • Scenario
    • Cinematography
    • Acting



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  • Yunan by Ameer Fakher Eldin 

    Yunan by Ameer Fakher Eldin 


    The German presence in the 2025 Berlinale competition was surprisingly scarce, with merely two sophomore features representing the country. What Marielle Knows (Was Marielle weiss) by Frédéric Hambalek, and Yunan by Ameer Fakher Eldin. The latter is set on an island off the German coast where writer Munir (Georges Khabbaz) arrives, supposedly to end his life. Once there, he meets the owner of the sole hotel. Valeska (Hannah Schygulla). She initially rejects him for not having a reservation but decides to let him sleep in an old, unused guest home not too far from the hotel building. Munir has left his dementia-stricken mother behind after asking her to repeat a story about a shepherd, which she seems unable to finish.

    Valeska has a son, Karl, who seems less than happy about Munir’s presence. Meanwhile, the island is threatened by a violent storm, which has caused many people to evacuate the premises. The weather will take metaphorical proportions verging on the biblical. The aforementioned story about the shepherd (Ali Suliman) and his wife (Sibel Kekill) is gradually played out for the spectators and seems to have parallels to Munir’s fate. After the initial meeting, Munir and Valeska warm to each other and, not unexpectedly, the former puts his plans on hold. Several aspects of Yunan‘s narrative are not unexpected, but that is not the film’s focus.

    Yunan
    Georges Khabbaz and Hannah Schygullah in Yunan.

    The purpose of Yunan

    The lack of stress on the narrative is inherently not a problem. Other building blocks of this 124-minute work might be, not least, the feeling that we’ve seen many of the themes before. The young director treats highly recognisable ideas and symbolism, and some of the (splendidly shot) imagery looks familiar, too. It is not far-fetched for the viewer to let the mind wander to films by Béla Tarr and even Nuri Bilge Ceylan. The name Valeska doesn’t merely bring the director Valeska Griesbach to mind but also Valuska, the main character in Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), played by German actor Lars Rudolph. Schygulla had a part in that film as well.

    Apropos Werckmeister, I felt inclined to give up on the film when a huge creature was seen on the beach. However, that would mean abandoning one of the best-shot films in the competition. Ronald Plante’s images are compelling even when they are sometimes a tad too akin to other films that the director might admire. A Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution for the cinematography would have made more sense than the actual recipient of that award. More often than not, the imagery is congenial with the themes, and the shifts in the lensing are congruent with the shift in the human connections.

    Yunan cast
    The director and cast of Yunan.

    The film’s main strength is still the gradual relationship between Munir and Valeska, which doesn’t play out in a cliché-ridden way but is grounded in subtle moments that gradually bring two humans closer to each other to the benefit of both. Ameer Fakher Eldin’s second film is clearly an arthouse film without the added sm, and it is all the better for it. Yunan demands patience from the viewer but boasts plenty of rewards behind the customary metaphors. It turned out to be more worthwhile than most of the competition films that won awards. It remains to be seen what the third part of the trilogy will bring.  

    Yunan by Ameer Fakher Eldin  – The Disapproving Swede dreamy
    Yunan director featured e1741892700569 - The Disapproving Swede

    Director:
    Ameer Fakher Eldin

    Date Created:
    2025-04-13 16:52



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  • Sinners review – links the past and present with music and blood

    Sinners review – links the past and present with music and blood




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  • The Most Successful Marvel Movies Revealed — Every Movie Has a Lesson

    The Most Successful Marvel Movies Revealed — Every Movie Has a Lesson



    Following the release of Captain America: Brave New World, VegasInsider’s supercomputer has conducted an analysis to find out what have been the most and least successful movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, assigning points to all 35 of them based on various factors in different categories: worldwide gross, IMDb ratings, Letterboxd ratings, Metacritic score, Rotten Tomatoes score and an estimated return on investment. 

    According to the results of the analysis, two movies are tied as the #1 most successful from the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Avengers: Endgame & Spider-Man: No Way Home. 

    The supercomputer assigned 1 to 3 points based on a movie’s performance in various categories, with higher points indicating better performance: 

    • Metacritic Score: 70 to 79 – 1 point, 80 to 89 – 2 points, 90 to 100 – 3 points

    • Rotten Tomatoes Score: 70 to 79 – 1 point, 80 to 89 – 2 points, 90 to 100 – 3 points

    • IMDb Rating: 7-7.49 – 1 point, 7.5 – 7.99 – 2, points, 8+ = 3 points

    • WW Gross: 700 to 999.999 million – 1point, 1 – 1.5 billion = 2 points, 1.5 billion+ – 3 points

    • ROI: 300%+ – 1 point, 400%+ – 2 points , 500%+ – 3 points

    • Letterboxd Rating: 2.5-2.999 – 1 point, 3.0-3.499 – 2 points, 3.5+ – 3 points 

    Avengers: Endgame has a 78 Metacritic score, 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.4/10 rating on IMDb & 3.9/5 on Letterboxd. It grossed 2.799 billion dollars with an estimated ROI of 686% since it had a reported budget of 356 million dollars. In total, the supercomputer assigned Avengers: Endgame 16 points. 

    Spider-Man: No Way Home has a 71 Metacritic score, 93% score on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.2/10 rating on IMDb & 3.83/5 on Letterboxd. It grossed 1.952 billion dollars with an estimated ROI of 876% since it had a reported budget of 200 million dollars. In total, the supercomputer also assigned Spider-Man: No Way Home 16 points. 

    The rest of the top 10 most successful Marvel movies according to the supercomputer are (respectively): The Avengers, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America: Civil War, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Thor: Ragnarok & Spider Man: Far From Home. 

    When looking at the other end of the spectrum, 3 movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe received 0 points from the supercomputer, thus turning out to be the least successful: The Incredible Hulk, Thor: The Dark World & Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. 

    You can see the best-performing movies in the various categories that were part of the analysis highlighted below. 

    Feel free to use our data and please credit VegasInsider.com if you decide to do so. Thank you!

    WORLDWIDE GROSS 

    When it comes to the worldwide box office gross, the top 3 highest-grossing movies are:

    1. Avengers: Endgame (2019) – $2.799 billion WW gross

    2. Avengers: Infinity War (2018) – $2.052 billion WW gross

    3. Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) – $1.952 billion WW gross

    On the other hand, the 3 lowest-grossing movies are:

    1. The Marvels (2023) – $206 million WW gross

    2. The Incredible Hulk (2008) – $264 million WW gross

    3. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) – $370 million WW gross

    In terms of worldwide box office gross, the highest-grossing movie is Avengers: Endgame (2019) with a WW gross of $2.799 billion , while the lowest-grossing movie is The Marvels (2023) with a WW gross of $206 million. 

    RETURN ON INVESTMENT

    The top 3 movies with the highest estimated return on investment are:

    1. Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) – 876.37%

    2. Avengers: Endgame (2019) – 686.36%

    3. Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) – 607.94%

    The 3 movies with the lowest estimated return on investment are:

    1. The Marvels (2023) – minus 6.3%

    2. The Incredible Hulk (2008) – 76.51%

    3. Black Widow (2021) – 89.88%

    At the top of the return on investment rankings is Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), which had a budget of $200 million and went on to make an impressive $1.95 billion globally, resulting in an estimated ROI of 876.37%. Following closely behind at #2 is Avengers: Endgame (2019), which started with a massive $356 million budget and achieved a worldwide gross of $2.8 billion, leading to a 686.36% return. On the other end of the spectrum, The Marvels (2023) sits at the bottom with a negative estimated return on investment of -6.3%, as its $220 million budget resulted in a $206 million global box office gross. 

    USER RATING

    When looking at the highest-rated movies by users, on IMDb, the top 3 are:

    1. Avengers: Endgame (2019) – 8.4 IMDb rating

    2. Avengers: Infinity War (2018) – 8.4 IMDb rating

    3. Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) – 8.2 IMDb rating

    The 3 lowest-rated movies on IMDb are:

    1. The Marvels (2023) – 5.5 IMDb rating

    2. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) – 6.0 IMDb rating

    3. Captain America: Brave New World (2025) – 6.1 IMDb rating

    Meanwhile, on Letterboxd, the top 3 highest-rated movies are:

    1. Avengers: Infinity War (2018) – 3.98 Letterboxd rating

    2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) – 3.96 Letterboxd rating

    3. Avengers: Endgame (2019) – 3.9 Letterboxd rating

    The 3 lowest-rated movies on Letterboxd are:

    1. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) – 2.22 Letterboxd rating

    2. Thor: The Dark World (2013) – 2.24 Letterboxd rating

    3. Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) – 2.42 Letterboxd rating

    For user ratings, Avengers: Endgame (2019) and Avengers: Infinity War (2018) are the highest-rated on IMDb with a rating of 8.4, while The Marvels (2023) is the lowest-rated with an IMDb user rating of 5.5. On Letterboxd, the highest-rated movie is Avengers: Infinity War (2018) with a 3.98 score, whereas the lowest-rated is Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) with a 2.22 Letterboxd score.

    CRITIC REVIEWS

    When looking at the highest-rated movies by critics, on Rotten Tomatoes, the top 3 movies with the highest scores are:

    1. Black Panther (2018) – 96%

    2. Avengers: Endgame (2019) – 94%

    3. Iron Man (2008) – 94%

    The 3 lowest-rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes are:

    1. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) – 46%

    2. Eternals (2021) – 47%

    3. Captain America: Brave New World (2025) – 49%

    Meanwhile, on Metacritic, the top 3 highest-rated movies are:

    1. Black Panther (2018) – 88 Metacritic score

    2. Iron Man (2008) – 79 Metacritic score

    3. Avengers: Endgame (2019) – 78 Metacritic score

    The 3 lowest-rated movies on Metacritic are:

    1. Captain America: Brave New World (2025) – 42 Metacritic score 

    2. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) – 48 Metacritic score

    3. The Marvels (2023) – 50 Metacritic score

    Lastly, regarding critic reviews, Black Panther (2018) holds the highest Rotten Tomatoes score at 96%, while Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) has the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score at 46%. On Metacritic, Black Panther (2018) also leads with a score of 88, whereas Captain America: Brave New World (2025) ranks the lowest with a score of 42.

    METHODOLOGY

    • In total, 35 Marvel Cinematic Universe movies were part of the analysis, starting with Phase One’s Iron Man (2008)

    • The points were assigned in the following categories: Rotten Tomatoes score, IMDb rating, Letterboxd rating, Metacritic score, reported worldwide gross and an estimated ROI 

    • Sources of data: IMDb.com, Rottentomatoes.com, Metacritic.com, Letterboxd.com



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  • What Marielle knows by Frédéric Hambalek Mid at Best

    What Marielle knows by Frédéric Hambalek Mid at Best


    What Marielle Knows (Was Marielle weiß) is the sophomore feature by Frédéric Hambalek (interviewed here) and one of only two German films in the Berlinale competition. The other was Yunan. At the heart of What Marielle Knows is a seemingly ordinary suburban family thrown into chaos by an extraordinary twist. Julia (played by Julia Jentsch) and Tobias (Felix Kramer), a moderately content couple navigating the routines of professional life, discover that their 12-year-old daughter, Marielle (Laeni Geiseler), has inexplicably developed telepathic abilities following a playground altercation. Suddenly, Marielle can see and hear everything her parents do—whether at work, in the car, or behind closed bedroom doors. How will Marielle’s sudden abilities affect the family dynamics?

    Hambalek has explained that the initial inspiration for this film came a few years back when someone
    showed him a baby monitor with a built-in camera, which was a brand new thing back then. He felt something was wrong with it and asked himself what would happen if you reversed that power dynamic. What would parents do if they were somehow monitored by their kids? Another factor is how children regard their parents. Normally, they see their parents as demigods until they start growing up and gradually see their weaknesses. In this case, Marielle will get an instant crash course on all of this, breaking some of her illusions. The telepathy factor was merely a way to avoid technological distractions.

    What Marielle Knows
    Felix Kramer and Julia Jentsch in What Marielle Knows.

    What Marielle Knows about Nordic gender roles

    What Marielle Knows has been labelled a comedy, and there was plenty of laughter during the press screening. Something that surprised me and the sentiment was echoed by the director, who was surprised that the premiere audience laughed as much as they did. Substantial portions of the film follow the parents in their respective workplaces. Julia is flirting with her co-worker, Max, during illicit cigarette breaks, and their conversation is sexually charged. Meanwhile, Tobias, who works at a publishing house, sees his power (manhood?) challenged by his co-worker Sören, who does everything he can to provoke Tobias. Since the film is from 2025, the gender parts are quite obvious, not least from a Nordic perspective.

    While discussing the film after the press screening, several German colleagues stressed the German aspects of the film, not least concerning the topic of privacy. Germany is famously worried about being under surveillance and watched over. If I had a Euro for every time a person from Berlin lectured me about the perils of credit cards, I would be a very rich man. When I asked the director about this, he rejected the notion that the topics were particularly German and opined that the issue of privacy is more universal than that. The Funkloch issue aside, I agree since I felt that several characteristics of the film felt quite Nordic.

    Interview with Frédéric Hambalek
    What Marielle Knows

    The film’s locations are largely minimalistic, especially the workplaces, but also the family’s home. There are lots of open spaces, and when the space is closed, it is by a window rather than a wall. The director said that he wanted to get away from the clichés of observing through glass panes and rather stressed the intimate space created by close-ups. That is a welcome idea and shows that Hambalek is aware of the potential pitfalls of his concept. Still, my mind often wandered to recent Nordic films such as The Hypnosis and the films of Ruben Östlund.

    This might sound like a sad triangle, but Hambalek mentioned Turist (Force majeure) as a film he watched during the production, still stressing the formal differences between the films. I agree wholeheartedly with the director about those differences, but I still couldn’t shake a pronounced feeling of deja vu while watching What Marielle Knows. We don’t get to know much about the titular character since she is primarily a catalyst for the action. In several ways, the film is a treatise on the topic of the Observer effect. That will be particularly evident during the film’s latter part, in which some of the parents’ actions feel performative. It should be said that the acting in the film is uniformly excellent.

    Regarding the point of a child being able to see her parents’ true nature, I was reminded of the classic The Simpsons episode Wild Barts Can’t Be Broken, where the children of Springfield, inspired by a film that is a thinly veiled version of Village of the Damned (1960) realise that they don’t need special powers, but what they already know about their parents is enough to make them uncomfortable. Another connection between the two works is a late reveal that won’t be discussed here. Suffice it to say that What Marielle Knows didn’t bring me any new insights and that it is unfortunate that the titular character is the least explored since she is the most interesting character.



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  • Interview with Frédéric Hambalek – intriguing

    Interview with Frédéric Hambalek – intriguing


    Frédéric Hambalek’s sophomore feature, What Marielle Knows (Was Marielle weiß), reviewed here, was screened in this year’s Berlinale competition as one of two German films. I was able to interview the director a few days after the premiere.

    I’ve read that you don’t think about genres. When did you realize that this story was a comedy?

    Frédéric Hambalek: I’m still surprised how much people think this is a comedy. I was extremely surprised at the premiere that people were laughing out loud. I knew that the idea had some funny aspects, and I also think that it had some awkward and dark, cringy, dramatic aspects to it. So yes, I probably think it leans a bit more comical, but I never thought this would be read as much as a comedy as they’re doing it right here in Berlinale.

    I’m interested in casting because I think the characters have such good chemistry on screen, which is very important, and they perhaps bring the comedy and the openness of it. Can you talk about that?

    FH: Casting is a bit miraculous; it has so much to do with who is available and who wants to do this. We arrived with Julia Jentsch, who plays the mother first, and I thought she would be very good in this role because she [typically] portrays very likeable characters, and this character is maybe not all that likeable. Then, I could look at people who would fit her, and Felix Kramer was interesting because he would typically play very physical characters. I don’t know if you’ve seen his film [Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything], but two years ago at Berlinale, he played this very sexual, male, hands-on guy.

    Marielle featured
    Laeni Geisele as the titular character in What Marielle Knows by Frédéric Hambalek.

    The DIsapproving Swede: After the screening, I talked to German critics who said this story is very German. I know that Germans are very wary of giving their data away and are worried about their privacy. Lots of things are analogue. Do you think that this is a typical German topic?

    FH. I don’t think so at all. I think it translates well to every Western society where we face issues of how open we want to be with our lives. Isn’t it in Norway where you have to show all your taxes, and everybody can see?

    TDS: It’s like that in Sweden as well. You can see anything. People check on each other before dates. I saw an ad from a company selling extra information with the headline, “Check your date before Valentine’s Day”.

    FH: That is incredibly interesting to me. I could not imagine that happening in Germany at all. It sounds a bit funny, though. I could imagine people sweating when they introduced themselves and thinking. Oh, now everybody knows I’m not that person in my presentation.

    The interview with Frédéric Hambalek goes Nordic

    TDS: So if the film felt very German to those German friends I talked to, it felt pretty Nordic to me—for instance, the environment with those minimalistic interiors. I’m wondering if you can talk about the contrast between the home and the office. As far as I’ve read, the publishing office was the only set in the film.

    FH: it was an actual office space, but we transformed it a lot. We were going for very modern places because they are open. You can see everything, they have glass walls and so on. Still, I didn’t want to push too hard on this metaphor. For example, we don’t observe through the glass in the office building, as you would do in a surveillance video. I would always say, “Let’s come up with the camera close and frame them with the camera. Use long lenses, go into a very intimate space and single them out under a very intimidatingly close lens to give the feeling of somebody observing them all the time”.

    TDS: Which camera did you use?

    We used the Alexa 35. And the more we shot, the more we used longer and longer lenses. In the end, it was like 70 or 100-millimeter lenses.

    What Marielle Knows
    Julia Jentsch and Felix Kramer in What Marielle Knows by Frédéric Hambalek.

    TDS: Thinking about the music, why the Razumovsky Quartets? Obviously, they are great pieces of music, but was there a specific reason for that choice?

    FH: I went about it very intuitively. I knew that the music should be there to give you some sense of something that is not completely real, a bit out of this world. I quickly found the first Beethoven piece, which was used in the scene with the slap in slow-mo. It was intuitive that I thought this was the right tone. It has something ironic to me, but also serious.

    TDS: So, the question that every director dreads: Do you have any influences from other directors? Maybe something that takes place in this kind of modern environment.

    The film that made me want to be a director was 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I saw on TV when I was 13. didn’t get it, of course, and I turned it off after an hour because I was so bored. But I could not stop thinking about it. All these Kubrick films really taught me early on that the art form is very free.

    TDS: Nothing specific for this film?

    When pressed on that question, I always thought about Force Majeure by Ruben Östlund just because of how they are acting. You will write this now, but I say it anyway. And I thought, “Look at this film”. I still thought that my film would get away from it in a way. I looked at that film as a way of checking out someone who does something you might think is in the right vein. At the same time, I knew that my film would be formally different.



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  • Almost 30% of Americans are Tabletop Gamers — Every Movie Has a Lesson

    Almost 30% of Americans are Tabletop Gamers — Every Movie Has a Lesson



    Tabletop gaming is a hobby with a passionate fandom that has seen growing mainstream popularity in recent years, and it is quite popular in America.

    A new nationally representative survey from Compare the Market AU talked to more than 1,000 American adults, and 29.3% said they play or collect tabletop roleplaying games (RPGs) or wargames – or have done so in the past.

    This is slightly behind Canada where it was 31.9%, but much higher than in Australia where only 15.7% of respondents identified as a tabletop gamer.

    The hobby is more popular with the young than the old, with 60.0% of Gen Z (18–24-year-olds) being tabletop gamers. This dropped to 47.2% for millennials (25-44 years), then 22.9% of Gen X (45-64-year-olds).

    Men were twice as likely to be (or used to be) a tabletop gamer, with 40.1% of men having been a part of the hobby in some way, compared to 18.9% of women.

    According to the survey, the top 10 tabletop games for Americans were (including tied placements):

    • Dungeons & Dragons

    • Kings of War/ Star Wars X-Wing

    • Fallout: Wasteland Warfare

    • BattleTech

    • Star Wars Edge of the Empire/ Star Wars Shatterpoint

    • Cyberpunk

    • Legions Imperialis/ Marvel Crisis Protocol

    • Black Powder

    • Star Wars Legion

    • Call of Cthulhu/ Infinity/ Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game/ Saga

    The hit game Warhammer 40,000 just missed out on the top 10, being the 11th most popular game with survey respondents.

    Tabletop gaming can be an expensive hobby, and most American gamers have spent hundreds of dollars on the hobby. Over a quarter had spent $100-$199, followed by 23.2% who spent $200-$499, while 9.8% had spent $500-$999, and 8.8% of American tabletop gamers had spent more than $1,000.



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  • Interview with Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani

    Interview with Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani


    Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani presented their fourth film. Reflection in a Dead Diamond in this year’s Berlinale competition. Since it was the most exhilarating film at the festival, I was thrilled to be able to sit down with the couple to discuss this multifaceted work (pun intended).

    The Disapproving Swede: So, the project more or less started with Fabio Testi. Could you talk a bit about that?

    Bruno Forzani: It’s a long story because my mother was a big fan of Fabio Testi, and my sister would have had the name Fabio if she had been a boy. I discovered him through Italian B-movies, and I loved him. He was also in Zulawski’s L’Important, c’est d’aimer; in 2010, we watched Road to Nowhere by Monte Hellman, and Testi’s character reminded us of Sean Connery.

    Hélène Cattet: He was dressed in a white suit. It reminded us about Death in Venice, too. So we thought, “What if we mix those two antagonist universes to create something like a new universe?”

    BF: We also saw a staging of Tosca, the opera, by Christophe Honoré. He treated it like Sunset Boulevard, and that kind of treatment was an inspiration for our film. We wrote the script with Fabio Testi in mind. We managed to meet him and were fascinated by him because we saw his eyes just in front of us, which we had only seen in close-ups in movies. We began to talk about directing actors just through the eyes, and it was the first time we met an actor who was used to that.

    Then, we told him we would shoot on film, and he was surprised and agreed to do the movie. It was great because Fabio synthesized the mix we wanted to do between this Euro spy genre and Death in Venice. He was in Italian Westerns, but he was in other kinds of films as well, so it was a perfect match.

    Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani
    Bruno Forzani, Hélène Cattet and Fabio Testi.

    TDS: When he got the script, his first reaction was that he didn’t understand anything, right?

    BF: Yeah, exactly, but it was the same with Monte Hellman. He did not understand the script, but he trusted him, and when we met him, he trusted us, so voila!

    How do you synthesize all these ideas and different references to build a story, even if it is a story on your own terms? Your films are mostly vibes, so how do you make a story out of this? Is it organic?

    HC: It was really technical this time because we were building the story with different layers of narration. We put one colour for each line of narration, three altogether. Then, we could organize how those layers will interweave and respond to each other. You develop different thematics and different points of view because you can see the movie from different angles. Each spectator can find a way to experience the film so that two spectators can see a different movie. We aim to be playful and create a game for the audience.

    BF: When we write the script, we are writing it technically with detailed descriptions of every detail you will see and hear in the movie. It is not typical since we live in a French-speaking culture, and the cinema world is more literate than cinematic.

    HC: We really want to tell the story using cinematographic means, not through dialogue.

    TDS: You call it storytelling. Is the story the most crucial thing, rather than the cinematic expression, or don’t you see a contrast?

    HC: There’s no contrast between the form and the content. It’s one thing. The form tells the story, not the content.

    Reflection in a Dead Diamond
    Reflection in a Dead Diamond.

    Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani about Diamond structure

    TDS: When it comes to stylistics, I thought a bit about Raoul Ruiz. You mentioned playfulness, and he had a way of toying with clichés and adding narrative layers in a complex, sometimes crystal structure.

    BF: You are not the first to say that regarding the film’s construction.

    TDS: Gilles Deleuze described Alain Resnais and other directors as having a crystalline structure, but here, we even have a diamond structure where things go through reflections and refractions.

    HC: Exactly!

    BF: Since the beginning, the word diamond was in the title. It wasn’t the same title, but we constructed the film like a diamond because there are several facets.

    HC: Yes, that’s why you can see the movie like a diamond through different prisms.

    TDS: You talked about Op art earlier. You have different art styles in all your films. Can you talk a bit more about the use of op art in this film?

    BF: The film is about illusion because you don’t know if the past of the hero is an illusion or if it’s reality. The past is represented by this horror-spy aesthetic, where you think the world was funny and very pop-like, but the heroes were violent, in fact. It is a fake representation of the world. Since the film is about illusion, the structure is an illusion, too, because of the different layers. Op art was the perfect art to approach the story visually. In fact, when we began to work on the script, we went to Nice. There was a big Op art exhibition there, which inspired us.

    TDS: You mentioned Clozuot’s La Prisionnière. Were there other films using Op art that inspired you as well?

    BF: The funny thing is that the Italian B-movies we mentioned are exploitation movies but use a lot of art and Op art. There is also Mario Caiano’s L’Occhio nel labirinto. James Bond films are another example, like The Man with the Golden Gun, where you have a kind of labyrinth, which is very Op art. It’s a very funny art form since it’s mixed with something very popular.

    TDS: A last, tangential musical question: You use a piece from Catalani’s La Wally [Ebben? Ne andrò lontana], made famous by the film Diva. Isn’t it the exact same recording as in Diva?

    BF: Yes, exactly. In this version, there is an introduction that you don’t have in the original, and I love this introduction. I discovered opera with Diva, and I love that piece.

    YouTube video



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  • Caught by the Tides review – moving, stirring, brilliant

    Caught by the Tides review – moving, stirring, brilliant




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