برچسب: Swede

Magellan by Lav Diaz – The Disapproving Swede impressive
Magellan (Magalhães) is the latest film by Lav Diaz. The most surprising or even shocking aspect of the film is its running length of 165 minutes. Considering Diaz’s typical standards, that sounds like a teaser trailer. However, the director has hinted that the version screened at the Cannes Film Festival in the Première section was merely a part of a nine-hour project. The longer version supposedly focuses on Magellan’s wife, Beatriz Barbosa de Magallanes. The project was introduced in 2019 as Beatriz, The Wife. It is one of many films in the Academy Ratio at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. No doubt, someone will write about why that happened this year, but it falls outside the scope of this text.

Another deviation from Diaz’s other films is that the titular character is played by Gael Garcia Bernal. It is not customary for the director to use big stars like him. Also, the film is in colour. That is not unheard of in the director’s previous work, but this film is handsomely mounted in a way that Norte, the End of History (2013) was not. It is also Diaz’s first work in Spanish and Portuguese. In many ways, this is the most conventional presentation of history so far.

Magellan by Lav Diaz.

The relatively conventional story of Magellan

Set in the 16th century, Magellan traces the journey of the determined Portuguese explorer who, after the King of Portugal rejects his ambitions for exploration, convinces the Spanish Crown to back his quest for the eastern lands. The story follows pivotal moments in Magellan’s life, from his early exploits in Malacca (1504) to his marriage in Seville (1517) and his doomed expedition to the Philippines, ending with his death at the Battle of Mactan in 1521. The film portrays the gruelling voyage, fraught with starvation, uprisings, and tempests, as Magellan’s evolution from a hopeful adventurer to a figure driven by conquest and religious zeal ignites fierce resistance among indigenous communities.

Ângela Azevedo.

Manoel de Oliveira came to mind while watching the film. Not solely because of the Portuguese dialogue, but also due to thematic resemblances, particularly in some of the Portuguese master’s later films.Titles like ‘Non’, ou A Vã Glória de Mandar (1990) and O Quinto Império – Ontem Como Hoje (2004), which both deal with the country’s colonial past, come to mind. Readers looking for a simplistic post-colonial rant straight out of certain universities’ social science departments would have to look elsewhere. Even though Magellan is deeply rooted in the historical context of the early 16th-century Age of Exploration, Diaz doesn’t employ an overly didactic approach, and the film is all the better for it.

The whole affair, obviously, employs a Filipino perspective, but Diaz still dares to question the Lapu-Lapu part of history, implying that the notion of him as a chieftain who defeated Magellan was a myth created by Rajah Humabon to deter Christian conversion efforts. Challenging Lapu-Lapu as a symbol of resistance, with statues, holidays, and even a city named in his honour, shows that the director is not uncritical of the part of history told from a Filipino perspective either. Díaz shares cinematography credits with Artur Tort, mainly known for his lensing work on Albert Serra’s films. As mentioned before, there is a different sense of beauty in Magellan compared to the director’s earlier work.

That does not mean that it is a film devoid of longeurs or plain boredom. That comes with the territory while watching a Lav Diaz film. In any case, Magellan is an excellent entry point for anyone interested in the director.
Magellan

Director:
Lav Diaz

Date Created:
2025-08-03 03:50

Pros

Handsomely mounted

Interesting perspective of history
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03/08/2025
Peacock by Bernhard Wenger – The Disapproving Swede
Peacock (Pfau – Bin ich echt?) is the debut feature by Bernhard Wenger. It was well received at last year’s Venice Film Festival, where it was screened in the Critics Week section. Matthias (Albrecht Schuch) works as a professional “friend-for-hire” for a company called My Companion. He is tasked with enacting roles that fill a void in the clients’ lives, such as a child needing a pilot father for school career day, a charismatic date to dazzle friends, or a single man requiring a partner to secure a couple-only apartment lease. He is the CEO of the company, which seems to consume his life. No wonder that his partner, Sophia (Julia Franz Richter), gets fed up and decides to leave him.

Sophia explains that she thinks Mathias doesn’t seem real anymore. It is easy to see her point. Her partner immerses himself in research for the various roles he plays, leaving him with little time for his partner. We will follow his meeting with clients, and in one case, a client’s husband, whose life is affected by Mathias’s efforts. His apartment looks like it usually does in this kind of film: ultramodern without any sign of a personal touch. Unfortunately, the same can be said about Peacock. When I watched the film at Nowe Horyzonty, I sat next to a woman who was not a critic but was mainly looking for a good time.

Albrecht Schuch and Julia Franz Richter in Peacock.

After the film, she told me that she had hoped the film would be more edgy. It is easy to agree with that sentiment. The premise evokes Lanthimos, particularly his most recent Greek feature, Alps (Alpeis, 2011). The director is no favourite of mine, and there is far too much of his style in Peacock. Even worse, it is mixed with the antics of Ruben Östlund. The business concept exists in Japan, where these kinds of agencies are successful. Still, the film is hampered by its predictability and its overt attempts at satire of the modern world. Everything from the aforementioned apartment to the depiction of a “modern world” reeks of clichés that we’ve seen far too many times.

One doesn’t have to think about the usual suspects, even though the film slips into Östlund territory the longer it goes, only to end in a tepid setpiece that looks like an outtake from The Square (2017). It is also logical to be reminded of recent films like The Hypnosis (2023) and What Marielle Knows from this year. It is disheartening to witness so many films that look more or less the same, and where the writing never reaches below the polished surface. The positive reviews for Peacock are puzzling, not least since all of them mention Lanthimos and Östlund. One argument is that the film is funny. I found the humour attempts too obvious to have any effect.

Peacock begins with a purportedly enigmatic scene of a golf cart on fire on a green. Suddenly, a man and a woman come running and manage to put out the fire with extinguishers. One of them is Mathias, and the scene’s context becomes clear long before it becomes something to ponder. It will quickly be apparent that the sequence is emblematic of the whole film. A meeting with a Norwegian woman (Theresa Frostad Eggesbø) doesn’t make Peacock any more compelling, alas.

The standout performance in the film is Albrecht Schuch’s portrayal of Mathias. He played the social worker in Systemsprenger, and he is a highly gifted performer. Regrettably, the script, penned by the director himself, doesn’t give him much to work with. Peacock’s success at Venice is not easy to understand, and there is very little to recommend about the film.

Peacock
Peacock

Director:
Bernhard Wenger

Date Created:
2025-08-02 22:49

Pros

Albrecht Schuch’s performance

Cons

Far too predictable

Visually not outstanding
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03/08/2025
The Disappearance of Josef Mengele review Disapproving Swede Great
The Disappearance of Josef Mengele (Das Verschwinden des Josef Mengele) is the latest film directed by Kirill Serebrennikov. The director has become a staple at the Cannes Film Festival, with his last five films being presented there, including the previous four that competed for the Palme d’Or, among them Tchaikovsky’s Wife and Limonov: The Ballad. Surprisingly enough, the new work only made it to Cannes Première. Given its compelling narrative, visual flair, and other qualities, the story about the “Angel of Death” would have placed it in the higher echelon among the competition films. The film is an adaptation of a non-fiction novel by Olivier Guez, published in 2017, which won the Prix Renaudot.

The opening scene, set in 2023, depicts medical students analysing Josef Mengele’s skeleton. From there, the film follows Josef Mengele (August Diehl) as he evades justice after World War II, starting with his 1949 escape from Europe through the “ratlines”—networks of Nazi supporters and Catholic clergy aiding war criminals. Spanning three decades, the narrative highlights pivotal stages of his fugitive life in Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, culminating in his 1979 drowning. The film employs a jigsaw narrative structure, effectively juggling timelines and locations. One thread follows Mengele’s son, Rolf (Max Bretschneider), as he travels to São Paulo in 1977.

The Disappearance of Josef Mengele

August Diehl in The Disappearance of Josef Mengele.

A Hidden Life of a different kind

The framing to present times might make the film sound like The Secret Agent. However, very little unites the two films, apart from their respective cinematic mastery. Serebrennikov has reunited with Vladislav Opelyants, and the stark, monochrome images, combined with his signature long takes, create a spellbinding effect. A much-discussed colour sequence is bound to be divisive, but it provides context in a manner that is less obvious than it might appear to be. August Diehl played a decisively different character in Terrence Malick’s masterful A Hidden Life (2019), and he is a towering presence in this role, bringing the proper qualities to the part. The Disappearance of Josef Mengele offers an impressively objective view of its main character.

However, that kind of perception doesn’t impress everyone. A bizarre, emotional review (I use the term loosely) in The Hollywood Reporter by someone called Jordan Mintzer, already in the first paragraph, spouts the question, “Why am I watching this?” Even more incomprehensibly, he claims that the film embellishes Mengele’s ignoble reputation. This is yet another sad yet illuminating example of what passes for film criticism nowadays. In my Sound of Falling review, I mentioned the podcast from an outlet that used to be one of the best in the world, but now has been toppled by DEI hiring. The THR review also rehashes the tired thought that “fascism is on the rise” today.

The titular character is caught from behind in The Disappearance of Josef Mengele.

The host of the aforementioned podcast initially sat down at my table. While trying to discuss the film, I posited that the cinematic aspects alone would make Sound of Falling worthwhile. The notion was harshly dismissed with the comment, “How would cinematic expression be enough?” Meanwhile, she refuted the notion that she was looking for a straight-out statement, even though that was literally what she said.

A comparison between The Disappearance of Josef Mengele and The Zone of Interest clearly results in the former’s favour. Not only because Ilya Demutsky’s score is vastly superior to Mica Levi’s soundscape, but more crucially, for the intellectual rigour missing in Glazer’s film, which clearly bit off more than it could chew.

Whether Mengele is hiding at a farm protected by a Hungarian couple or outsmarting people trying to catch him to bring him to justice, he is always a mesmerising personality, and even his most egregious statements manage to make a certain sense. The producer, Felix von Boehm, noted in a press release that the film aims to “precisely depict ideological narrowness”. That is, unfortunately, all too topical today and clearly visible in current conflicts, where people struggle to distinguish between democracy and dictatorship. With that in mind, the meaning of the word disappearance might not merely be about how seemingly effortless it was for Mengele to hide, but more wide-ranging current disappearances as well.
The Disappearance of Josef Mengele

Director:
Kirill Serebrennikov

Date Created:
2025-07-13 18:08

Pros

Stunning cinematography

Great performances

An objective view of the topic.
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14/07/2025
The Cannes Awards 2025 – The Disapproving Swede

Yesterday, this year’s Cannes Film Festival ended, and the jury, headed by Juliette Binoche, was ready to hand out the Cannes Awards 2025. The Palme d’Or was given to It Was Just an Accident by Jafar Panahi. It was an unexpected choice, and the title could refer to something that happened in the jury, causing it to win the Palme. I watched the film during the Awards ceremony yesterday, and when someone shouted, “Palme D’Or” after the screening, I thought he was referring to his emotions rather than the actual outcome. It is not a bad film, but a rather pedestrian one with a predictable ending. Panahi won the Citizenship Award earlier during the day, which made more sense.

Jafar Panahi at the Citizenship Award ceremony.

The Cannes Awards 2025 biggest mistake

If the Palme d’Or fell into the wrong hands, that was nothing compared to the mind-boggling decision to give Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value the Grand Prix. I described why in my review of the film and will not repeat myself here. It is the weirdest decision this side of Anatomy of a Fall. The festival’s three best films were not forgotten but landed minor awards. Sirát by Oliver Laxe and Sound of Falling by Mascha Schilinski shared the Jury Prize or rather got one each. Both would have been more worthy winners of the two top awards.

Mascha Schilinski at the Winners’ Press Conference at Cannes 2025.

The same goes for The Secret Agent by Kleber Mendonça Filho. However, that it missed out on the two top awards is acceptable since it won both the Best Director award as well as Best Actor for Wagner Moura. If anything, that film is characterised by its superb direction and Moura’s performance. The latter was not present at the award ceremony since he was shooting a film in London. However, the director called him during the following press conference.

The Best actress award went to Nadia Melliti in La petite dernière by Hafsia Herzi. I chose not to watch it. The prize for Best Screenplay went to the Dardenne Brothers, and it was the ninth award for their films, including acting awards. They were part of the 1999 edition when they and Bruno Dumont won almost everything, prompting one of Cannes’ most significant rule changes ever. Finally, a Special Award was given to Bi Gan’s Resurrection—a film that sadly failed to live up to its promise or premise.

Un Certain Regard

The main prize in the Un Certain Regard section was given to The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo by Diego Céspedes. I didn’t manage to watch it. The unfounded rumours floating around on the Croisette that I avoided the film because the title sounded dangerously Angelopoulosian is utterly false. The Jury Prize went to Un Poeta by Simón Mesa Soto. Harry Lighton won the Best Screenplay for Pillion, while the Best Director award went to twin brothers Arab and Tarzan Nasser for Once Upon a Time in Gaza. A film that boasted foley work by Estonian foley artist Anna-Maria Jams (interviewed here).

The Camera d’or for Best First Feature went to Hassan Hadi for The President’s Cake, screened in the Quinzaine des Cinéastes section. A Special Mention was given to Akinola Davies Jr for My Father’s Shadow.

Regarding the competition, it was clearly more substantial than the last two years, with three really good films. On the other hand, there were many bad or mediocre films. The worst one I saw was, without a doubt, Eddington. The film was Ari Aster’s Cannes debut but was universally maligned. The biggest disappointment of the fest was Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love. Jennifer Lawrence is a powerhouse, but apart from that, the film was weak and didn’t even look good. Being a major fan of the director, I hope the film was rushed to Cannes and is not entirely finished. Some reviews hinted at that.

Stay tuned for reviews of the winners and other films as well.

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25/05/2025
Sentimental Value Joachim Trier – The Disapproving Swede

Sentimental Value (Affeksjonsverdi) is the latest film directed by Joachim Trier. It is his first feature since The Worst ~~Film~~ Person in the World, which was screened at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, and he walked away with a Best Actress Award for Renate Reinsve. The follow-up is a family drama set in Oslo. The story centres on sisters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), grieving their mother’s death. Their estranged father, Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård), a once-celebrated filmmaker absent for much of their lives, reenters their world with a script for a comeback film to be shot in their family home—a place steeped in generations of memories, including the suicide of Gustav’s mother.

Gustav offers Nora, a successful stage actress, the leading role in his semi-autobiographical project. Still, she rejects it due to their strained relationship and her own emotional struggles, including stage fright and complicated personal life. Instead, Gustav casts Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), a Hollywood star eager to work with a legendary director, to play the role intended for Nora, further complicating family dynamics. Gustav decides to shoot the film in the old family home, where he coaches Rachel about his family’s life, including his wife’s suicide. As the sisters wrestle with grief, old wounds, and their father’s inconvenient resurrection, the film deals with reconciliation attempts, with the family home standing in as a creaky stage for their unresolved drama.

Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in Sentimental Value

On faut Trier tout

As loyal readers might remember, I was not entranced by The Worst Person in the World. It even made it to the third spot on my Disapproval list that year, which was topped by Bergman Island. While watching Trier’s new work, my thoughts often drifted to Mia Hansen-Løve’s shipwreck of a film, not only because of the numerous references to Ingmar but also because of the cliché-ridden theme of the absent father who only cares about his art. Something that is unartfully discussed ad nauseam in Bergman Island. The dialogue between Gustav Borg (at least he is not called Isak as in Wild Strawberries) and his former cinematographer echoes the sentiment that artists can’t be bothered by family life.

Once again, Eskil Vogt co-wrote the script, and once again, it dabbles in nonsensical phrases. The topic is supposedly heavier this time around. While the previous film suddenly threw in cancer to desperately try to add some weight to a fluffy comedy, this time, WWll takes on the same dubious duty here. All in an attempt to make the sad family story rise above the personal. Sentimental Value is quite manipulative, almost Hollywoodian, so Elle Fanning’s presence is not as jarring as it might appear at first sight. She instead acts as an unintended reminder of how superficial the film is behind the glossy surface. The success at the press screening among the American crowd was palpable.

Joachim Trier with his Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.

The original title refers to the word affection rather than sentimentality. Of course, the Norwegian (or Swedish) translation of Sentimental Value uses the word affection. It is still worth considering that “affection” in English refers to a more genuine emotion than “sentimentality”, which often refers to an exaggerated or overblown response. The irony is that the English title better describes the film than the original. That goes for the characters as well. Regarding the Bergman references, Trier attempts to add meta-layers not only to the story, but also cinematically. A Persona reference is particularly egregious. A wise man opined that the film feels like it was made by a young film student who just stumbled on Bergman, and I approve.

Sentimental Value wears its sentiments on its proverbial sleeves. It is heavy-going rather than profound and has nothing important to say about family relationships. The simplistic meta-layers where some scenes, lo and behold, turn out to be scenes from a film being shot is not bound to surprise anyone who has seen more than ten films in their life. That goes, in particular, for the final one. The best thing in the film is the acting. Stellan Skarsgård is magnificent, as always. During the awards press conference, Trier said that the role was written with Skarsgård in mind, and he managed to breathe life into a one-dimensional character. The same goes for Reinsve and Ibsdotter Lilleaas, as the two daughters.

After a while, you stop asking yourself who is Cries and who is Whispers. It was obvious that the film would win an award, but a Grand Prix is hard to accept in an edition that included Sirat, The Secret Agent, and Sound of Falling. The fact that the film is sentimental is unquestionable, while the value is highly doubtful. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that it will be a formidable commercial success.

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25/05/2025
Reedland by Sven Bresser – The Disapproving Swede

Reedland (Rietland) is Sven Bresser’s first feature film. It premiered during Semaine de la Critique (Critics’ Week) at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. This festival strand has presented several gems during the last four years, such as Feathers (2021) and Tiger Stripes (2023). The main character is Johan, who is a reed cutter by profession. One day, he discovers the lifeless body of a girl on his land. The finding seems to have a profound effect on him, going beyond the initial surprise. He sets out on some kind of quest to track down evil, but different types of darkness may exist where you least expect it. The director expanded on this theme during my interview with him.

Set in the northern part of the Netherlands, Reedland opens with a lengthy shot of wind rustling through a vast area of reeds. It’s profoundly atmospheric, verging on hypnotic. Shots of the reeds will return throughout the film and are a significant part of the work’s design. The finding of the dead body sets the necessary police investigation in motion, but this is far from a police procedural film. On the other hand, there are several procedural moments in the film. The reed cutters’ livelihood is in danger due to globalisation and even by competitors from the other side of the lake, called the Trooters. Thus, we will follow several meetings where those threats are discussed in bureaucratic jargon.

Gerrit Knobbe in Reedland.

What hides in the Reedland?

Johan’s existence appears mundane, with the same repetitive tasks being carried out each day. However, how the shots are framed renders them ritualistic. We see him working on the reed beds, eating, drinking, walking home, and feeding his horse. Occasionally, Regarding that aspect of the film about Béla Tarr’s last film, The Turin Horse, even though the films are quite different. Johan takes care of his granddaughter as well. His existence is mapped out. The police case seems to cause a rift in his existence, possibly compared to a piece of reed being cut. Another Hungarian film that came to my mind was Attila Janisch’s After the Day Before (Másnap 2004), where the murder case is a secondary priority.

Reedland is stunningly shot by Sam du Pon. Still, what we don’t see is arguably more important than what we do. A constant menacing threat looms over the film, but we rarely see any literal menace. That goes for everything, including the Trooters, whom we only hear about. Whatever happens to Johan (played by actual reed cutter Gerrit Knobbe in his first role), he doesn’t seem to react emotionally but keeps the same deadpan expression whatever he does. His fight against evil is as much internal as external, and Knobbe is perfect in the part throughout the whole film.

Reedland

Bresser manages to visualise his concept beautifully, playing with certain genre elements without ever falling for the temptation to use them for cheap effects. Reedland is a stunningly shot first feature that should be experienced on the big screen. It is yet another gem found in the Semaine de la Critique section. Ava Cahen and her team should be commended. As always, the screening introduction was expertly translated by Aurore Kahan.

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21/05/2025
Partir un jour – The Disapproving Swede pitiful

Partir un jour (Leave One Day) is the debut feature by Amélie Bonnin, following the eponymous short in 2021, which I’ve yet to see. It was the surprising opening film of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. The film’s synopsis reads that it is about Cécile, who is about to open her own gourmet restaurant, finally making her dream come true when suddenly her father has a heart attack, and she is called back to the village where she was born. Far from the hubbub of Paris life, she runs into her teenage crush. The memories come flooding back, destabilizing her certainties.

It should be added that several scenes derive their narration from French songs from the nineties. They are not dubbed from the original as in Alain Resnais’ masterpiece On Connait la chanson (1997), but sung by the actors in question. How does this work, and how accomplished is this debut that got the highly unusual honour of kicking off a Cannes edition? A wise man recently said that opening films at Cannes rank somewhere between mediocre and awful. Where does Partir un jour fit into that equation? Unfortunately, this is the weakest opening film I can remember. As I mentioned in the past, there is a general rule at The Disapproving Swede’s headquarters to go relatively easy on debutants.

Partir un jour

Partir un jour et ses chansons

There are exceptions, such as Hot Milk at this year’s Berlinale. In this case, I would rather lay the blame on the festival committee for the weird, verging on the absurd, decision to expose a young director in the Lumière theatre on opening night for an event that she is clearly not ready for. A colleague, who is the least disapproving person I know, approached me after the screening and said, “What was this?” I didn’t have a proper answer. The weaknesses in the film go all over the board, from the acting to the direction and the overall concept. The opening credits say, “un film imaginé et écrit par”.

That is an unfortunate choice of words in a film that lacks imagination and doesn’t excel in its writing. The previously mentioned music numbers make the ones in Emilia Pérez seem palatable in comparison. The staging is inept, and the songs are not particularly well-chosen either. Actually, every element of Partir un jour is uninspired, from the acting via writing to the lensing. That its inclusion in the festival wastes the spectators’ time is obvious, but the blame should not fall on the young director. Which first-time director would pass on such an opportunity? The 2025 Cannes Festival got the worst possible start imaginable.

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15/05/2025
Quinzaine des Cinéastes 2025 – The Disapproving Swede

Today, the selection of Quinzaine des Cinéastes 2025 was presented by artistic director Julien Rejl. The strand has been around since 1969 and was formerly known as Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. The section runs parallel to the main festival and has typically been the place to find the best and most original works by directors who would later become famous. This year, 18 new features were chosen from 1605 submissions, including seven first features. The opening film is Enzo, a collaboration between Robin Campillo and Laurent Cantet. Other films are as follows.

LA DANSE DES RENARDS (The Foxes Round) – Valéry Carnoy

LA MORT N’EXISTE PAS (Death Does Not Exist) – Félix Dufour-Laperriè

L’ENGLOUTIE (The Girl in the Snow) – Louise Hémon – premier long métrage / first feature film

KOKUHO – Lee Sang-il

LUCKY LU – Lloyd Lee Choi – premier long métrage / first feature film

MILITANTROPOS -Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova & Simon Mozgovyi

GIRL ON EDGE (Hua yang shao nv sha ren shi jian) – Jinghao Zhou – premier long métrage / first feature film

CLASSE MOYENNE (Middle Class) – Anthony Cordier

MIROIRS No. 3 (Mirrors No.3) – Christian Petzold

LES FILLES DÉSIR (The Girls We Want) – Prïncia Car – premier long métrage / first feature film

DANGEROUS ANIMALS – Sean Byrne

AMOUR APOCALYPSE (Peak Everything) – Anne Émond

THE PRESIDENT’S CAKE (Mamlaket al-Qasab) – Hasan Hadi – premier long métrage / first feature film

INDOMPTABLES – Thomas Ngijol

BRAND NEW LANDSCAPE (見はらし世代) – Yuiga Danzuka – premier long métrage / first feature film

QUE MA VOLONTÉ SOIT FAITE – Julia Kowalski

SORRY, BABY – Eva Victor – premier long métrage / first feature film – film de clôture / closing film

Julien Rejl

Quinzaine des Cinéastes 2025 Comments

There are some well-known names in the lineup. The opening film was a Laurent Cantet project, which Robin Campillo took over after his death. The most famous, but also the most surprising inclusion, is Christian Petzold. His films are typically screened at the Berlinale. Possibly, the film was not ready in time for that festival, but then, most outsiders would have guessed that it would get a competition or Un Certain Regard slot. Instead, it now found a home in Quinzaine. This is a significant demotion for the director unless the film is overly experimental, which would make it a better fit for this strand.

Anthony Cordier caused a splash in Quinzaine with Cold Showers in 2005 and now returns with Classe Moyenne. Canadian director Anne Émond, known for Nuit #1 (2011), presents Peak Everything, which is described as a rom-com. Julia Kowalski returns to the Quinzaine two years after her short I Saw the Face of the Devil competed there—both films star Polish actress Maria Wróbel. Militrantopos is a Ukrainian documentary.

Quinzaine des Cinéastes introduced an audience award last year, the Chantal Akerman prize. The first recipient was Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language. For some reason, Todd Haynes will receive the French Film Directors’ Guild’s lifetime achievement honour, the Carrosse d’Or award, at the section’s opening ceremony on May 14. Since 2013, the strand has housed a mentoring project called Directors’ Factory. This year, it will be devoted to young filmmakers from Ceará, in Northeastern Brazil.

Quinzaine des Cinéastes introduced an audience award last year, the Chantal Akerman prize. The first recipient was Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language. For some reason, Todd Haynes will receive the French Film Directors’ Guild’s lifetime achievement honour, the Carrosse d’Or award, at the section’s opening ceremony on May 14. Since 2013, the strand has housed a mentoring project called Directors’ Factory. This year, it will be devoted to young filmmakers from

The 2025 Directors’ Fortnight runs May 14-24. The selection committee is the same as the last two years. One can only hope they managed to select more intriguing films this time. The selection will be screened in numerous French cities after Cannes and in a few international locations as well. This year’s poster is designed by Harmony Korine.

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15/04/2025
The Berlinale Awards 2025 – The Disapproving Swede Strange

The 2025 Berlinale Awards were presented on February 22. It was the 75th edition of the festival and the first under the reign of Tricia Tuttle. The jury president, Todd Haynes and his jury members had a thankless task since the competition selection was particularly uninspired this year.

Berlinale Awards overview

The Golden Bear went to Drømmer (Dreams (Sex Love)), directed by Norwegian filmmaker Dag Johan Haugerud. The inclusion of the film in the competition was surprising since it had already opened in Norwegian cinemas in October. It is also the second film in the trilogy rather than the third. Sex was screened in the Panorama section of last year’s Berlinale, while Love (reviewed here) was presented on the last day of the Venice Film Festival. The probable cause of the shuffle is that the initial plan was to present Drømmer at some festival between the Berlinale and Venice.

The Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize went to O último azul (The Blue Trail) by Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro. I was a fan of his 2019 Panorama entry, Divino amor, but found this work disappointing after a highly promising start.

Gabriel Mascaro with his Silver Bear for O último azul (The Blue Trail).

Argentinian filmmaker Iván Fund won the Silver Bear Jury Prize for El mensaje (The Message). There are things to admire in this film, but it is still a bit too insignificant and ruined by the usage of one particular piece of music. Fund’s work will not always be on my mind.

For Best Director, the Silver Bear was awarded to Huo Meng for his sophomore film, Sheng xi zhi di (Living the Land). It’s a film I have yet to watch.

The Silver Bear Jury Prize for El mensaje (The Message) being touched by Iván Fund.

Acting accolades lit up the ceremony, with Rose Byrne earning the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, directed by Mary Bronstein. This was the other of the two films in the competition that was not a world premiere. Bronstein’s film premiered at Sundance shortly before the Berlinale. Andrew Scott took the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance in Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon.

The Silver Bear for Best Screenplay went to Radu Jude for Kontinental ’25. The Romanian auteur is no stranger to the Berlinale and inexplicably won the Golden Bear in 2021 for Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn. His new film will not surprise anyone who knows the director’s work but boasts a strong performance by Eszter Tompa.

Actress Eszter Tompa and director Rade Jude in the middle representing Kontinental ’25

Finally, the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution honoured the creative ensemble behind La Tour de glace (The Ice Tower), directed by Lucile Hadžihalilović. This is the most inexplicable of the awards. Like the director’s previous films, it relies on mood rather than a cohesive style and moves at a glacial pace (no pun intended).

The Berlinale 2025 winners were not exciting and, in some ways, predictable. That Todd Haynes would appreciate the queer-themed Drømmer is hardly a shock, but the awards for Jude’s and, above all, Hadžihalilović’s film are not easy to comprehend. As I wrote before, Haugerud’s film won two prizes at the Independent Awards earlier in the day. Personally, I find Haugerud’s trio superficial beyond belief. I’ve been wondering what makes his films so attractive in some quarters and have reached the disheartening conclusion that the films are the cinematic equivalent of a comfort blanket. Cinematic might not be the apt choice of words for these films devoid of cinematic qualities.

Bruno Forzani, Hélène Cattet, and Fabio Testi.

Regarding films that should have won awards or snubs to descend to Oscar lingo, the most glaring omission is Reflet dans un diamant mort (Reflection in a Dead Diamond) by Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet. Reflections is the operative word in this masterful amalgamation of styles, taking its starting point in Italian sixties films. There will be a review and an interview with the directors with no hint of disapproval published soon on these pages. Yunan is another film that could have won an award. Even though it was hampered by Tarrismes with a tad too obvious references, it was indisputably one of the better films in the competition.

Tricia Tuttle’s first edition may have worked well regarding the market side, but when it comes to the film selections, there remains plenty of work that needs to be done.

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14/04/2025