FRANCE - This week, the right wing-leaning mayor of a small Parisian suburban town ordered local theaters to take the film “Timbuktu” (directed by Abderrahmane Sissako) off its program slate “in the name of the fight against glorifying terrorism.” The terrorist attacks that occurred in France last week have had many consequences, this incomprehensible cancelation of “Timbuktu” by Monsieur le Mayor being the collateral

The New York-based INDEPENDENT FILM PROJECT, an incubator for indie-minded [...]

"Effie Gray" is a 2012 British biographical drama film directed by Richard Laxton, released in 2014 in the U.K. The film's release was delayed by several lawsuits that alleged that the script, written by Emma Thompson, was plagiarised from earlier dramatizations of the same story (Thompson won the suit). The subject of "Effie" is the love triangle involving Victorian art critic John Ruskin (played by Greg Wise), his wife, Euphemia "Effie"

Even though she was born in Malmö, Sweden on September 29, 1931, Anita Ekberg was an Italian actress. She had become a star elsewhere first but it was in Rome that her marquee lights flared. She was a living, breathing representation of cinema that drove both men and women, avowed cinephiles as well as Sunday movie-goers, crazy. And it is Rome, too, that Ekberg would call home ever since the fifties, never returning to her

Sean Penn, there’s an actor with range. This time around, [...]

"Two days, one night" centers on Sandra (Marion Cotillard), who has just returned to work after recovering from an illness. Upon realizing that the company can run with one less employee, management tells Sandra she is to be let go while the remaining employees will each receive a bonus. Talk about a quandary! In this tenderly-observed and suspenseful drama the action is essential. Over the course of

Mehran Tamadon is a Paris-based filmmaker who’s spent most of his [...]