Many a filmmaker has shot the inner city, the tough neighborhoods, in order to highlight the plight of the locals. In press documents for “Les Misérables” director Ladj Ly has said, “I hope the President [of France] watches the movie, so he can get a sense for what’s going on here.”Making movies is a personal project, innately, but not all stories are autobiographical. This one is. Ly has grown up in the same city of Montfermeil

CRITICS WEEK, Cannes - Amine, a man for whom life is a struggle of every instant (French-Moroccan actor Younes Bouab)—at least this is what his weary and beautiful gaze seems to say—is being pursued by the police somewhere in the Moroccan desert. He runs up to the top of a hill to bury his treasure before getting collared. A decade later, he comes out of jail and goes back to the hilltop to retrieve his treasure. Except that, during

Life sometimes requires us to swallow our ego, put out fires and resolve crises on a variety of fronts, family, work, children. How about if this were the case all the time? How do we confront these adversities, but more to the point, where do we find the gumption to do so?  In Franco Lolli’s very personal film “Litigante,” there’s something almost invasive about watching Silvia (Carolin Sanin) go through a life that seems to be getting

When planetary disaster strikes the planet, one turns to country-music for solace. The song in question was written by Grammy-nominated country music singer Sturgill Simpson and keeps making a comeback throughout “The Dead Don’t Die,” the new Jim Jarmusch film which opened the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. The song, which shows up repeatedly in dialogues, on a CD that changes hands, is a mantra, something for

Highland Film Group announced today that Jake Manley (“The Order,” Roland Emmerich’s upcoming "Midway") has joined Bella Thorne in writer/director Joshua Caldwell’s Southland. Colin Bates and Michael Jefferson of Lucidity Entertainment are producing alongside Thor Bradwell and Scott Levenson. Garrett Clayton, Katie Leary, Bennett Litwin and Adam Litwin will serve as executive producers.

Director Mary Harron has had a fascinating journey on her way to the Tribeca Film Festival. Her earlier film “American Psycho” tells the story of a demented killer. “The Notorious Bettie Page” was a historic period piece. With “Charlie Says,” a historic period piece about a demented killer, she’s completed the circle.The story of Charles Manson and his infamous crimes has been told before, most notably in the 1976 made-for-TV

Race, class, social injustice. Our country has struggled with these since forever and cinema provides the means to address issues and heed the call of activism and resistance through art.In these dangerously unstable times “Blindspotting” has led the charge and turned the camera on us. When the film came out last year, it was a striking debut for first-time filmmaker Carlos Lopez Estrada (Estrada had directed