Actress Rebecca Hall adapts and directs the intoxicating and intricately-designed “Passing,” a new film (Hall’s fist as a director) based on the 1929 novella from author Nella Larson.

This is a story that confronts the realities of the act of “passing,” which refers to members of minority communities (blacks, Jews, etc) who were forced to pass as white to sidestep societal prejudices.

“Ad astra,” the new film by James Gray, is more meditation than story. The title (one half of the latin phrase “per aspera ad astra” or “through hardships to the stars”) is apt given the amount of time travel and the fascinating hardware that allows it, though the tale meanders, causing some confusion. With various stellar transportation modes, it takes us from one distant planet to the next without a clear mission statement. Basically, the quest

CANNES, France - On Sunday morning a new film slayed the rest of the competition. “Loving,” starring Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga and directed by Jeff Nichols, moved past festival favorites “American Honey” and “Toni Erdmann” to get to the number one place. Richard and Mildred Loving (Edgerton and Negga) are an interracial couple living in Virginia in the late sixties.