Liang Fei (Kai Ko) has left the tiny fishing village in which he grew up to make big bucks in the city. In order to support his family, he turns to sex work and becomes a so-called “moneyboy”. His customers are almost exclusively elderly men. The trade is illegal in China, and after an arrest,
A year after audiences looked forward to seeing Wes Anderson’s latest opus at Cannes in 2020, the time has finally come for The French Dispatch to have its premiere at the festival. The cast and crew arrive at the red carpet on a bus, instead of the usual individual limousines. To top off the peculiarity,
Two years after her directorial debut premiered at Cannes, Hafsia Herzi returns to the festival with Bonne Mère, a love letter to strong, nurturing women who are so rarely seen or appreciated amid their self-abandonment. The audience is introduced to Nora (Sabrina Benhamed) as they follow her journey to work in silent detail. She cleans
After his previous effort The Last Face was cut to ribbons at the 2016 festival, Sean Penn is back in competition at Cannes this year with a bittersweet family drama. Flag Day is based on the memoir Flim-Flam Man (a title that should have been kept for this adaptation) by Jennifer Vogel, a journalist whose
Another French Competition entry, another hospital drama in which actual medical staff make their screen debut. But this is where the commonalities between The Divide and Peaceful end. The latter is a powerful melodrama about a mother-son relationship and their struggle to accept his mortality. Benoît Magimel stars as Benjamin, a confident and self-professed failed-actor-turned-acting-teacher,
After attending his brother’s wedding in their Arabic home town, Sami (Alex Bakri) and his family cannot return to Jerusalem. Israeli soldiers have put up road blocks without warning, enforcing a lockdown on the village. Stripped of the distractions that usually get him through his day, Sami is at a loss. The protagonist is unable
Parisian couple Raf (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) and Julie (Marina Foïs) are facing separation after ten years together. Having bombarded her sleeping partner with angry texts in the middle of the night, the next morning Raf tries a different approach to get her girlfriend to stay: faithful adherence. Running after her in the street, she takes
Paul Verhoeven has done it again. As with his infamous box-office bomb Showgirls, Benedetta had the prerequisites for success: a talented cast (there is a reason Charlotte Rampling enjoys a Meryl Streep-esque status in Europe), a multi-million-dollar budget and an abundance of intelligent themes within the story, such as the awakening of carnal desires in
Only a couple of weeks ago, during the European Championships, Germany’s goalkeeper was investigated by UEFA for wearing a rainbow captain’s armband; then the association banned Munich from illuminating their stadium in the colours of the LGBT flag. During this “rainbow debate” a number of critical voices have called for Germany to first address its
What the original French title Un Monde (“a world”) alludes to is that school – everything that happens inside the classroom as well as during breaks – is a world of its own. On her first day, Nora clutches at her older brother Abel, then at her father, terrified of being catapulted into this new
