It is one of the most known, shocking images in US history: the dead Emmett Till, laid out in a morgue, his face an unidentified mass of flesh and bones, lynched by white racists. In the background you can see his mother Mamie and Chinonye‘s Chukwu‘s TILL centers on her. The story begins in the mid 50s. Emmett and his mother live in Chicago, where racism is palpable, but usually not life-threatening. This is different in the South, where Emmett will be going to visit his relatives for a few days. In Mississippi, Emmett is like an alien, much more confident than a Black person is allowed ... more

After THE FATHER, a portrait of an older gentleman with dementia (Anthony Hopkins in an Oscar winning role), Florian Zeller has shot another psychological portrait of a family in crisis. Successful lawyer Peter (Hugh Jackman) lives with his new, much younger wife Beth (very good in an unthankful role: Vanessa Kirby) and a new baby in a New York loft. He left behind his ex-wife Kate (Laura Dern) and a teenager, the angry and depressed Nicholas (Zen McGrath). After Nicholas has been skipping schools for several months, Kate asks Peter for help, and the family agrees that the boy should move in ... more

An elephant shits on camera. Margot Robbie pukes on a carpet, at the feet of Hollywood bigwigs. Damien Chazelle does not scrimp on drastic scenes, bodily fluids, and excrement. Yet certain elements from the template – Kenneth Anger‘s gossipy scandal book “Hollywood Babylon“ (1965), which Anger himself said was researched with the use of “telepathy“ - are definitely sanitized. In one scene a young woman dies of a cocaine overdose while having sex with the fat comic Fatty Arbuckle. In reality, in 1922 Arbuckle raped actress Virginia Rappe so brutally that she died of a burst ... more

The pier in the small seaside resort Cromer on the coast of Norfolk holds a rare event: the last European “End of Pier Show.“ In the pavilion at the end of the pier, a variety show takes place every day in the summer months and on Christmas, a colorful program with singing and dancing interludes, magic shows and comedy. Director Jens Meurer, who is connected to the island through his studies and his British wife, filmed a very personal and loving film about the show, the place and England during the fatal Brexit decision. SEASIDE SPECIAL (which is what the show is called) follows the ... more

After the old lady who Maria (Karin Viard) cleaned for dies and leaves her with nothing but a inconspicuous brass dove, Maria finds a cleaning job at the renowned Parisian Académie des Beaux-Arts. Her first mishap occurs just as she starts. Following her motto “always wash twice!“ she gets rid of dripping butter from a pedestal which turns out to be the work of a Brazilian artist. Caretaker Hubert (Grégory Gadebois), a secret hobby dancer and the sweet soul in the school, saves Maria – and replaces it with butter from the canteen. Maria, who writes poems on her way home to the ... more

The documentary DAS HAMLET SYNDROM shows theater rehearsals in which actors develop the piece together. Unlike Hamlet with his “to be or not to be?“ monologue, they look back on the consequences of the decisions that they themselves have made. When war broke out in eastern Ukraine in 2014, five actors had to decide: Fight or not? Stay or flee? Oxana went to demonstrations in Maidan and processed political topics with her art. Rodion sewed military uniforms. Slavik, Roman and Katya went to the frontlines and came back traumatized. When they try to communicate and process their experiences ... more

HOLY SPIDER, set in the Iranian city of Mashhad – the city where 22 year old Mahsa Amini was killed by the “moral police“ because she didn‘t wear a headscarf correctly – is a film of unplanned, oppressive timeliness. Ali Abbasi (BORDER) tells the story of serial killer Saeed Hanaei who murders prostitutes and is coined the “spider murderer“ in the pilgrimage site Masshad which is based on real events. Saeed (Mehdi Bajestani) is a deeply religious family father and contractor during the day. In the evenings, when the wife and children are at their grandparents, he gets on his ... more

Charlotte Vandermeersch and Felix van Groeningen wrote the screenplay to one of the most emotionally powerful films of the past decade, the bittersweet, musical love story THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN, which was based on a play by Johan Heldenbergh. With THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS, based on the eponymous novel by Paolo Cognetti, they are working together again and directing together for the first time. The novel tells the decade-long story of two boys whose paths cross in a small mountain village in the Italian Aosta Valley. Pietro comes from the city, Bruno is the last child in a remote area. ... more