Author page: mrqe

The Marrakech International Film Festival have announced its complete line-up and in the official competition (first and second feature films) film titles we find a handful of Cannes and Venice Film Festival sidebar items most notably Venice’s own Orizzonti section with Neo Sora’s Happyend, Scandar Copti’s Happy Holidays and Murat Fıratoğlu’s One of Those Days When Hemme Dies as part of the fourteen films selected in pursuit of the Étoile d’Or. The selection of 70 films is also spread across the Gala Screenings, Special Screenings, the 11th Continent, Moroccan Panorama, Cinema for Young Audiences & Families, and the Tributes program.… Read the rest

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Dole Days: Arnold Flutters About with Strange Bedfellows

There’s certainly a definable emotional core in Andrea Arnold’s fifth narrative feature, Bird, but the ideas and themes tying it all together are about as wispy and freewheeling as scattered feathers drifting along the course of a gently idling wind. Once again mixing anthropomorphic inspired motifs with working class realities, Arnold’s new marriage of social miserabilism and magical realism sadly feels a bit exploitative as it rushes through thinly drawn characters and connections before gliding into a pat, feel-good resolution. Whether due to methods of improvisation without a clearly defined script or a rushed edit to make the demands of its world premiere, Arnold’s latest is something of a disappointment, playing as it does so fiercely into the eternally forgiving arena of the sentimental.… Read the rest

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