Jonas Carpignano’s sophomore feature, A Ciambra, follows Pio (Pio Amato), a Romani kid in southern Italy who’s doing his damn best to grow up as fast as he can. No […]

Almost a year ago exactly, first-time feature director Jordan Peele released Get Out, as significant a film as you could imagine to usher in an administration that seems to have […]

There have been almost as many Western sidekick characters as there are Western films, with the late, great Walter Brennan being chief among them. But with the new film The Ballad […]

A Princeton, Illinois, native who now lives in Chicago, Samantha Martin is proof positive that sticking with your passion and becoming the best at what you do—no matter how seemingly […]

Watching this long-delayed American musical (the film was supposed to be released in 2015) set in India, starring Oscar-winner Brie Larson (but shot before she became an Oscar winner), I […]

After a painful divorce, Ben (Thomas Middleditch from “Silicon Valley”) has decided he is inconsolable and attempts to kill himself. But each time he tries, something unexpected keeps him from […]

Short films still have a nearly impossible time finding an audience outside of a film festival setting (or even during one). The good news is that over the last couple […]

I’ll give filmmaker Clint Eastwood points for trying something different, even if it doesn’t always work. He’s been acting and directing for so long that he’s seemingly able to spot […]

It’s often said that film is the most collaborative of arts. It takes a village, so to speak, to create ninety minutes of story and visuals that move us, inspire […]

After premiering at the Dubai Film Festival at the end of 2015, this beautifully animated work (Dubai’s first animated feature) about a slave who becomes a mighty warrior over a […]

Chicago-based Music Box Films has a knack for cherry-picking impressive independent, foreign fare that’s earned acclaim on the international festival circuit and bringing it to discerning American audiences. It worked […]

A seemingly small but heated exchange of words sets off a powder keg of protests, media frenzy and hate speech in this incendiary, Oscar-nominated (for Best Foreign Language Film, from […]