Moviebreak Interviews und Festivals

Already her powerful first feature Soft & Quiet earned Beth de Araújo a Grand Jury Award nomination at SXSW. Based on a personal traumatic childhood experience, her second film follows an 8-year-old girl, played by newcomer Mason Reeves, who becomes the key witness in a rape trial. After premiering at Sundance where it won both the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic and the U.S. Dramatic Audience Awa...

Twelve years ago, his sarcastic thriller In Order of Disappearance made Hans Petter Moland an internationally known representative of Nordic noir. For his epic entrance into the San Sebastián Film Festival’s main competition, Growth of the Soil, he adapted Knut Hamsun’s Nobel Prize-winning novel of the same title into a monumental drama of humans’ struggle with nature and love. On the day of the p...

After presenting his first feature film Lake Tahoe in 2008 at San Sebastián and taking home the Golden Shell for Best Film for Club Sandwich five years later, Fernando Eimbcke is back at the renowned film festival for the fifth time with his newest work Moscas. Shot in stark black-and-white, the humorous tale follows a middle-aged loner as she makes friends with the young son of her sublessor. On...

Lav Diaz continues his prolific connection with the Venice Film Festival, where he won the Golden Lion in 2016 for The Woman Who Left, by returning to the current edition with his new feature film. Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors dives once more into Filipino history to excavate the painful heritage of Christian colonialism through missionary work. In the Palazzo del Cinema, which comes with its ow...

The involuntary deception and white lies threatening to tear romantic and family bonds apart that play a key role in Michelle Zhou's intimate drama are all too familiar to her. In the most literal sense, since the Chinese director based the story of Big Little Things on her and her partner and producer Chun Yu's own experiences. On site at a rain-swept Venice where the queer romance premieres in t...

Only last year, her feature film debut won Anuparna Roy the Best Director award in the Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti section. Now she returns to the same competitive slate with her ambitious sophomore work. Lovers in the Blue Night follows an ensemble cast of migrant workers as they strive for social acceptance, economic stability, and love in the working-class districts of Mumbai. Just ahead o...

Her debut documentary Harlan County, USA marked Barbara Kopple as a fearless new perspective in non-fiction Film which she used timeless to stand against injustice and inequality. Fittingly, her second work American Dream made her the first female director to win an Oscar for Best Documentary. Union Town continues Kopple's involvement with workers' rights and the collective fight against repressiv...

Dass er für seinen ersten Spielfilm nur ein A-List Festival in Frage kommt, stand früh für Manuel Wetscher fest - und gelang ihm auch mit einer Weltpremiere in Venedigs wichtigster Nebensektion Orizzonti. Dort erzählt Eklipse von einer Kinderfreundschaft Ende der 90er, als die Jahrtausendwende und eine totale Sonnenfinsternis biografische Wendepunkte markieren und. Familiengeheimnisse ans Licht br...

As a film critic and film programmer, Beatrice Fiorentino looks back on intense collaborations with a number of prestigious Italian publications. A year after winning the 2014 Akai Prize as best film critic at the 71st Venice Film Festival, she became part of the “Film della Critica” panel of the National Union of Italian Film Critics and, just the next year, of the selection committee for the Ven...

Five years after premiering his spiritual drama Luzifer at Locarno’s Concorso Internazionale, Peter Brunner returns to the festival's Piazza Grande with an uncompromisingly realist exploration of homelessness in the US. Co-scriptwriter Caleb Landry Jones, who happened to share the prize for the best lead performance at Sitges 2021 with Lucifer’s Franz Rogowski, stars in Down thr Arm of God as an i...

Locarno is already familiar ground for Vincent Grashaw. His indigenous drama Keep Quiet debuted in 2025 Out of Competition at the Swiss Film Festival, after presenting in 2024 his fictional boxer biopic Bang Bang in the same section. Now he returns with Bruton, combining comedy, crime and drama in a story closely based on real events. After celebrating the international premiere at Piazza Grande,...

His roles in Sons of Anarchy and Luke Cage made Theo Rossi a standout presence on the TV screen. After bagging an Independent Spirit Award for his performance in Emily the Criminal, the American actor continues his rise by impersonating notorious prison breakout Brian Bruton in Vincent Grashaw’s tragicomic crime drama. After Bruton’s premiere the previous night at Locarno’s Piazza Grande, Theo Ros...

With his broad spectrum of films, ranging from experimental to anthologie and genre, Denis Côté i a regular at the most renowened international film festivals. So it comes at no surprise that hi newest work - the first after a life-saving kidney transplant - runs in Locarno' prestigious Concorso Internazionale. On site at the Festival, the Canadian filmmaker spoke with Lidanoir about Nobody's Viol...

Since his debut feature If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle earned him a nomination for best foreign film at the Oscars, Florin Serban has made a name for his intimate perspective on social, political and family issues. All of them intersect in You Don’t Belong Here, which premiered earlier this week at Locarno’s Concorso Internazionale. On site at the festival, the Romanian director sat down with Lid...

Das schwierige Gleichgewicht persönlicher Bedürfnisse und der moralischen Erwartungen des äußeren Umfelds ist ein konstantes Thema Isabelle Stevers filmischen Schaffens, das auch ihren Beitrag zum Wettbewerb prägte. I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming begleitet ein queeres unkrainisches Paar in der sensiblen Zeit der Transition, als unvermittelt die russische Invasion beginnt. In Locarno, wo das intime Dram...

Since the lead in Ruben Östlunds social satire The Square brought him international sucess in 2017, Claes Bang established himself as one of the most prominent actors of the European film scene. In Felix Randau's biographically inspired meditation on subjective and historical truths, Ich ist ein Anderer, the Danish actor shows once again his faible for murky characters. Premiering at Locarno's Pia...

Fast zehn Jahre ist es her, dass Felix Randau sein Steinzeit-Drama Iceman auf Locarnos Piazza Grande de Pubiku präsentierte. Nun ist er zurück in der populärsten Sektion des internationalen Film Festivals mit seiner historischen Hochstapler-Story Ich ist ein Anderer. Am Tah nach der Premiere fand der deutsche Regisseur und Drehbuchautor Zeit für ein Gespräch mit Lidanoir über die Entwicklung seine...

For the European premiere of her touching portrait of dementia and car in a US prison, Petra Volpe carefully chose the one most renowened for the quality of its independent and arthouse productions. After it's celebrated premiere at Sundance earlier this year, Frank & Louis screens now at Locarno's Piazza Grande. Rob Morgan, playing on screen a convict with early-onset Alzheimer's, Johns the Swiss...

In seiner gewitzten Groteske Der Bunker, der auf der Berlinale 2015 in der Swektion Perspektive Deutsches Kino Premiere feierte, zeigte Nikias Chryssos bereits sein Gespür für bitterböse-bizarre Szenarien und eigenwillige Familienkonstellationen. Die Charakteristika wiederholten sich in seiner symbolreichen Sekten-StoryA Pure Place und durchdringen auch seine jüngste Kinoarbeit. Bloody Tennis folg...

Das Locarno Filmfestival sieht einer neuen spannende Runde entgegen mit einem Programm, das erneut Giona A. Nazarros Engagement für aufstrebende Kino-Talente und den Dialog über zeitaktuelle Themen spiegelt. In seinen sechs Jahren als künstlerischer Leiter hat der erfahrene Filmexperte und Festival Programmleiter Locarnos Ruf als führendes Forum für Autorenfilm und Arthouse, experimentelle Formate...

An actor in his own right, Noah Segan seems to have a knack for assembling a great cast. His second feature film as a director stars John Turturro as the titular small-time crook, surrounded by iconic names such as his personal buddy Steve Buscemi, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Giancarlo Esposito. The rising star among them is Will Price, who recently worked with Luca Guadagnino and in Scarlett Johansson'...

The big double anniversary of Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, celebrating 60 editions and 80 years, is also a jubilee for its longtime artistic director Karel Och. Starting out in 2001 as a programmer, he has been with the festival for 25 years, boosting its star power and prestige while aiming to stay true to its traditions. Halfway through the 10-day event, Karel Och found some time fo...

In The Story of Film, Mark Cousins already undertook the mammoth project of capturing over a century of film history in a documentary collage spanning more than 18 hours. Some 15 years later, the Irish filmmaker is ready to deliver the next chapter. Premiering earlier this year at Sundance, The Story of Documentary Film undertakes the equally immense feat of encompassing decades of non-fiction fil...

First, Visar Morina's harsh drama of a family's social decline and the false promises of economic advancement won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, where it premiered in February in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. Then, as a little add-on just a few weeks ago, Shame and Money won Best International Feature in Munich's CineMasters Competition. Now his third feature is screening at Karlovy Va...

With his first feature film, Ramzi Bashour landed a spot right in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance's final Park City edition. In Hot Water, the director, screenwriter, and musician born in Saudi Arabia and raised in Lebanon and the US explores the complicated relationship between a young adult son from Indiana and his Lebanese mother. On site at Karlovy Vary where his humorous drama scree...