With her debut feature “Tiger Stripes,” Malaysian writer-director Amanda Nell Eu joins an exciting group of directors who provide subversive takes on genre and body horror. Julia Ducournau and “Raw” comes to mind, as do Agnieszka Smoczynska and “The Lure” and John Fawcett and “Ginger Snaps” — like David Cronenberg before them.
Eu, an Ma graduate of the London Film School, blends Malaysian folklore with heightened realism and a large dollop of “Mean Girls” in the story of a tween going through changes wrought by puberty and alterations in her friendship group. World premiering at the Cannes Critics Week, it came away with the Grand Jury Prize for best feature and has been collecting additional kudos ever since. It represents Malaysia in the Oscar international feature competition.
Bold 12-year-old Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal) is the natural leader among her group of gal pals, all currently seniors at their religious primary school. She...
Eu, an Ma graduate of the London Film School, blends Malaysian folklore with heightened realism and a large dollop of “Mean Girls” in the story of a tween going through changes wrought by puberty and alterations in her friendship group. World premiering at the Cannes Critics Week, it came away with the Grand Jury Prize for best feature and has been collecting additional kudos ever since. It represents Malaysia in the Oscar international feature competition.
Bold 12-year-old Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal) is the natural leader among her group of gal pals, all currently seniors at their religious primary school. She...
- 12/9/2023
- by Alissa Simon
- Variety Film + TV
Zarrar Kahn’s “In Flames” is set mostly in a cramped apartment nestled not too far from the rowdy, crowded streets of Karachi. The hustle and bustle from the outside — not to mention the social and societal forces that so define it — continually threaten to creep inside the walls of that apartment, which serves as a safe haven that may well crumble under the weight of the very world order that rules beyond its walls. A ghostly parable about Pakistan’s insidious patriarchal order, Khan’s film — the first Pakistani film to screen in Cannes Director’s Fortnight in nearly half a century — finds mother and daughter slowly losing grip on the reality they’ve always known.
Mariam can sense her life is fated to change. While she’s dutifully been studying to become a doctor, she knows the death of her grandfather is sure to have ruinous consequences for her home life.
Mariam can sense her life is fated to change. While she’s dutifully been studying to become a doctor, she knows the death of her grandfather is sure to have ruinous consequences for her home life.
- 12/7/2023
- by Manuel Betancourt
- Variety Film + TV
Second of two Pakistani movies screening at Red Sea competition section this year (the other being “Wakhri”), “In Flames” also deals with the issues women face in the country nowadays, implementing, however, an approach that moves towards the supernatural on occasion.
In Flames is screening at Red Sea Film Festival
Mariam is a medical student living with her mother Fariha and younger brother in a tiny Karachi flat owned by her grandfather, following her father's death. When the grandfather dies, leaving a mountain of debt, an uncle steps in offering to cover them. Mariam is suspicious of his motifs, but her mother won't hear anything about it, insisting that the uncle only wants to help. In the meantime, and after an attack on her car while she was driving, she meets Asad, a fellow student, who was introduced to her by a friend. The two, and after his intense courting,...
In Flames is screening at Red Sea Film Festival
Mariam is a medical student living with her mother Fariha and younger brother in a tiny Karachi flat owned by her grandfather, following her father's death. When the grandfather dies, leaving a mountain of debt, an uncle steps in offering to cover them. Mariam is suspicious of his motifs, but her mother won't hear anything about it, insisting that the uncle only wants to help. In the meantime, and after an attack on her car while she was driving, she meets Asad, a fellow student, who was introduced to her by a friend. The two, and after his intense courting,...
- 12/7/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Iranian actor Leila Hatami, best known outside her country for her role in Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar-winning “A Separation,” will soon be back on international movie screens in Iranian-British director Mehdi Norowzian’s metaphysical drama “A Time in Eternity” which recently wrapped in Iran.
“There isn’t one scene without me,” Hatami told Variety, speaking on the sidelines of the just concluded Venice Film Festival where she was a member of the main jury.
The London-based Norowzian, who was Oscar-nominated for his 1999 short “Killing Joe” and subsequently directed Joseph Fiennes, Elizabeth Shue, Dennis Hopper and Sam Shepherd in the 2002 drama “Leo,” has since become a prominent commercials director. Norowzian recently returned to Iran to shoot this film, which is his first feature after two decades.
In “Eternity,” Hatami plays Mariam, a woman who’s beloved husband Saeed has mysteriously gone missing, leaving her and her 12-year-old daughter in a state...
“There isn’t one scene without me,” Hatami told Variety, speaking on the sidelines of the just concluded Venice Film Festival where she was a member of the main jury.
The London-based Norowzian, who was Oscar-nominated for his 1999 short “Killing Joe” and subsequently directed Joseph Fiennes, Elizabeth Shue, Dennis Hopper and Sam Shepherd in the 2002 drama “Leo,” has since become a prominent commercials director. Norowzian recently returned to Iran to shoot this film, which is his first feature after two decades.
In “Eternity,” Hatami plays Mariam, a woman who’s beloved husband Saeed has mysteriously gone missing, leaving her and her 12-year-old daughter in a state...
- 9/12/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
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