Bar Bahar – Everything but In Between

In a recent interview in the Spanish press, Maysaloun Hamoud sighs with exasperation – “Why would anybody think the characters, who are out partying and having a good time, are trying to escape -just because they drink and take drugs”. She protests. “The protagonists are young, that’s life, life in Tel Aviv.”

Throw Substance from the Plane – Why Captain Koblic Deserves a Remake

It has often been a thorny issue in cinema – tackling the murky side of human nature and of course its darker episodes. At best, directors, writers and producers run the risk of being so compellingly accurate and explicit in their accounts of horrid histories that critics cry foul with accusations of turning tragedy into entertainment, or of abdicating responsibility to the audience or even using deeply emotive historical events to deliberately manipulate viewer emotions. read more

A Bigger Splash

If you were a filmmaker with an ambition to a make an impact, you might reconsider whether you would be likely to do so with a remake. But A Bigger Splash, the latest offering from director Luca Guadagnino, (a retake more than remake of the 1969 Alain Delon classic, La Piscine), is nonetheless itself destined for the classic shelves of Italian cinema and will, in all probability, muscle its way eventually into the pantheon of notable world cinema. read more