It was another cinematic year of thrilling discoveries and some career-best work from both emerging and beloved auteurs–with much of the finest films arriving before the packed fall season. In fact, in my top 15, only 3 films premiered after September. It also looks like next year may follow suit, so as we turn to the early months of 2019, be sure to keep these on your radar. But first, let’s take a look back at the last twelve months.
It hurt to leave off Ismael’s Ghosts, Araby, If Beale Street Could Talk, John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection, and Zama, but when all is said and done, here are the 15 films that most resonated with me this year (and a bonus mention). Along with the below feature, one can see a vague ranking of all ~160 new films I’ve viewed here, as well as my 100 favorite non-...
It hurt to leave off Ismael’s Ghosts, Araby, If Beale Street Could Talk, John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection, and Zama, but when all is said and done, here are the 15 films that most resonated with me this year (and a bonus mention). Along with the below feature, one can see a vague ranking of all ~160 new films I’ve viewed here, as well as my 100 favorite non-...
- 1/1/2019
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Following our top 50 films of 2018, it’s time to zero in on the best performances of the year. Rather than divide categories into supporting or lead–or even male or female–we’ve written about our thirty favorite performances, period. Check out our countdown below and start watching the ones you’ve missed here.
30. Michelle Pfeiffer (Where is Kyra?)
A pervading sense of isolation and despair runs through Where is Kyra? and Michelle Pfeiffer carries it all with an emotionally resonant performance of subtlety and deep ache. The story of a woman struggling to make ends make following the death of her mother, Andrew Dosunmu’s drama is keenly attuned to the pressures of living in a city that doesn’t care whether you’re there or not. Bradford Young’s distinct eye for solitude also painstakingly paints Pfeiffer’s character into the desolate corners of her locale until there...
30. Michelle Pfeiffer (Where is Kyra?)
A pervading sense of isolation and despair runs through Where is Kyra? and Michelle Pfeiffer carries it all with an emotionally resonant performance of subtlety and deep ache. The story of a woman struggling to make ends make following the death of her mother, Andrew Dosunmu’s drama is keenly attuned to the pressures of living in a city that doesn’t care whether you’re there or not. Bradford Young’s distinct eye for solitude also painstakingly paints Pfeiffer’s character into the desolate corners of her locale until there...
- 12/24/2018
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
The debut feature from Spanish writer-director Carla Simón is a finely crafted portrait of personal upheaval
A deeply personal child’s-eye view of loss, Summer 1993 is an utterly beguiling debut feature from Spanish writer-director Carla Simón. And the fact that this collection of delicately observed fragments from a summer of upheaval is based on her own life gives an added potency to this finely crafted film.
Following the death of her mother from Aids, six-year-old Frida (Laia Artigas) is an orphan. Shell-shocked and unresponsive, she loiters on the edge of the adult world as her extended family pack up the contents of her home in Barcelona. Simón’s use of locked shots here is eloquent – evocative of snapshots in a family album, it also means that the adults and their voices are frequently out of the frame, adding to the sense of Frida’s isolation.
A deeply personal child’s-eye view of loss, Summer 1993 is an utterly beguiling debut feature from Spanish writer-director Carla Simón. And the fact that this collection of delicately observed fragments from a summer of upheaval is based on her own life gives an added potency to this finely crafted film.
Following the death of her mother from Aids, six-year-old Frida (Laia Artigas) is an orphan. Shell-shocked and unresponsive, she loiters on the edge of the adult world as her extended family pack up the contents of her home in Barcelona. Simón’s use of locked shots here is eloquent – evocative of snapshots in a family album, it also means that the adults and their voices are frequently out of the frame, adding to the sense of Frida’s isolation.
- 7/14/2018
- by Wendy Ide
- The Guardian - Film News
wide
Incredibles 2
Holly Hunter and Sarah Vowell costar (in voice performances) as part of a family of superheroes. Also costarring Catherine Keener, Sophia Bush, and Isabella Rossellini. (male writer-director)
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The Secret of Marrowbone
Anya Taylor-Joy and Mia Goth costar in this thriller about a family of siblings who cover up the death of their mother. (male writer-director)
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limited
Pin Cushion
Deborah Haywood writes and directs this drama about a mother and daughter (Joanna Scanlan and Lily Newmark) making a new life in a new town.
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Summer 1993 [pictured]
Carla Simón writes (with Valentina Viso) and directs this drama about a young girl (Laia Artigas) coping with the sudden death of her mother.
find cinemas
Racer and the Jailbird
Adèle Exarchopoulos costars as a race driver who gets romantically involved with a (male) gangster in this crime drama. (male writers and director)
find cinemas
Please let me...
Incredibles 2
Holly Hunter and Sarah Vowell costar (in voice performances) as part of a family of superheroes. Also costarring Catherine Keener, Sophia Bush, and Isabella Rossellini. (male writer-director)
find cinemas
The Secret of Marrowbone
Anya Taylor-Joy and Mia Goth costar in this thriller about a family of siblings who cover up the death of their mother. (male writer-director)
find cinemas
limited
Pin Cushion
Deborah Haywood writes and directs this drama about a mother and daughter (Joanna Scanlan and Lily Newmark) making a new life in a new town.
find cinemas
Summer 1993 [pictured]
Carla Simón writes (with Valentina Viso) and directs this drama about a young girl (Laia Artigas) coping with the sudden death of her mother.
find cinemas
Racer and the Jailbird
Adèle Exarchopoulos costars as a race driver who gets romantically involved with a (male) gangster in this crime drama. (male writers and director)
find cinemas
Please let me...
- 7/13/2018
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
Carla Simón’s brilliantly realised story of a six-year-old traumatised by the death of her parents features miraculous child performances
This autobiographical debut from 32-year-old Spanish film-maker Carla Simón is a jewel. In its subtlety, richness and warmth it is entirely beguiling – complex and simple at the same time. It is also very moving. Summer 1993 is about childhood and a child’s fraught relationship to the adult world, and has some of the most miraculous child performances I can remember seeing recently, although the concept of “performances” and “acting” are meaningless with children this young: two little girls of six and three years old. There is something awe-inspiring in realising that, to all intents and purposes, what we are seeing is real. The moment-by-moment interplay of emotions and dramatic gestures between these children is effectively innocent of grownup play-acting and pretend.
It is a classic premise for a film about...
This autobiographical debut from 32-year-old Spanish film-maker Carla Simón is a jewel. In its subtlety, richness and warmth it is entirely beguiling – complex and simple at the same time. It is also very moving. Summer 1993 is about childhood and a child’s fraught relationship to the adult world, and has some of the most miraculous child performances I can remember seeing recently, although the concept of “performances” and “acting” are meaningless with children this young: two little girls of six and three years old. There is something awe-inspiring in realising that, to all intents and purposes, what we are seeing is real. The moment-by-moment interplay of emotions and dramatic gestures between these children is effectively innocent of grownup play-acting and pretend.
It is a classic premise for a film about...
- 7/12/2018
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
limited
Summer 1993 [pictured]
Carla Simón writes (with Valentina Viso) and directs this drama about a young girl (Laia Artigas) coping with the sudden death of her mother.
find cinemas
Mary Shelley
Haifaa Al-Mansour cowrites (with Emma Jensen) and directs this biopic of the mother of science fiction, Frankenstein author Mary Shelley (Elle Fanning).
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How Long Will I Love U
Su Lun writes and directs this science-fiction romance about a woman (Liya Tong) who falls in love with a man across time.
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The Gospel According to André
Kate Novack directs this documentary about fashion icon and Vogue editor André Leon Talley.
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In Darkness
Natalie Dormer cowrites and stars in this thriller about a blind woman who aurally witnesses the murder of her neighbor. (male director)
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How to Talk to Girls at Parties
Philippa Goslett cowrites this sci-fi rom-com about a young man who falls...
Summer 1993 [pictured]
Carla Simón writes (with Valentina Viso) and directs this drama about a young girl (Laia Artigas) coping with the sudden death of her mother.
find cinemas
Mary Shelley
Haifaa Al-Mansour cowrites (with Emma Jensen) and directs this biopic of the mother of science fiction, Frankenstein author Mary Shelley (Elle Fanning).
find cinemas
How Long Will I Love U
Su Lun writes and directs this science-fiction romance about a woman (Liya Tong) who falls in love with a man across time.
find cinemas
The Gospel According to André
Kate Novack directs this documentary about fashion icon and Vogue editor André Leon Talley.
find cinemas
In Darkness
Natalie Dormer cowrites and stars in this thriller about a blind woman who aurally witnesses the murder of her neighbor. (male director)
find cinemas
How to Talk to Girls at Parties
Philippa Goslett cowrites this sci-fi rom-com about a young man who falls...
- 5/25/2018
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
I wish there was a way I could start this review of Carla Simón’s extraordinary Summer 1993 with its final scene. Not because there are eye-opening or plot-unravelling clues nestled inside it, but because it crystallizes what makes Simón’s debut stand out as one of the most memorable in recent years: an effortless ability to capture what it is like to deal with a tragedy of the kind its young heroine undergoes – the way traumas can be compartmentalized, but may always resurface.
Part of the magic, I suspect, owes to the fact the Catalan 32-year-old writer-director crafted her first feature drawing from her own childhood memories. Summer 1993 chronicles a few hazy weeks in the life of Frida (Laia Artigas), a 6-year-old curly haired girl who, having lost both father and mother, moves away from her grandparents’ Barcelona home to settle with uncle and aunt in the Catalan countryside. We...
Part of the magic, I suspect, owes to the fact the Catalan 32-year-old writer-director crafted her first feature drawing from her own childhood memories. Summer 1993 chronicles a few hazy weeks in the life of Frida (Laia Artigas), a 6-year-old curly haired girl who, having lost both father and mother, moves away from her grandparents’ Barcelona home to settle with uncle and aunt in the Catalan countryside. We...
- 5/25/2018
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
“Why aren’t you crying?” a boy asks 6-year-old Frida as St. Joan fireworks—a Catalan summer solstice festivity—crackle in the background. Frida however doesn’t answer—instead she stoically gazes at the blazing night sky. That’s how Carla Simón’s incredibly poignant personal feature debut begins. Based on Simón’s own experiences with the loss of her parents at a very young age, Summer 1993 centers on Frida, a sly, precocious orphan compellingly played by the gifted young Laia Artigas. We quickly learn Frida’s parents died of AIDS and that she is taken in by her aunt and uncle, played by emerging talent Bruna Cusí and the mustached Catalan heartthrob David Verdaguer, popularly known for 10.000 km. They take Frida to the countryside for the summer with the hopes of returning some semblance of normalcy to her life. There, we find out the reason Frida is not crying...
- 5/24/2018
- MUBI
Childhood is so often seen as a period of unbridled promise and accumulation — of things, of knowledge, of friends and family — that the death of a parent can seem like the most confounding and terrible of erasures for a still-forming mind to process. For six-year-old Frida (Laia Artigas), the autobiographical protagonist around which Catalan filmmaker Carla Simón has crafted her touching debut feature “Summer 1993,” the loss of her mother puts her in a dizzying confluence of attention, love, discipline, freedom and pain when she’s taken from her city home to live in the Catalan countryside with her aunt and uncle.
But rather than adopt an excuse to turn this hardship material into easy sentiment, Simón treats this very personal matter with a focused, unhurried wisdom for the ways even a left-turn girlhood can still be a celebration of being young, alive and open.
Anchored by a pair of extraordinary...
But rather than adopt an excuse to turn this hardship material into easy sentiment, Simón treats this very personal matter with a focused, unhurried wisdom for the ways even a left-turn girlhood can still be a celebration of being young, alive and open.
Anchored by a pair of extraordinary...
- 5/23/2018
- by Robert Abele
- The Wrap
Summer 1993 (Estiu 1993) Oscilloscope Laboratories Reviewed by: Harvey Karten Director: Carla Simón Screenwriter: Carla Simón Cast: Laia Artigas, Paula Robles, Bruna Cusí, David Verdaguer, Fermi Reixach, Isabel Rocatti Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 5/15/18 Opens: May 25, 2018 There was a time not so far back that little was known about AIDS, about how […]
The post Summer 1993 Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post Summer 1993 Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 5/21/2018
- by Harvey Karten
- ShockYa
"Authentic and memorable... with maturity, empathy, and heartfelt emotion." Oscilloscope Labs has just released the first official Us trailer for a coming-of-age film titled Summer 1993, which is Spain's official entry into the Best Foreign Language category at the Academy Awards this year. This played at numerous film festivals and will be released in early 2018, after the Oscar nominations are announced. Summer 1993 is a coming-of-age autobiographical drama following a six-year-old girl who moves with her uncle from Barcelona to the countryside, but she finds it hard to forget her mother and adapt to her new life. Newcomer Laia Artigas plays Frida, and the film's cast includes Paula Robles, Bruna Cusí, David Verdaguer. This looks like a very lovely, tender portrait of youth and the challenges of growing up without your parents. Here's the official Us trailer (+ poster) for Carla Simón's Summer 1993, in high def on Apple: In Carla Simon’s touching autobiographical film,...
- 12/6/2017
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Summer 1993 — Catalonia, Spain
So cathartic was Summer 1993 that my personal psyche will be marked by it forever. Why this story, about a six year old girl who quietly and slowly comes to terms with the death of her mother and how the process, invisible to anyone watching, culminates in a sudden crescendo of emotion moved me to tears, is what you must find out on your own.
No one knows the emotions of another person unless communication, self-knowledge and compassion work in favor of knowing. Yes tears and laughter mean a lot but without tears and laughter, there are thousands of feelings not communicated which result in actions whose meaning is unknown. And for children who have no words for their feelings or why they act as they do, adults can only surmise and intuit if they are able.
A child of six has no way of knowing death; children are fearless,...
So cathartic was Summer 1993 that my personal psyche will be marked by it forever. Why this story, about a six year old girl who quietly and slowly comes to terms with the death of her mother and how the process, invisible to anyone watching, culminates in a sudden crescendo of emotion moved me to tears, is what you must find out on your own.
No one knows the emotions of another person unless communication, self-knowledge and compassion work in favor of knowing. Yes tears and laughter mean a lot but without tears and laughter, there are thousands of feelings not communicated which result in actions whose meaning is unknown. And for children who have no words for their feelings or why they act as they do, adults can only surmise and intuit if they are able.
A child of six has no way of knowing death; children are fearless,...
- 12/5/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The American Film Institute (AFI) has announced the films that will be featured in their New Auteurs and American Independents sections at the upcoming AFI Fest 2017 presented by Audi. Selections include a number of lauded features from around the festival circuit, including Cannes offerings like “I Am Not a Witch,” SXSW favorites like “Gemini” and “Mr. Roosevelt,” the Sundance breakout “Thoroughbreds,” and Joseph Kahn’s Toronto Midnight Madness favorite “Bodied,” among others.
Highlighting first- and second-time feature film directors, New Auteurs is designed as the festival’s platform for upcoming filmmakers from all over the world to showcase their new films. This year, the section includes 11 films, nine of which come from female directors. Similarly, AFI Fest’s American Independents section aims to represent the best of this year’s independent filmmaking. Pushing boundaries of form and content across narrative and documentary cinema, this section includes 11 films from both fresh...
Highlighting first- and second-time feature film directors, New Auteurs is designed as the festival’s platform for upcoming filmmakers from all over the world to showcase their new films. This year, the section includes 11 films, nine of which come from female directors. Similarly, AFI Fest’s American Independents section aims to represent the best of this year’s independent filmmaking. Pushing boundaries of form and content across narrative and documentary cinema, this section includes 11 films from both fresh...
- 10/16/2017
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
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