TIFF 51: “The Debut” Explodes off the screen and into the Oscar race!

by Eurocheese

In Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut, heltered housewife Mona Friedman (Julianne Moore) is the only person who applies for a small role in her local community theater musical other than perennial starlet Serena Cherry (a lovely cameo from Bernadette Peters). When the diva drops out for a better part in Annie Get Your Gun, the grouchy director, Jerry (Paul Giamatti), is forced to cast Mona, much to his chagrin. The film’s trailer suggests a straightforward premise, and the audience assumes we know where it is headed. When Jerry decides to push Mona to test her limits to draw a better performance out of her, though, he breaks something in her. And then, the film is off to the races...

Click to read more ...

Venice: Elisa's Jury of One

Elisa Giudici reporting from Venice...

[EDITOR'S NOTE: this was written shortly before the awards were handed so these are Elisa's feelings rather than comments on the winners.]

May el-Toukhy's WOMAN UNKNOWN won the Golden Lion but will it receive the same honor from Elisa's Jury of One?

Overall Festival Impressions

What a year to remember 2026 was for the oldest film festival in the world: arguably the best edition I have witnessed since I first attended with a press pass ten years ago, and the first in a very long time in which (helped by a particularly weak Cannes selection) Alberto Barbera was finally able to surpass Venice's natural competitor. In terms of overall cinematic quality, Venice eventually surpassed Cannes after years of trying to do so...

Click to read more ...

TIFF 51: Full of sorrow and fury, “Elephants in the Fog” is a queer gem from Nepal

by Cláudio Alves

It starts at night, opening credits fading in and out over an abstract blackness that slowly gives way to something more discernible. Strange sounds seep from the dark, a cry that might be animal or human song. Gradually, it becomes some ritualistic beckoning for an elephant, somewhere in the forest. “Come to me,” a voice shouts into the nothing; lights slash across the empty screen, and a search party begins to make itself known in the frame. Such an opening could insinuate a film enmeshed in ancient mysteries to the point of alienation, removed from modernity and led by tradition into a magical place where the concerns of so-called “real life” matter little before the demands of ancient rite, folklore, and myth. 

But then it cuts to morning, and Elephants in the Fog suggests a narrative, thematic, and cinematic space that not only avoids these assumed extremes but also refutes the traditional vs modern binary this review’s first paragraph might have suggested. In the light of dawn, we meet our protagonist, Pirati, the matriarch of a Nepalese Kinnar community formed by those whom old tradition might recognize as a third-gendered other and less tradition-bound folk might call transgender, queer…

Click to read more ...

TIFF 51: “Four Seasons in Java” is Kamila Andini’s most ambitious film to date

by Cláudio Alves

Over the last decade and change, Kamila Andini has become one of Indonesia's most acclaimed and internationally recognized filmmakers. Her debut, 2011’s The Mirror Never Lies, carried the pressure of paternal legacy, for Andini is the daughter of renowned director Garin Nugroho. Yet, the film’s promise of excellence was enough to supersede the legacy of blood and quiet any errant accusations of nepotism. More successes followed, including 2021’s Yuni, which represented Indonesia at the 94th Academy Awards, and 2022’s Before, Now and Then, which competed at the Berlinale and won Laura Basuki a deserved Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance. This year, her Four Seasons in Java had its world premiere at TIFF as a Centerpiece selection. 

Part revenge Western and part ghostly horror, part foray into magical realism and a piece of landscape poetry, a reflection on sexual violence against women and the insufficiencies of superficial progress, the film is hard to describe, much less categorize. There’s one thing about Four Seasons in Java of which there is no doubt, however. It is Andini’s most ambitious project yet…

Click to read more ...

Venice: "Primetime" by Lance Oppenheim

Elisa Giudici reporting from Venice

“What story was Oppenheim trying to tell with this movie?” a colleague asked me right after we left the screening of Primetime. He sounded as baffled as I felt. Since we're both European, neither of us is particularly familiar with Chris Hansen’s persona, voice, or mannerisms. As journalists, however, we know enough about his notorious pursuit of ratings on American TV and the backlash surrounding his early-2000s show. Still, for days, when someone asked what I thought of Primetime, I found myself giving the rarest of answers: “I don’t know yet.” It took me a lot of thinking to unpack why, in the end, it did not work for me...

Click to read more ...