Disguised as an Arab, the Swiss adventurer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt discovered Petra in 1812, long after it had been abandoned and left to the elements and the bedouins. Since then, droves of visitors from far and wide have descended on this Nabatean city carved out of the spectacular sandstone cliffs of southern Jordan. Tourists are […]
The Ottoman era in the Middle East has been resurrected thanks to the creation of a popular tourist attraction in Tel Aviv near Jaffa. HaTachana, known in English as The Station, is a charming complex of shops, boutiques, cafes and restaurants in the southern part of this lively Israeli city. Originally an Ottoman Turkish railway station, […]
Amid the sun-drenched sylvan splendor of a summer in northern Italy, two young men form a special bond. Their friendship unfolds in 1983 against the bucolic backdrop of a sunny garden, a Roman-style pool whose cool waters reflect the blissful rays of a southern European sun, an aquamarine sea and a starry sky. All this takes […]
Donald Trump rarely fails to disappoint critics who consider him temperamentally inappropriate and patently unpresidential. Revealing his true colors yet again last week, the U.S. president embarrassed himself and the American people by issuing vulgar remarks that speak to his unsuitability as the occupant of the highest office in the land. In a discussion at the White […]
The influx of about one million Muslims into Germany in the past two years has touched off fears in the Jewish community. This is perfectly understandable. Most of the new arrivals hail from Syria, which is embroiled in a civil war and which has been at war with Israel since its creation almost 70 years […]
During Barack Obama’s last year as president of the United States, Greg Barker and his camera crew followed him and his most trusted associates around the country and abroad. Barker’s fly-on-the-wall documentary, The Final Year, which opens in Canada on January 19, peeks inside the Obama White House as he and his chief operatives attend […]
Fatih Akin’s taut thriller, In the Fade, the winner of this year’s Golden Globes award for best foreign movie, is a combustible melange of two popular cinematic forms, police procedural and court room drama. Scheduled to open in Canada on January 19, it’s set against the backdrop of a terrorist incident in the German city […]
To no one’s surprise, Iranian officials conveniently blamed the latest outburst of anti-government protests in Iran, the most serious since 2009, on outside meddling. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accused external “enemies” of fomenting the nation-wide disturbances, which broke out on December 28 and have so far claimed the lives of 21 people. Iran’s […]
Alon and Shaul Schwarz’s intriguing documentary, Aida’s Secrets, plumbs the depths of a family’s convoluted history, but leaves a viewer asking more questions than it answers. The film, set in Israel, Germany and Canada, opens in Toronto on January 12 at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema. It revolves around a mother and her two […]
The Laurents are a wealthy French family living off the fat of the land in the port of Calais. As they sit around a table in their palatial home enjoying a fine meal prepared by their eager-to-please Moroccan cook, one might think they epitomize bourgeois contentment. Think again, Austrian director Michael Haneke suggests in his newest […]