For the first time ever, the Toronto International Film Festival is paying tribute to one of Hollywood’s greatest directors, Steven Spielberg. From December 21 to January 10, TIFF will host Close Encounters: The Cinema of Steven Spielberg, a retrospective of 28 films he has written, directed or produced. These range from Schindler’s List to Raiders […]
John Andersen’s Norwegian feature film, The Quake, revels in intimations of an imminent natural disaster. Exuding an expectant atmosphere, it leaves a viewer wondering when all hell will break loose. The sequel to The Wave, which was released in 2015, The Quake opens in Canadian theatres on December 14. It unfolds in and around Norway’s capital, […]
Roger Ailes would not have been pleased with Divide and Conquer: The Story of Rogers Ailes, Alexis Bloom’s critical biopic of the late Republican Party strategist which opens in Toronto on December 7. Bloom, a liberal filmmaker, portrays the conservative media consultant and Fox News chairman as a divisive force in American politics and as a […]
Iconic Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman was born a century ago. His life and legacy are woven into Margarethe von Trotta’s biopic, Searching for Ingmar Bergman, which opens in Toronto at the TIFF Lightbox on December 7. Bergman, one of the legendary figures of cinema, directed 45 feature films, from The Seventh Seal and Wild […]
Ben Ferencz, a chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, played a critical role in the establishment of the International Criminal Court. Now 98 and living in retirement in Delray Beach, Florida, he was instrumental in crafting the legal process by which war criminals are prosecuted. To Rosalie Abella, a justice on the Supreme Court […]
Christian Petzold’s newest film, Transit, which opens at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox on November 9, is a meditation about exile, rootlessness and trauma. Petzold bends time itself to rework Anna Seghers’ 1944 novel about a German refugee in Paris who assumes another man’s identity to save himself from fascist barbarians marching toward the city. This […]
Three antisemitic films were released by Germany in 1940, a banner year for Adolf Hitler’s regime. Poland had been conquered, spelling finis to its independence and its venerable Jewish community. France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg would surrender to the German army. Only Britain would successfully resist the Nazi onslaught. At a moment when the Nazi juggernaut […]
Gustav Moller’s Danish thriller, The Guilty, which opens in Toronto on October 19, keeps you on the edge of your seat. Unfolding over several hours in dim-lit cubicle at a police call center, it’s a well-crafted movie, exceedingly spare, focused and suspenseful. Virtually the only character in it is Asger Holm (Jakob Cedergreen), a laconic […]
Wilshire Boulevard Temple, the oldest synagogue in Los Angeles, was in danger of abandonment in the first decade of the 21st century. Membership was declining and the building was falling apart. Its fate hung in the balance. Thanks to the vision and persistence of its senior rabbi, Steve Leder, the shul, listed on the National […]
Nearly two years after his widely unexpected victory in the U.S. presidential election, one may be forgiven for wondering how Republican Donald Trump managed to defeat his much better qualified Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. Clinton, after all, had excellent credentials. She had been the American secretary of state for four years. And she had learned […]