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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Arik Rotstein’s moody Israeli film, Antenna, is ostensibly about a minor dispute concerning a cellular antenna. In actuality, it’s about family dynamics. The movie — scheduled to be screened by the Toronto Jewish Film Foundation’s Chai Tea series on Sunday, December 10 at 12:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. at the Cineplex Cinemas Empress Walk, 5095 […]
Passions erupt and flow like red-hot lava in Woody Allen’s 48th film, Wonder Wheel, which opens in Canadian theatres on December 8. Set in the 1950s amid the honky-tonk atmosphere of New York City’s Coney Island amusement park, this dark, high-strung drama delves into the lives of four people who touch each other’s hearts profoundly. […]
What would Christmas be like without iconic Christmas songs such as White Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Sleigh Ride or Chessnuts Roasting on an Open Fire? Larry Weinstein asks this intriguing question in his film, Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas, whose world premiere takes place on the Documentary Channel on December 3 at 8 p.m. CBC TV […]
She was the essence of beauty and brains. She was Hedy Lamarr, the alluring Hollywood actress and brilliant amateur scientist whose secret communication device ushered in the brave new era of cell phones, WiFi, drones, Bluetooth technology and GPS guidance systems. One of the most glamorous movie stars of the late 1930s and early 1940s, she’s the […]
You wouldn’t think that Israel, a nation besieged by enemies, lends itself to comedy. Think again. As Jews know from bitter experience, comedy defuses tensions and is tailor-made for people and countries under siege. Which brings us to Holy Air, a film written and directed by Shady Srour, a member of Israel’s large Arab minority. […]