My Top Film Festival movies for 2019 (in list order)
In competition at Cannes, Berlin and Venice seemed to have mellowed but still an amazing diversity...
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19 titles
- DirectorCéline SciammaStarsNoémie MerlantAdèle HaenelLuàna BajramiOn an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.2. A sensual tone and pace to this stunning work of art... (Cannes)
- DirectorPedro AlmodóvarStarsAntonio BanderasAsier EtxeandiaLeonardo SbaragliaA film director reflects on the choices he's made in life as the past and present come crashing down around him.3. Master filmmaker at work, creating his own eight-in-a-half. A must for movie buffs... (Cannes)
- DirectorTodd PhillipsStarsJoaquin PhoenixRobert De NiroZazie BeetzDuring the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.5. Celluloid madness amplified to maximum thanks to the director and his teams visionary exploration on mental illness and its neglect, just like the garbage pilling up in the streets of Gotham, plus Phoenix's performance is breathtaking and frightening... (Venice)
- DirectorKen LoachStarsKris HitchenDebbie HoneywoodRhys McgowanHoping that self-employment through gig economy can solve their financial woes, a hard-up UK delivery driver and his wife struggling to raise a family end up trapped in the vicious circle of this modern-day form of labour exploitation.6. A family's heart wrenching journey, and this is only from everyday living in this brilliant modern neorealist movie as Master Loach depicts the struggle of a family in today's corporate World that leaves no space for normality due to the greed that surrounds us... (Cannes)
- DirectorNoah BaumbachStarsAdam DriverScarlett JohanssonJulia GreerNoah Baumbach's incisive and compassionate look at a marriage breaking up and a family staying together.9. It's like the second coming of Woody Allen, but without Woody, just Noah doing his brand of humour and drama combined to create an emotional charged piece where you felt every raw emotion delivered in this powerful observation on a marriage breakdown... (Venice)
- DirectorSteven SoderberghStarsGary OldmanAntonio BanderasAJ MeijerA widow investigates an insurance fraud, chasing leads to a pair of Panama City law partners exploiting the world's financial system.16. Love Soderbergh's creative skill in telling this convoluted story of where the rich hide their money, and the cast is at the top of their game... (Venice)
- DirectorBong Joon HoStarsSong Kang-hoLee Sun-kyunCho Yeo-jeongGreed and class discrimination threaten the newly-formed symbiotic relationship between the wealthy Park family and the destitute Kim clan.20. Joon Ho weaves a fun tale between the have-nots and the haves in this delicious dark creative social comedy... (Cannes)
- DirectorTeona Strugar MitevskaStarsZorica NushevaLabina MitevskaStefan VujisicA Macedonian woman throws herself into a traditionally men-only ceremony, kicking up a ruckus and standing her ground.22. An intense exposé on Macedonia's misogynistic culture and religious zealots who take on the pride of an ordinary young woman who fights alone for her rights... (Berlin)
- DirectorQuentin TarantinoStarsLeonardo DiCaprioBrad PittMargot RobbieA faded television actor and his stunt double strive to achieve fame and success in the final years of Hollywood's Golden Age in 1969 Los Angeles.23. Tarantino's homage to Hollywood at the end of the 60's with a fantasy ending just like Inglourious Basterds... (Cannes)
- DirectorAgnieszka HollandStarsJames NortonVanessa KirbyPeter SarsgaardA Welsh journalist breaks the news in the western media of the famine in Ukraine in the early 1930s.41. Well told by director Holland and writer Chalupa, showing the historic atrocities of Russia, a country now heading down the same modern path thanks to the current tyrant leader... (Berlin)
- DirectorTerrence MalickStarsAugust DiehlValerie PachnerMaria SimonThe Austrian Franz Jägerstätter, a conscientious objector, refuses to fight for the Nazis in World War II.57. Malick's fragmented visual poetry on the life of Franz Jägerstätter who refused to bath in Nazi bloodshed... (Cannes)
- DirectorJames GrayStarsBrad PittTommy Lee JonesRuth NeggaAstronaut Roy McBride undertakes a mission across an unforgiving solar system to uncover the truth about his missing father and his doomed expedition that now, 30 years later, threatens the universe.57. The Apocalypse Now kind of journey through space with a bit of Solaris thrown in, and Pitt loses his charm for some serious and effecting acting... (Venice)
- DirectorJim JarmuschStarsBill MurrayAdam DriverTilda SwintonTwo pioneers fight for their lives and their love on the American frontier during the Civil War.58. To know the works of Jarmusch is an advantage, and his piss-take on the Zombie genre is a treat with a top cult cast that perfectly play it deadpan in this wry and dry zombie feast where the joke is on us (but mostly the followers of a previous US delusional President)... (Cannes)
- DirectorShannon MurphyStarsEliza ScanlenMichelle LottersToby WallaceMilla, a seriously ill teenager, falls in love with a drug dealer, Moses, her parents' worst nightmare.62. Well structured and quirky tone for this little Aussie film... (Venice)
- DirectorCorneliu PorumboiuStarsVlad IvanovCatrinel MarlonRodica LazarNot everything is as it seems for Cristi, a policeman who plays both sides of the law. Embarking with the beautiful Gilda on a high-stakes heist, both will have to navigate the twists and turns of corruption, treachery and deception.71. Plenty of twists and turns in this neat underplayed thriller... (Cannes)
- DirectorOlivier AssayasStarsPenélope CruzEdgar RamírezGael García BernalThe story of five Cuban political prisoners who had been imprisoned by the United States since the late 1990s on charges of espionage and murder.84. Assayas has a lot to put in this feature that should have been a mini-series about Cuban spies in Florida stopping ex-Cuban capitalists from organising terrorist attacks on Cuban soil... (Venice)
- DirectorMati DiopStarsMame Bineta SaneAmadou MbowTraoreIn a popular suburb of Dakar, workers on the construction site of a futuristic tower, without pay for months, decide to leave the country by the ocean for a better future. Among them is Souleiman, the lover of Ada, promised to another.102. The plight of refugees viewed by those left behind to deal with the issues of a backward corrupt country is dealt with a surreal touch with some romance thrown into the neorealism mix, creating a disjointed story with the many layers of plot and genres that somehow worked in a clunky way... (Cannes)
- DirectorCiro GuerraStarsMark RylanceJohnny DeppRobert PattinsonAt an isolated frontier outpost, a colonial magistrate suffers a crisis of conscience when an army colonel arrives looking to interrogate the locals about an impending uprising, using cruel tactics that horrify the magistrate.113. A thought provoking and slow somber piece on a conscientious colonial magistrate in a remote foreign outpost where the true barbarians are the ruthless soldiers... (Venice)
- DirectorIsabel CoixetStarsNatalia de MolinaGreta FernándezSara CasasnovasIn 1901, Elisa Sanchez Loriga took on the identity of Mario Sánchez to marry her lover of fifteen years, Marcela Gracia Ibeas.141. A taboo love at the turn of the 20th century that met harsh challenges, told with tenderness and in effective black and white... (Berlin)