Latest news with #Amrum
Elle
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Elle
The 15 Best Cannes Films That Will Dominate This Awards Season
With its clear blue Mediterranean waters, unpredictable May weather, red carpet glitz and glamour, and timed standing ovations, the Cannes Film Festival was once again a glorious sight to behold in its 78th edition. But as always, the real heroes were the movies themselves, as well as the artists who brought their cinematic offerings to the French Riviera. It's always hard to pick out the best titles out of a festival as richly multifaceted as Cannes. But out of the 40 features I was able to screen, here are 15 outstanding films you should look forward to in the coming months, through the awards season and beyond. (Shout-out to honorable mentions Sound of Falling and Yes!.) In what could be called a departure for the Turkish-German auteur of Head-On, Akın's classical Amrum follows a kid on the eponymous German island in the final days of WWII. He is Nanning (Jasper Billerbeck, a gifted newcomer), a burdened child raised by a Nazi mother, indoctrinated by the Hitler youth ideology against his will. But as he slowly discovers his own moral compass, he realizes that it's always been there to help him know right from wrong. Structured like a dark but graceful fable that follows Nanning across the island as he looks for basic supplies to feed his mother, Amrum (written by Hark Bohm and based on his own memories) becomes an act of generosity in featuring one such selfless good deed. It's a quietly soul-stirring watch. Fear the exploding fury of an unsatisfied new mother living in the sticks, and revel in one of Jennifer Lawrence's career-best performances. After Causeway (2022), it is still an unparalleled experience to see her embrace the freewheeling and risky corners of independent cinema, the Winter's Bone kind that made us fall in love with her in the first place. Wild, feral, and meticulously designed, Lynne Ramsay's fiercely original Die, My Love puts Lawrence and Robert Pattinson through the ringer as they sexily and boundlessly portray a ferocious couple. The buzz in Cannes coined this as a 'postpartum depression movie,' but that incomplete shorthand misrepresents the truth at the heart of Ramsay's film. Die, My Love is both a scorching dissection of coupledom, and a cinematic ode to every untamable woman in touch with her desire-filled heart and prickly mind—women who unapologetically want it the way they want it. Living in the ever-divided U.S. and witnessing some of the country's worst instincts around science-denying bigotry can make one go insane. In his follow up to Beau is Afraid's intoxicating odyssey into the human psyche, Ari Aster transforms that everyday American insanity into one of the most artistically complete and compulsively watchable doom-scrolls of the year. It's insightful, gloriously bonkers, and often very funny. (Perhaps it's time we acknowledge that Aster's sense of humor is just as sharp as his horror chops.) His Eddington is both the definitive COVID movie and a modern-day Western of sorts, culminating into a superbly directed and gradually darkening finale. Now an Aster mainstay, Joaquin Phoenix is unsurprisingly sensational here as his town's corrupt sheriff. As is Pedro Pascal, in the role of his primary adversary. Hermanus's beautiful 2022 film Living was a masterclass in tender restraint, and the same can be said for his pitch-perfect Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor starrer, steering a quietly epic love story between two young musicologists against the backdrop of WWI. While the matter-of-fact way Hermanus treats the love and longing between the two men as a given in a period movie is quietly radical, what's most special about The History of Sound is how timelessly classical it feels. Its continents-spanning scope and journey through the unique sounds and musical notes of the olden Americana (the soundtrack is achingly beautiful) put you inside the pages of a great, lost novel, all the way through the movie's richly earned, Atonement-like ending. Back in the '90s, we used to get this type of high-brow yet accessible prestige picture often enough. Today, it feels like a rare treat to luxuriate in. It was a historic event for Jafar Panahi to return to Cannes in person for the first time since 2003. The Iranian master who's been frequently targeted by the Iranian regime, arrested for years on end, and banned from filmmaking has never stopped challenging his government through groundbreaking work like This Is Not a Film (2011). Released from prison in February of 2023, Panahi now signs his name under one of his best and most personal films to date, following a group of everyday people as they try to determine whether the man they've captured is actually the one who's tortured them in prison. Initially a revenge thriller, then an expansive and dignified interrogation of notions like vengeance, forgiveness, morality, and closure, this year's deserving Palme d'Or winner makes an exquisite case for grabbing onto our humanity for dear life, whatever the circumstances might be. Movies as soulfully lived-in and intimately observed as The Little Sister are hard to come by. Led by a stunningly assured performance by Nadia Melliti (this year's Best Actress winner at the festival), Herzi's low-key meditation is a patient and compassionate little drama about a practicing Muslim girl in Paris, navigating the beats of her possibility-filled city, discovering her burgeoning identity as a lesbian, and trying to reconcile her needs and desires with the teachings of her religion. Among the film's finest achievements lies in Herzi's absolute refusal of cliches. Where a lesser movie would have milked the conservative Muslim family trope (which this Muslim critic has had enough of), The Little Sister fashions a beautiful mother-daughter scene where unconditional love is deeply felt, and packs a profoundly universal punch. What would a Kelly Reichardt heist movie look and feel like? You'll have your answer with the dazzling little caper The Mastermind, a gentle and wonderful dramedy of sorts enlivened by the spirit of the '70s cinema (but low-key and unfussy). Josh O'Connor touchingly and deviously plays an art thief in a New England town, both down on his luck and hampered by a series of poor decisions. With a winsomely jazzy score that brings out the idiosyncratic humor of the film, The Mastermind is a new American gem, and perhaps Reichardt's most commercial film date. The first Nigerian film to ever premiere at Cannes, Davies Jr.'s impressive debut tells a pressure-cooker of a story unfolding across a single day in 1993, following a mostly absent father (the incredible Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) as he journeys from a rural town to Lagos with his two young sons who idolize him. With the backdrop of the country's presidential election, Davies Jr.'s introspective first film is an accomplished study of contrasts: violence juxtaposed against humanity, social unrest against the gentle and genial moments shared by the family, and a childlike wonder against the dire circumstances. The film is also a multilayered portrayal of Black masculinity, both adoringly seen through the eyes of the film's young characters and carried with poetic poise by Dìrísù. Linklater's elegant love letter to the influential era in French cinema (which even inspired the New Hollywood generation) would be a towering achievement even if it did no more than generously invite budding cinephiles to film history without intimidating them. But the American auteur of loose-limbed rhythms and organically flowy dialogues accomplishes a lot more with his joyously beautiful telling of the making of Jean-Luc Godard's game-changing Breathless. In stunning black and white, and with the grainy sound quality of the era, he gives new life to the period picture, making it romantic, exquisitely detailed, and timeless. With Guillaume Marbeck and Zoey Deutch's enthralling and uncannily exacting performances as Godard and Jean Seberg, the list of masters Nouvelle Vague honors (François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Agnès Varda, and more) is as rich as the film that surrounds them. Linklater loves this period, and he wants to make you a lover, too. 'Sweet' probably wouldn't be the first word that a BDSM romance would bring to mind. Yet that word perfectly sums up Pillion, the new film from debuting writer-director Harry Lighton. Living with his supportive and amiable parents, Harry Melling's instantly lovable young chap tries to understand the full spectrum of his identity as a gay man, while (in the film's words) an 'impossibly handsome' Alexander Skarsgård portrays a hardcore motorcyclist that becomes Melling's object of attraction. There is kinky sex, instances of abusive dynamics, boot licking and some other shocking images throughout Pillion, fearlessly realized by the two performers. But thanks to the delicate tonal line Lighton radiantly walks with feeling and humor within a subculture, all that takes a back seat to the deeply resonant and disarming coming-of-age story at the film's core. A terrific debut that brings thriller vibes to an all-boys summer camp for water polo, The Plague asks timely questions about bullying, budding masculinity, and sportsmanship. Ingeniously utilizing the staple moves of the horror genre, this brilliantly written feature starts off as a Conclave of sorts among tween boys (complete with a restlessly pursuing camera and a seesaw-y score), to later on settle into a disturbing probe into the existential dreads of male adolescence. Everett Blunck is marvelous as the newly bullied kid infected by a symbolic and mysterious plague, as is Joel Edgerton with his limited screen time as the boys' coach. But the real showstopper is the chief tormentor of the camp, played by Kayo Martin in a performance that signals the arrival of a future movie star. The most adventurous and formally ambitious film of this year's competition (and one of the section's most gorgeous, too), Bi Gan's follow-up to Long Day's Journey Into Night feels like being inside a dream. And like a dream, it's hard to do justice to by mere words, and is perhaps even more impossible to classify. A chaptered yet fluid narrative takes us through a volatile journey throughout the history of cinema with nods to its varying styles, eras, and masters like Méliès and Murnau, while the film thrillingly reinvents itself at every turn. Stars Jackson Yee and Shu Qi are continually surprising, and the mind-blowing oner that Resurrection culminates into is a soul-stirring feat that will inspire generations to come. You won't see a better political thriller this year than Filho's ultra-chic genre entry, loosely in the spirit of a Costa-Gavras picture. On the heels of last year's Oscar-winning Brazilian masterwork I'm Still Here, this is another knockout set against the traumatic backdrop of the country's dictatorship. Recently seen in Civil War, Wagner Moura delivers a deeply enigmatic performance in his return to Brazilian cinema as a '70s-era tech man who aims to reconnect with his son in a small town, while assassins slowly close in on him. With an agile and gradually darkening script that traces a mysterious severed leg amid the corrupt enclaves of a country's harrowing past, The Secret Agent is poised to have a strong showing throughout the awards season (after already winning Best Director and Actor prizes in Cannes). Bonus: You'll love all the well-calibrated needle drops and nostalgic cinematic references that include Jaws. You've likely heard that singer Charli xcx declared the upcoming season as the 'Joachim Trier Summer,' a phrase immortalized by Elle Fanning with the stylish T-shirt she wore in Cannes. Well, let's also call this a 'Joachim Trier Awards Season,' as his deeply reflective film on generational trauma and familial healing through art and cinema is about to make a splash on the heels of his beloved The Worst Person in the World. Reuniting with his Worst Person star Renate Reinsve—she plays a feverish actress haunted by the past—and giving Stellan Skarsgård one of his career-defining roles as a dispassionate film director steering an unconventional personal project, Trier tells a heart-swelling and unexpectedly humor-filled tale that will break you before it makes you whole again. You might detect traces of Chekhov and hints of the best qualities of the director's Oslo Trilogy here, and leave the movie with a newfound gratitude for all that cinema can do. The future of British social realism in cinema looks more promising than ever, thanks to actor Harris Dickinson's directorial debut, telling the contemporary story of a homeless man in London and the dead-end cycle he finds himself in. The fact that Urchin studiously resembles the British classics isn't the least bit surprising, given it's steered by an avid cinephile who proudly wears a tattoo of Kes on his arm, and evidently knows his Ken Loach and Mike Leigh inside and out. Still, Urchin doesn't at all carbon-copy what came before it. Lifted up by Frank Dillane's searing breakthrough performance and deepened by Dickinson's profoundly humanistic writing, the actor-director's thoughtful vision is completely modern and his own. He might be the most exciting new auteur to watch since the Safdie Brothers.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Amrum' Review: Diane Kruger in Fatih Akin's Sentimental Drama Set During the Last Days of Nazi Germany
In Amrum, Fatih Akin stages a sentimental conversation between himself and his mentor, the German director Hark Bohm. This project, which premiered at Cannes outside the main competition, was born of a collaboration between the two filmmakers: Bohm wrote the screenplay, which is based on memories of his youth in the waning days of World War II, and Akin directed (as well as helped edit the script). Indeed, one of the film's intertitles calls Amrum a 'Hark Bohm film by Fatih Akin.' That's a useful note, because it announces Amrum as atypical of the Turkish-German filmmaker's usual offerings. It doesn't have the thriller textures of In the Fade or the grittiness of Head-On. With its focus on the experiences of a young boy, Amrum most closely aligns with Akin's 2016 coming-of-age drama Goodbye Berlin. More from The Hollywood Reporter Cannes Gives Warm Welcome to Dardennes and 'Young Mother's Home' 'Resurrection' Review: Director Bi Gan's Beguiling, Beautifully Realized Journey Through the Life, Death and Possible Rebirth of Cinema 'Woman and Child' Review: An Unwieldy Iranian Melodrama Sustained by Great Performances and a Gifted Young Director But even that film, with its surreal elements, had a touch more edge. Amrum lives in the category of movies that confront the cruelty of Nazism through the perspective of children. It's less cloying than The Boy in the Striped Pajamas but more earnest than JoJo Rabbit. The film stars returning Akin collaborator Diane Kruger as an anti-fascist farmer on the titular island off the German coast, and features a strong turn from Jasper Ole Billerbeck as protagonist Nanning. We meet Nanning in the summer of 1945, working alongside his friend Hermann (Klan Koppke) on a farm run by Tessa (Kruger). As they till the land, a horse and buggy filled with people pulls up and a brief conversation between Tessa and the driver reveals that those in the wagon are Russian-born German refugees who have been sent from Berlin. Tessa, fed up with the war and keenly aware of diminishing resources within this tight-knit community, denigrates the Nazi cause and hopes for an end to it all. Ignorant to the implication of Tessa's statement, Nanning alludes to it later at dinner with his mother Hille (Laura Tonke) and his aunt Ena (Lisa Hagmeister). He asks if his father will be home soon because the war is almost over. Hille, a fierce Nazi loyalist, is appalled by the question and the next day she reports Tessa to the Nazi authorities. Nanning loses his job and is labeled a rat by his peers. Akin uses this early moment to establish the tension between Amrum's long-time, working-class residents and the Nazis transplanted there because of the war. Nanning, who is a member of the Hitler Youth corp and whose father plays a critical role within the Nazi party, doesn't question how he's seen by others until his mother reports Tessa to the authorities. But still, he remains loyal to her. The drama in Amrum kicks off when Hille, pregnant with her fourth child, becomes depressed by Hitler's diminishing influence. At her lowest point, she off-handedly wishes for white bread, butter and honey, and Nanning, a child who wants his mother to feel better, takes it as a mandate. He sets off on a series of quests to find these rare goods. His adventures take him across the island, where he interacts with an assortment of people with different political views. He also comes to understand more about his family's personal history and the depth of his mother and father's cruelty. Billerbeck's performance is Amrum's emotional engine. The actor channels Nanning's initial naïveté through sorrowful eyes that grow more steely as his adventures harden him to harsh realities. He captures the adolescent desire to fit in and balances that well with the grief that comes from realizing your parents are not who you thought they were. Kruger's role in Amrum is minor but affecting. She plays Tessa, a potato farmer, as a kind of counterpart to Hille. Unlike Nanning's mother, Tessa doesn't blindly support the Nazis and doesn't see Hitler as the path to Germany's salvation. There's a groundedness to her character, who embodies a rare kind of moral clarity. Amrum is hardly a piece of fascist apologia nor does it try to build a sympathetic portrait of Nazis. Akin uses a child's perspective to wrestle with a nation's conception of itself in the waning days of brutality. Still, one does wonder if the message about the Third Reich's rotten core gets lost in the classic, edenic cinematography (by Karl Walter Lindenlaub). Akin leans into a gorgeous visual language that evokes nostalgia. He trades frenetic jump cuts and hectic camera angles that define films like Head-On for meditative wide shots that bask in the scale and beauty of the island. Some of the most compelling scenes in Amrum focus on the economy of conflict and how war turns basic commodities — eggs, flour and even sugar — into luxury goods. As Nanning procures these items for his mother, evidence of the Nazis' weakened authority mounts. His mother's depression worsens — especially at the news of Hitler's death — and the young boy feels intensifying pressure to help alleviate it. But the more he learns about his parents and the island, the more he must contend with his own sense of morality. What does it mean to lose faith in one's role models and form an identity outside their ideological purview? It's a conventional narrative drama, but Amrum approaches this question with commendable tenderness. Best of The Hollywood Reporter Hollywood Stars Who Are One Award Away From an EGOT 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
German Works by Fatih Akin, Mascha Schilinski, Christian Petzold Unspool in Cannes, Animation Set for Major Market Showcase
German films and co-productions in Cannes this year are sure to entice festgoers and buyers alike with an eclectic selection heavy on historical drama and animation fare. Highly anticipated works by Fatih Akin, Mascha Schilinski and Christian Petzold are premiering at the festival along with German co-productions from Wes Anderson, Sergei Loznitsa and Kirill Serebrennikov that explore postwar Germany, lives intertwined through time, loss and grief, international espionage, Stalin's Great Purge and a war criminal's escape from justice. More from Variety Wes Anderson Mocks Trump's Movie Tariffs at Cannes: 'Can You Hold Up the Movie in Customs? It Doesn't Ship That Way' Wes Anderson Powers Satyajit Ray's 'Aranyer Din Ratri' Rescue for Cannes Classics Wes Anderson Delights Cannes as 'Phoenician Scheme' Lands 6.5-Minute Standing Ovation, Leading Lady Mia Threapleton Overcome With Tears Unspooling in Cannes Premiere, Akin's 'Amrum' is a family drama set in 1945 on the titular North Sea German island and based on the autobiographical novel of screenwriter Hark Bohm, who also penned the script. It centers on 12-year-old Nanning (Jasper Billerbeck), who does everything he can to help his mother feed the family during the last days of the war, only to face all new challenges when peace finally arrives. The Beta Cinema title also stars Diane Kruger, Laura Tonke, Lisa Hagmeister, Detlev Buck and Matthias Schweighöfer. ''Amrum' is a very special project: it combines Hark Bohm's personal story with Fatih Akin's signature style and brings a piece of Schleswig-Holstein to the Croisette,' noted Helge Albers, CEO of regional funder MOIN, which supported the pic. Vying for the Golden Palm, Schilinski's sophomore work, 'Sound of Falling,' produced by Studio Zentral and handled internationally by MK2 Films, tells the story of four women from different time periods who spend their youth on the same farmstead and whose lives are eerily intertwined. Petzold's 'Miroirs No. 3,' sold by The Match Factory, screens in Directors' Fortnight and marks the director's fourth collaboration with Paula Beer, who plays a music student struggling with the sudden loss of her boyfriend and the mysterious family who offers her assistance. Anderson's U.S.-German co-production 'The Phoenician Scheme,' co-produced by and shot at Studio Babelsberg near Berlin, also premieres in competition. Boasting an all-star cast, the period film stars Benicio del Toro as a European business magnate facing major international challenges to his ambitious infrastructure project in the fictional West Asian nation of Phoenicia. Focus Features is distributing the film globally. Likewise in competition is Loznitsa's 1937-set 'Two Prosecutors,' whose producers include Leipzig-based LOOKSfilm. The Coproduction Office title follows an idealistic young Soviet prosecutor who comes across a letter written by a prisoner. Believing the man to be a victim of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) — at the time, the Soviet Union's dreaded interior ministry and secret police — the prosecutor embarks on a dangerous journey in the pursuit of justice in Stalin's USSR. Serebrennikov's 'The Disappearance of Josef Mengele,' based on the novel by Olivier Guez and co-produced by Berlin-base Lupa Film, screens in Cannes Premiere, with Kinology handling international sales. German actor August Diehl stars as the notorious Nazi doctor who, as a fugitive, flees to South America following World War II, eluding capture for his crimes. Also vying for the Golden Palm are Joachim Trier's Scandinavian drama 'Sentimental Value,' which counts Berlin-based Komplizen Film among its co-producers; and Kleber Mendonça Filho's historical thriller 'The Secret Agent,' set in 1977 Brazil and starring Wagner Moura and Udo Kier and co-produced by Berlin's One Two Films. Other competition titles with German co-producers include Carla Simón's Spanish drama 'Romería' (Ventall Cinema); 'La petite dernière' by French filmmaker Hafsia Herzi (Katuh Studio); and Tarik Saleh's Egyptian drama 'Eagles of the Republic' (Films Boutique). German producers likewise backed a number of Un Certain Regard selections, including Morad Mostafa's Cairo-set 'Aisha Can't Fly' (Mayana Film); Francesco Sossai's Italian drama 'The Last One for the Road' (Maze Pictures) and Diego Céspedes' 1980s-set Chilean tale 'The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo' (Weydemann Bros.). Also unspooling in the sidebar is Arab and Tarzan Nasser's 'Once Upon a Time in Gaza,' which counts Hamburg companies Riva Filmproduktion and Red Balloon among its co-producers. The film follows on from the Nasser brothers' festival hit 'Gaza mon Amour.' This year's Cannes Film Market, meanwhile, boasts German comedy, family, drama, documentary and animated fare. Picture Tree Intl. (PTI) is presenting Simon Verhoeven's 'Old White Man' from Wiedemann & Berg and Sentana Filmproduktion. The comedy stars Jan Josef Liefers as advertising manager Heinz, who sets out to prove he's no old white man with a carefully orchestrated dinner party intended to secure a promotion but that instead turns into a minefield of political correctness, awkward revelations and unexpected chaos. PTI is also screening 'Prank,' a family adventure-comedy directed by Benjamin Heisenberg ('The Robber'), who co-wrote the script with Peer Klehmet ('The Famous Five'). Produced by Berlin-based Kundschafter Film and Zurich's Tellfilm, the film follows 12-year-old Chinese exchange student Xi Zhou (Max Zheng), whose seemingly innocent April Fool's prank spirals out of control and drags his host family, their son Lucas (Noèl Gabriel Kipp) and his crush Charly (Maïmouna Rudolph-Mbacké) into a tumultuous adventure. Among the titles presented by Pluto Film are two award-winning German works: Julia Lemke and Anna Koch's Berlinale documentary 'Circusboy,' about 11-year-old Santino, a child of the circus; and Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay's film crew thriller 'Hysteria,' which won the European Cinema Label in Berlin. The Playmaker Munich offers Christina Tournatzès' 'Karla,' based on a true story, about a 12-year-old girl who, in 1962 Munich, files a complaint against her own father, seeking protection from years of abuse. The company also presents Viktor Jakovleski and Nikias Chryssos' 'Rave On,' which follows Kosmo, a reclusive music producer who tries to deliver his latest record to a legendary DJ playing in Berlin's most notorious techno club, but what begins as a simple mission soon derails into an existential rave odyssey. Aaron Altaras and Klemens Schick star. Likewise in The Playmaker lineup is Norbert Lechner's 'The Secret Floor,' in which 12-year-old Karli, newly arrived in the Alps, where his parents have acquired a hotel, discovers he can travel back in time in the building's old elevator – to the year 1938. There he befriends lively Jewish girl Hannah and shoeshiner Georg and witnesses the rising menace of the Third Reich. Family entertainment specialist Studio 100, meanwhile, is showcasing a slew of animation productions: 'Heidi – Rescue of the Lynx,' by Tobias Schwarz and Aizea Roca and set for release this year, follows the spirited 8-year-old Swiss heroine who lives in the Alps with her gruff but loving grandfather. After rescuing an injured lynx cub, she uncovers a dastardly plot by a sly industrialist that threatens her beloved home and the entire alpine ecosystem. In 'Arnie & Barney,' by Sean Heuston and set for delivery in 2026, an ant platoon tries to save their community during a severe drought. Not cut out for heroics, inept ant soldiers Arnie and Barney decide to tackle the problem by themselves, inadvertently becoming the most unlikely of heroes in the process. 'Conni – Mystery of the Crane,' by Dirk Hampel, follows a young girl and her friends who help a hurt crane recover from his injuries in the hope that he can fly south with his flock. Currenty in production, the film is also set for delivery in 2026. In Rob Sprackling and Raúl Garcia's 'Flamingo Flamenco,' a dancing flamingo named Rosie is left traumatized after losing her sister to an attack by wild dogs. A shadow of her former self, the grieving Rosie has also lost the joy of dance – until she meets Carlos, a carefree and exuberant lizard who encourages her to dance once more. Currently in production, 'Flamingo Flamenco' is set for release in 2027. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The President's Cake' Review: Hasan Hadi's Warm and Heart-Tugging Tale Sends Dutiful Kids on an Odyssey in Saddam Hussein's Iraq
Stay at a film festival long enough, and you will eventually notice certain shared themes and connective tissues between movies. Even then, the happenstance link between Hasan Hadi's compassionate directorial debut 'The President's Cake' and Fatih Akin's quiet epic 'Amrum' is something of a shock, as both movies send their young protagonists onto grand quests to gather around basic supplies like flour, sugar, eggs and so on at times of tragic scarcity born under dictators. Then again, as specific as this plot similarity is, perhaps its emergence shouldn't be that much of a surprise, considering the current, war-torn state of the world that's once again victimizing children. Filmmakers trying to navigate our present-day realities would dig into their own pasts and memories. With 'The President's Cake,' Hadi has done exactly that, closely following his lead-character Lamia (Baneen Ahmed Nayyef, in an impossibly soulful performance). More from Variety SNL Film Lines Up Cast for Soccer Comedy 'Olde Boys' as Screenbound Launches Sales (EXCLUSIVE) Guillermo del Toro Teases 'Incredibly Emotional' 'Frankenstein' at Cannes: 'I'm Not Doing a Horror Movie' Shia LaBeouf's Theater Company From Hell: Cannes Doc Reveals Actor's Misconduct With Students and Hopes for Redemption It's Iraq in the 1990s — as Hadi remembers it. The film is set among the Mesopotamian marshes of his childhood, where school children glide through marshlands in canoes to get to their classes, at a time when everyday Iraqis across the country were starving due to U.S. sanctions. And still, Saddam Hussein, like a Marie Antoinette of sorts, continued threatened consequences if Iraqis did not celebrate his April 28 birthday with a lavish cake, as if supplies were easy to attain. Every school created a pool of students to do the cleaning, supply a fruit platter, decorate and, finally, bake a frosted dessert. In her small town and modest school, which often pledges allegiance to Saddam with collective chants, that last holy (and expensive) duty falls on the intrepid Lamia, who lives with her sacrificing grandmother Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat) and doesn't go anywhere without her beloved rooster Hindi. While the sight of Lamia carrying around the proud cockerel has the makings of an image straight out of a children's tale, nothing in the little girl's life has storybook qualities. Her living conditions don't necessarily foster studying habits, even though she tries hard to keep up with her academics. Sadly, Lamia's ailing grandmother can no longer take care of her, planning to hand her upbringing onto a local couple from better means. What's Lamia to do if not run away from her eventual fate, while also gathering the ingredients to bake Saddam's cake? Her shouty teacher had ordered an extra creamy filling too. Joining Lamia in her journey, two days before the forced countrywide celebrations, is her best friend and neighbor Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem), stuck with the task of procuring some fruits for the occasion. The two team up, hitching a ride to a nearby city with more ample supplies. First, they find themselves in the truck of a seemingly helpful mailman (Rahim AlHaj), a character that returns later on. (It's genuinely funny when Lamia asks, 'Are you Allah?' to him once she realizes his reach in delivering the mail all across the country.) Later on, they manage to procure some eggs, evade a close call at a bakery as Lamia tries to steal flour and get duped by an array of cruel adults who take advantage of their innocence. In one of the most heartbreaking incidents, Lamia sells his family heirloom watch in exchange for counterfeit money. While 'The President's Cake' mostly plays like a genial fairy tale, with superbly balanced humor and drama, Hadi still unsparing about the ills of patriarchal society. As such, the kids witness a male grocer taking advantage of a hungry and very pregnant woman, trying to lure her to the backroom with the promise of cases of high-end foods. (When the young woman pleas 'Don't you see my condition?' in protest, the slimy guy simply suggests that it is thanks to her pregnancy that there would be 'no risk.') In a later scene, Lamia narrowly escapes the claws of a similarly corrupt and ill-intentioned predator, using her wits and sharpened intuition. With the likes of Chris Columbus and Marielle Heller among its executive producers, Hadi's film has the makings of a commercial arthouse winner, filled with observant period details in its lived-in production design — the organized chaos of the roads, the dust in the air, all the Saddam-related signage and so on. 'The President's Cake' especially pulls at the heartstrings when Lamia and Saeed briefly and predictably turn against one another, after establishing their sweet camaraderie through some wonderfully written dialogue and chatty bickering. It's in these emotionally intimate moments that Hadi and his cinematographer Tudor Vladimir Panduru especially reach for expressive lighting to amplify the kids' dignity, as well as thoughtful close-ups of the film's wonderful young cast — Saeed's toughened-beyond-his-years visage, and Lamia's dramatic eyes, often on the verge of tears. What packs a punch in 'The President's Cake' is the film's relatively uneventful ending. The kids might get their cake and return to relative safety in the conclusion. But Lamia and Saeed's future doesn't come with any colorful icing on top. Best of Variety The Best Albums of the Decade
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Breaking Baz @ Cannes: Floating With Women In Cinema At The Hotel du Cap & Breaking Into The Mubi/Match Factory Soiree
Catherine Deneuve and Imogen Poots, having feasted on tomato ravioli with basil and coulis of green zebra tomatoes — and get this, infused with lemon thyme! — were leaving the Women in Cinema dinner at Eden Roc at the fabled Hotel du Cap as I pulled up in an Uber. Wait! That was only the starter. The main course consisted of fillet of John Dory with black olive barigoule of artichokes. More from Deadline Breaking Baz: Paula Wagner On Why Tom Cruise Remains A Shining Star, Her Part In The 'Mission: Impossible' Franchise, A New Film About John Fogerty & Creedence, And The Art Of Teaching Disruption Cannes Film Festival 2025 in Photos: 'Dossier 137', 'Amrum' & 'Sirât' Premieres 'The President's Cake' Review: First Time Iraqi Director Hasan Hadi Delivers One Of The Fest's Genuine Gems - Cannes Film Festival Anyhow, Deneuve and Poots were outta the building. They were done. I cased the dining room and observed that the trio of deserts — strawberry and elderflower profiterole, bergamot cheesecake and chocolate pecan tart — remained untouched where they'd been seated. (By the way, nobody seems to hang around for pudding nowadays. Is that a weight-watching thing? Such a waste.) I popped a couple of the tiny profiteroles in my mouth. Yum. I had been invited by the Red Sea Film Foundation for the afterparty. No offense was taken. The dinner was for Women in Cinema, not blokes, though David Taghioff, CEO of Library Pictures International, was invited. He was ensconced at the far end of a long table with filmmaker Gurinder Chadha and Paul Mayeda Berges — yep, another dude. Across the room Jessica Alba and jury president Juliette Binoche were exiting. The rule at these gatherings is to move with a semblance of elan. In a packed room, one can't charge like a bull — although when needs must, I have done that. So Alba and Binoche were out of my reach. In any case, I was enjoying listening to Chadha and Taghioff discuss the delicate balance of trying to mix Western and South Asian cultures on screen. It's not bloody easy, that much was clear. Venturing out to the main section of the afterparty, overlooking the Eden Roc's pool, there were helpful signs to ensure guests knew where they were. Women in Cinema was spelled out in fuchsia pink floating in the pool. Way, way back in the day, one could well envision well-inebriated revelers jumping in to 'rescue' the Women in Cinema floating signage. Come to think of it, stuff like that did happen. We're all so well-behaved these days. Perhaps cell phones and social media are to blame. Earlier, I popped along to the Mubi and Match Factory soiree at Vega la Plage. Last year's queue was so frigging long that I gave up. This year I became that appalling person who skipped the line and went to the front and asked the bouncers to find someone in charge to let me — and Kyle Buchanan, who writes 'The Projectionist' column for The New York Times — into the event. As you can imagine, that kind of 'Do you know who I am?!' stuff doesn't go down well with folk who actually don't have a f*cking clue who you are and couldn't give a damn anyway. However, a very nice man let us in, much to the chagrin of a lady who did not want to let us in. Truth be told, I kinda miss the days when I had to break in uninvited. I once had cards printed up saying I was some African prince (funnily enough, I am one) of a fictitious realm to get me into a party that Madonna was throwing out at the Palm Beach. Not only did I get in, but I danced with Madonna, so there you go. I walked a couple of times around and through the Vega la Plage. Exchanged pleasantries with some people. Had a brief chat with Akinola Davies Jr, the extraordinarily gifted Nigerian director of My Father's Shadow, which screens in Un Certain Regard on Sunday. Such a powerful film. Catch it if you can. Davies tells me that My Father's Shadow will feature at the Sydney Film Festival in June. That news made me very happy. Then I left the party, all done in under half an hour. And the queue to get in had gotten even longer. Best of Deadline 2025 TV Cancellations: Photo Gallery Where To Watch All The 'Mission: Impossible' Movies: Streamers With Multiple Films In The Franchise Everything We Know About 'My Life With The Walter Boys' Season 2 So Far
