Latest in Critics Week

Blue Sun Palace was one of the prize winners at the recently concluded Cannes Film Festival, where it took the French Touch Award for the Critics’ Week selections (Simon of the Mountain took the Grand Prize, the other major award from the section). “French…

The anarchic spirit of Julia Ducournau's Palme d'Or winner Titane lives on in Emma Benestan's Critics’ Week closer Animale, the genre-busting debut of a director who cites Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark, and the naturalist films of Chloé Zhao as influences. More surprisingly, she…

The 10th edition of the Next Step program of Cannes Critics' Week is unfolding this week at the Moulin d'Andé artists residence in Normandy. The complex, built around a 12th Century mill overlooking the River Seine, is renowned for its French New Wave connections, with François Truffaut reported to…

With the Cannes Film Festival heading towards its conclusion on Saturday, the first awards are starting to trickle out. Sidebar Critics' Week, which is devoted to first and second features, closed this evening, honoring Amanda Nell Eu's debut Tiger Stripes with its Grand Prize. (Scroll down for the full…

As the Cannes Film Festival rolls towards its conclusion on Saturday night, sidebar Critics’ Week doled out its awards this evening with the Grand Prize going to Andres Ramirez Pulido’s La Jauria. Critics' Week is devoted to first and second features, and this is Pulido’s debut meaning the film is also eligible for…

Out in the jungle, no one can hear you dragging a body around. Mind you, nobody notices much what you do in the city, either. Colombian director Andres Ramirez Pulido's debut feature, La Jauria, screening in Critics’ Week at Cannes, opens with a grab-bag of images familiar from current Latin American cinema — a couple…

Scottish writer-director Charlotte Wells lights up Cannes Critics' Week with Aftersun, the absorbing story of an 11-year-old going on holiday with her father. Paul Mescal (Normal People, The Lost Daughter) stars alongside Francesca Corio in a terrific two-hander with engaging supporting performances. Shot on location…

Child grooming is a tough subject to tackle, but Belgian director Emmanuelle Nicot takes a sensitive approach in her Critics Week feature Love According To Dalva. The key here is perspective: almost everything is shown from the point of view of a victim who has been taken into care, and who doesn't realize she has…

There is a sort of checklist for Finnish films — and I say this with love — that includes snowy exteriors, bleakly austere interiors, ice fishing and someone getting murdered with an axe. The Woodcutter Story ticks every box, plus a few more. Characters who barely speak, for example — and who may, indeed, have nothing…

The three key side events of the Cannes Film Festival – Critics' Week, ACID and the Directors' Fortnight – will not be joining the boycott of Russian cinema. The trio of sidebars released a joint statement today saying they "will continue to receive and consider films from all filmmakers regardless of their…

Prizes are beginning to roll in here at the Cannes Film Festival ahead of the main closing ceremony on Saturday night. Parallel section Critics’ Week, celebrating its 60th edition, is up first with Egyptian filmmaker Omar El Zohairi’s Feathers awarded the Nespresso Grand Prize. The surrealist story sees a magic trick…

The Cannes Film Festival's parallel Critics' Week section has unveiled its lineup for the 60th edition, which will run from July 7-15. There are seven feature films in competition, each of which is a debut meaning they are all eligible for the Camera d'Or. Romanian filmmaker and former Palme d'Or winner Cristian…