Portside

For God knows how long, the women of an isolated religious community have been drugged with cow tranquilizer and raped on a regular basis during the night. The women had been told they were being violated by ghosts, demons, or even Satan himself — punishment for their own improprieties. They believed that lie until two young girls saw one of the rapists as he left one night. The women of the colony, have 48 hours to decide what their future will be like. Will they leave or stay?

The latest feature from Jafar Panahi, who is currently imprisoned in Iran, explores the subversive power and the ethical limitations of filmmaking.

Democracy Now interviews director Santiago Mitre about “Argentina, 1985,” his dramatization of the Trial of the Juntas, when a civilian court prosecuted Argentina’s former military leaders for brutal crimes committed during the U.S.-backed right-wing military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983. The film just won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture in a Non-English Language and is also shortlisted for an Oscar for best international film.

If only Emancipation actually had a memorable message. Despite a committed cast and stunning cinematography, the film’s script is too blunt and the direction too ham-fisted to make it anything more than another rote entry in the slavery-movie genre.

Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes' expansive and emotional documentary about the Jane Collective sheds necessary light on a very recent history.

Audrey Diwan’s film adaptation of Annie Ernaux’s abortion memoir, Happening, captures the violence and drama of its source material. It depicts a time when sex, for young women — without the resources of contraception and abortion — carried unfathomable consequences.

For almost two decades before 1939, Alfredo Cecchetti worked as a cameraman documenting the rise of the Fascist Party in Italy and its leader Il Duce, Benito Mussolini. Alfredo C. helped to immortalize the great machine of the Italian Fascist Regime – both in Italy covering countless public appearances of Mussolini and after 1939, the Italian invasion of Albania, as he followed the Italian troops and then filmed the new Italian settlers. Embedded in the archive are many films that were part of the Italian Fascist propaganda machine.

The Northman is about a glowering, muscle-bound man-mountain named Prince Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård, son of Stellan) who as a boy witnesses the killing of his father, King Aurvandill (Ethan Hawke), and the abduction of his mother, Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman), by the king’s betraying half-bastard brother Fjölnir (Claes Bang). Amleth vows revenge.