Portside

CODA may not really be 2021’s best film, but CODA’s Best Picture win might just make the best sense. As a representative of the topsy-turvy movie year, in a topsy-turvy world, handed out at a remarkably topsy-turvy Oscars, it might not be half bad.

Ahed's Knee's, by Israeli director Nadav Lapid, opens up to deliver a filmmaker’s cri de coeur about the state of his country, it also dares to ask where goodness lies, which is a far more universal and relatable question.

A concentration camp survivor is incarcerated for decades for his sexuality in this nonlinear film with a remarkable performance from Franz Rogowski.

In this quiet masterpiece, Ryusuke Hamaguchi considers grief, love, work and the soul-sustaining, life-shaping power of art.

The only difference between this film and a classic paranoid thriller like The Conversation is that now everyone is perfectly aware that they’re being listened to at all times.

Latino stories are being told in volumes not seen in recent memory. For those following a decades-long quest for greater opportunities in Hollywood, there are signs that 2022 could be the year the Latino storyline is finally rewritten. 

Films from Tantura to Descendant challenge the powerful. But it’s still up to us to witness the truth. The past can’t be changed. But if we won’t tell the truth about it, we can’t learn from it. We can’t even understand ourselves.

Over this next century, China wants to use the movies to rebrand itself, and it has learned how to do so from the best.

Two-time Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi hits home once more with this complex tale of a debtor who tries to make good.

A new documentary film recounts how Hampshire College students and alumni rallied to save their renowned 60’s-era experimental college from its own scheming administration.