As of this writing, I’ve been living in Switzerland for almost eighteen years, basically my entire adult life. One of the funnier things I’ve noticed over that time, as it pertains to my professional domain of culture and film journalism, is how the theatrical distribution model works on the national level: basically, because there are three major linguistic areas (German, French and Italian), each territory generally follows the release schedule of the relevant neighboring country.

The staggered strategy also applies to national productions, sometimes with very long gaps between regions. My favorite example is when my colleague Antonio Mariotti interviewed Ursula Meier at the Zurich Film Festival for the Swiss premiere of her family drama The Line. This was in October 2022, and the interview ran in the Italian-language daily newspaper Il Corriere del Ticino when the film released in that part of the country – in November 2023, nearly a year after the French and German areas (where it released in January and February, respectively).

This is why I’ve been particularly impressed by the rollout plan adopted by Cineworx for Erik Bernasconi’s Becaària, a coming-of-age story set in the Ticino mountains over an eventful summer in 1977. Based on a best-selling novel by author and journalist Giorgio Genetelli, it is a film profoundly tied to the territory it depicts – the end credits contain a dedication to the inhabitants of the Valle Maggia region, which was affected by severe flooding. It is also a story that can appeal to viewers outside of the Italian-speaking confines, despite the highly local title (a dialectal term that becomes a running gag throughout the film).

That nationwide appeal was first seen as a possibility back in January, when Becaària premiered at the Solothurn Film Festival – the leading event for national cinema – and won the audience award, showing there was interest in a project that, under different circumstances, might have relied solely on the festival to be seen in theaters outside of Ticino (prior to the advent of the streaming platform Play Suisse, which features Swiss films and TV shows with subtitles in all national languages, Solothurn and other festivals were the main chance to see a lot of movies outside of their specific region).

And so, Cineworx decided to give the film what comes as close as possible to a nationwide release: August 20 in German-speaking Switzerland, September 2 in Romandie (the French-language region) and September 17 in Ticino. This was – and still is – preceded by numerous previews at open air venues across the country (dates available in my highlighted story on Instagram), with Erik Bernasconi in attendance to share the passion for a project that allowed him to once again show a new side of the Italian-speaking areas (having previously turned Bellinzona into a nightmare city for the thriller TV series Alter Ego).

So, no offense toThe Odyssey (my favorite release of the summer) or Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but in its own charmingly small way Becaària is the true Swiss cinematic event of these warm months, now also ready to lead us into the cooler time of the year. Personally, I plan on watching it at least once more on the big screen. Shameless plug for my Italian-speaking readers: I will be writing about it in the paper next week.

As I write this, Visions du Réel has just closed the book on the in-person component of its 57^th edition, the last one under the stewardship of Emilie Bujès, who is now ready to embark on a new adventure in charge of the Geneva International Film Festival. With her at the helm, the documentary festival in Nyon has grown in prestige over the years, drawing increasingly larger crowds thanks to its rich array of contemporary documentaries and themed programs devoted to major cinematic voices (this year’s special guests included Kelly Reichardt and Sergei Loznitsa).

This year, I was particularly interested in checking out the Swiss selections, in no small part because of something I’ve already touched upon in a previous piece (see below): last month, the Swiss people were asked to vote on a few matters, including the proposal to reduce the radio/TV license fee by almost 50%. Had that initiative gone through, it would have been disastrous for the national film industry, whose public funding relies on support from the public broadcaster SRG (one of the festival’s main partners) and its regional units (in addition to co-financing projects, the French-language department RTS is also one of Vision du Réel’s media partners). As such, seeing the fruits of SRG’s efforts on the screen was even more satisfying than usual

.A notable detail is that, while the festival does have a National Competition, select titles regularly make their way into the International Feature Film Competition, showing that Swiss creativity extends beyond the country’s borders. Inevitably, I was drawn to Jacqueline Zünd’s Heat, filmed in Dubai. Why inevitably? Because last year, in the context of the Locarno Film Festival, I happened upon Zünd’s fiction debut, Don’t Let the Sun, a drama set in a dystopian world where rising temperatures make it nearly impossible to go outside (aptly enough, the movie was partially shot in Italy during the scorching summer period).

That film (which I reviewed for The Film Verdict) came about as a result of the research the director was doing for a separate project: Heat, which tackles the question of how to survive under extreme circumstances in the real world, in a scenario where those who can afford it find a way to shield themselves from the sun, while migrants with limited prospects have to brave the elements in order to make ends meet. It’s a very humane topic with an inhumane backdrop, where, from the very first shot, the cinematography and the sound design convey the unsettling idea of a landscape that is very real and at the same time nightmarish.

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Last week, during the Warner Bros. panel at CinemaCon, the main cast for The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum was announced. In addition to Andy Serkis reprising the role of Gollum (as well as directing the film), Ian McKellen (Gandalf the Grey), Lee Pace (Thranduil) and Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins) are also set to come back to Middle-Earth. Not returning, as previously rumored (see below), is Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn (or rather, Strider), with the younger version of the character now assigned to Northern Irish actor Jamie Dornan.

Naturally, fan reactions were mixed at best. Many were upset Mortensen was left out, although the fact all other returning characters are played by their original actors suggests there were at least discussions about bringing him back and de-aging him. Sort of like when Lucasfilm made Solo: A Star Wars Story, it’s unlikely any replacement would have pleased them. But even with that caveat, some were excessively vitriolic towards Dornan, saying he should never be allowed to act again. Why? Because ten years ago, he starred in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.

This is, of course, nothing new. Roles in critically maligned films and franchises are often held against actors: another recent example is when disgruntled Ben Affleck fans preemptively dismissed Robert Pattinson’s casting as Batman on account of the Twilight movies (and, in some cases, keep mocking him even after his portrayal of the Gotham City vigilante was widely praised). The irony being, of course, that Pattinson dislikes those films as well and has made it abundantly clear he used the commercial clout that came with them to be able to do pretty much whatever he wants in the aftermath, and Dornan has similarly stated that playing Christian Grey gave him more opportunities (besides, Affleck’s own Batman announcement was also met with derision because he had previously starred in Daredevil and other poorly received flicks).

What those calling for Dornan’s permanent unemployment do not seem to understand is that acting is a job, and the vast majority of actors cannot afford to be selective and only make one film every two years (Leonardo DiCaprio since 2019). This means they’re likely to appear in the occasional stinker, even though no one sets out to actually make a bad film. For Dornan, who at the time was primarily a television actor (he had a recurring role as the Huntsman in the first two seasons of Once Upon a Time and played the male lead in the Norther Irish thriller series The Fall), starring in a big Hollywood project based on a best-selling book, and directed by an acclaimed filmmaker (Sam Taylor-Johnson of Nowhere Boy fame) was undoubtedly an enticing proposition.

Adding to that, and I know I’m somewhat in the minority on this, I think the first Fifty Shades film is a tad better than people give it credit for. Specifically, the first half – before the two main characters hook up – has a playfulness to it that, when I first saw the movie at the 2015 Berlinale, suggested Taylor-Johnson and screenwriter Kelly Marcel were perfectly aware of the source material’s poor reputation and decided to have fun with it (within reason, since they were not allowed to alter the dialogue). The pair subsequently confirmed that the second half, after Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele start having kinky sex, is when original author E.L. James regained full control, which is why neither Taylor-Johnson nor Marcel returned for the sequels (whose scripts were written by James’ husband).

Getting back to The Hunt for Gollum, there are multiple reasons to be concerned about that film if you’re a fan of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, not least the fact those three films were essentially lightning in a bottle, and even those who have enjoyed the subsequent Middle-Earth movies (I count myself in that group) will readily admit they’re not quite as good (to this day, I haven’t bothered watching the extended cuts of the three Hobbit films). Some are also concerned about Andy Serkis directing, given the generally unenthusiastic reactions to his work behind the camera so far (I’m in the “They’re ok” camp). And yes, Jamie Dornan is no Viggo Mortensen. But hey, Martin Freeman isn’t really like Ian Holm either, and he was still the best reason to watch The Hobbit. Let’s just wait and see, shall we?

As I write this, it’s the day of the official opening of the 2026 edition of Visions du Réel, one of the foremost documentary-centric film festivals in the world, one I’ve been attending since 2015. As it deals with works rooted in the real, socio-political topics are a regular occurrence, and that brings to mind what happened a couple of months ago at the Berlinale, when jury president Wim Wenders, in a clumsy attempt to defuse discussions about the ongoing crisis in Gaza (a subject that is highly controversial in Germany due to the government’s unconditional support of Israel), said he and his colleagues should stay out of politics. Of course, art is political, and this aspect was a recurring element at the festivals I attended in the first quarter of the year. Hence this themed piece, which replaces the usual dispatches I didn’t get around to filing this time.

As I’m based in Switzerland, the festival year usually begins in Solothurn, the major event for national productions. I wasn’t as present as I normally am, due to overlap with another event I was invited to (more on that in the next paragraph), but it was clear politics were not to be excluded, and not just in terms of the content of the films themselves. At least one politician addresses the crowd every year at the opening ceremony, and then there’s the conversation everyone was having about the then upcoming vote (March 8) which could have upended the Swiss film industry as we know it: right-wing parties had pushed for the halving of the radio/TV license fee, which would have removed the part that, among other things, contributes to the public funding of Swiss cinema. Fortunately, the “no” side prevailed.

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I had already planned to write this piece in a slightly different version, and then external circumstances changed in an amusingly grotesque manner. Specifically, a film called Melania was unleashed in some parts of the world (I have not seen it), and met with scorn from most critics. One particular comment, by Sean Burns, sticks out: “At least Leni Riefenstahl was a good director.”

It is a not-so-oblique reference to Triumph of the Will, the 1935 documentary about a Nazi rally in Nuremberg, arguably the most (in)famous piece of propaganda ever committed to celluloid. It’s also one of perhaps two films – the other being D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation – whose viewings are usually prefaced with the assertion that it’s a well-made depiction of an ideologically abhorrent subject matter.

In fact, the reason I originally planned to write this is because, two weeks ago, I was among those who watched Triumph of the Will at the Tromsø International Film Festival (more on that below), where it was part of the 2026 edition’s Focus program devoted to fascism on screen (the other film I watched in that retrospective was Hannah Arendt, about the philosopher who coined the phrase “the banality of evil” to describe the high-ranking Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann). I was curious about it for two reasons: I had never seen the film in full, just clips as part of my studies (I have a degree in Film History); and, given the movie’s ever-changing evaluation over the years, how would it play for an audience today, nine decades after it originally premiered?

The most striking detail is no one applauded at the end of the screening, perhaps realizing it could be seen as being in poor taste (although my fellow critic Neil Young tells me someone did clap at the screening he attended, a few days before mine took place). And no one chuckled when the opening title cards detailing the restoration process – this was a digitization carried out by the Bundesarchiv in Germany – specified that the archive does not endorse the views expressed in the documentary, which they restored as part of their mission to preserve national audiovisual history.

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As I write this, the Tromsø International Film Festival has just closed the book on its 2026 edition (the final catch-up screenings took place the day before yesterday), but the films are still very much on my mind, hence this second collection of capsule reviews (and a more in-depth piece about the Focus program coming up). Unless otherwise indicated, all the films mentioned were theatrical viewings during the festival itself.

Follies (Folichonneries, Horizons)

The feature debut of Canadian director Éric K. Boulianne, who also plays the male protagonist alongside a riotous Catherine Chabot as his wife, Follies is a wildly inventive and compelling character study involving the hilarious and often heartbreaking consequences of deciding to try an open marriage to spice things up. Further confirmation thar French-speaking relationship comedies are much more effective when the dialogue has the emotional honesty provided by the Québec accent.

4/5

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Every January, the northernmost film festival in in the world takes place in Tromsø, Norway, and this year I had the immense privilege of being invited to attend as a member of the international press. The festival began with Janicke Askevold’s Solomamma, a smart and affecting comedy-drama about sperm donation that I greatly enjoyed when it premiered in Locarno last summer, as you can read in the write-up I did for Loud and Clear Reviews (where I also reviewed Raptures, Jon Blåhed’s fact-based depiction of life in a cult in 1930s Sweden). What follows is an overview of what I saw on my first day and a half at the festival, with the (paywalled) rest to be published tomorrow.

Sámi vs. Sámi (Same mot same, Films from the North - Features)

In the 1920s, the Swedish government mandated the forced relocation of North Sámi to the South Sámi region of Vapsten, engendering a decades-long struggle for land and the right to hunt, fish, and herd reindeer. By exploring the court case that came about as a result of the conflict between the two factions, Ellen-Astri Lundby (an Oslo-born director of Sámi descent who has devoted multiple projects to these topics) delivers a painful, insightful meditation on the question of identity and how bureaucratic intervention can damage the sense of belonging.

4/5

Bulk (Critics’ Week)

Ben Wheatley’s latest is, as one can expect from the English filmmaker when he’s not working in a larger studio context, a delightfully weird piece of cinema and an off-kilter companion piece to his episodes of Doctor Who. Ostensibly dealing with alternate realities, the movie is primarily a mesmerizing showcase of finely calibrated performances from Sam Riley, Alexandra Maria Lara and Noah Taylor (plus Bill Nighy as the off-camera Voice). The low-budget worldbuilding is a marvel to behold, captured in hypnotic black-and-white, and I could easily have spent another hour in these universes. The screening I attended was particularly fun on account of being introduced by my friend Aleksander Huser, the Norwegian critic who, per the section’s nature, selected this specific film for the festival line-up.

4.5/5

Amrum (Horizons)

What if Jojo Rabbit, minus the whacky humor and Hitler as the protagonist’s imaginary friend? That’s sort of what happens in Fatih Akin’s latest, a project for which he took over directorial duties from his friend and co-writer Hark Bohm (who passed away a few months ago). Based on Bohm’s own childhood on the titular German island off the North Sea coast, the film deals with a devotedly Nazi family – including a young boy who’s part of the Hitler Youth – having to face the repercussions of their life choices when World War II comes to an end. As a character study, it’s rather elementary (although far less contrived than Akin’s previous two films, which I found hard to sit through), but as a slice of life in a generally unexplored region it’s quietly compelling.

3/5

Kraken (Overdrive)

What happens when a fjord decides to fight back against industrial fish farming and its aggressive technological advances? Having honed his genre skills on films like The Tunnel, director Pål Øie brings Norwegian mythology back home and recontextualizes the Kraken as a pure force of nature lurking in the depths of the water. Social commentary goes hand in hand with expertly crafted thrills and kills, making for a very fun night at the movies if you enjoy creature features (right after the screening, I texted a likeminded friend to confirm he should check it out as soon as possible).

4/5

Boss (Overdrive)

When the boss of a South Korean crime syndicate passes away, three people are in the running to take his place. The problem is, the prime candidate, who also runs the restaurant the gangsters eat at every day, is not interested in the job, and would rather turn his culinary business into a legitimate line of work. This remake of a 2010 Hong Kong movie, complete with undercover cop storyline, is occasionally a bit too convoluted for its own good, but the performances and action beats are immaculate. A good piece of entertainment for the midnight crowd (even though I saw it at an afternoon screening).

3/5

To be continued…

A week ago today, the 38^th European Film Awards took place in Berlin. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I served on the nomination committee for the European Discovery – Prix FIPRESCI category, and was therefore invited to attend the ceremony alongside my colleagues Salome Kikaleishvili and Ibtisam Omer. It was a nice weekend in the German capital, complete with a sneak preview of the Deutsche Kinemathek’s temporary new exhibition space (shoutout to Heleen Gerritsen, the Kinemathek’s artistic director, and her team for the excellent work they’re doing).

The awards ceremony was very Norwegian, partially on purpose: Liv Ullmann, the foremost example of Nordic acting royalty, received the Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award and one of many standing ovations throughout the night, keeping the room enthralled with her grace and wit; and, by virtue of having won the Discovery prize last year for Armand, Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel – Liv’s grandson – was in attendance to announce this year’s winner. That turned out to be Laura Carreira for On Falling, a compelling portrait of the precarious nature of the job market in today’s world (specifically the UK as seen through the eyes of a Portuguese immigrant).

And then there was the grand triumph of Sentimental Value, a film that has won over people continuously since its debut in Cannes last year (I wrote about it here). Joachim Trier’s character study dealing with the sometimes fractured relationship between art and life was the undisputed champion of the night, winning Best Film, Director, Screenwriter, Actor, Actress and Composer. The notable split between that movie and Sirat, which took home most of the technical awards (Casting Director, Cinematographer, Editor, Production Designer, Sound Designer), indicates that Trier’s work had more of an emotional impact, a fact also reflected in its multiple Oscar nominations (nine, including Trier and all four main cast members).

The other big triumph, one that kept the ceremony from outstaying its welcome despite the four-hour duration (with a break in the middle), was Mark Cousins’ artistic direction, with the evening punctuated by various riveting montages highlighting the European side of film history via the kind of image-driven association the Scottish-Irish director is known for in his documentaries (the latest of which will, fittingly enough, premiere at the Berlinale in a few weeks). Cousins also came up with the night’s great souvenir, a flip book celebrating the most enduring images across the nominated films (the other memento, a potato, came courtesy of one of the presenters, Rosalie Varda).

In a market and media landscape pervasively (and sometimes perversely) dominated by American film discourse, such a ceremony was an important reminder of the power of European cinema, and I am once again grateful to FIPRESCI and the European Film Academy for inviting me to be a tiny part of the whole process. And if you have the chance, dear readers, do watch Sentimental Value and Sirat as they keep hitting theaters worldwide. They’re two very different, but equally memorable experiences.

As part of a new deal to continue making films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth books (with the usual caveat that they can only adapt material from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, including the latter’s Appendices) Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema are currently developing a movie titled The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. Set to be directed by Andy Serkis, it takes place during the 17-year interval that – per the books – occurs between Bilbo Baggins’ 111^th birthday party and the beginning of the quest to destroy the One Ring once and for all.

A few days ago, a rumor – which has not really been picked up by any of the major Hollywood trade publications at the time of writing - surfaced concerning the casting. Specifically, it was suggested that Aragorn, who carries out the titular hunt at Gandalf’s request, might be played by a new, younger actor, instead of his original portrayer Viggo Mortensen. Fan reactions were vitriolic, to say the least, with the more extreme ones calling for the film to be canceled altogether if Mortensen won’t be part of it.

Now, the thing is, Viggo Mortensen is no longer in his early 40s, as he was while shooting the Lord of the Rings trilogy between 1999 and 2000. He’s 67, three years older than Ian McKellen was when The Return of the King opened in theaters. Albeit gracefully, he has aged, and is not really suited for a role that’s supposed to be played by a younger actor (since The Hunt for Gollum takes place before Aragorn makes his entrance in The Fellowship of the Ring).

Some suggested they should just de-age him digitally, but that wouldn’t solve the problem in its entirety: as anyone who has seen Captain Marvel, The Irishman or the fifth Indiana Jones movie can attest, even the best de-aging jobs can’t mask the fact the actor still moves and sounds much older. George Clooney recently praised Noah Baumbach’s decision to use a younger performer for the flashbacks in Jay Kelly, citing the lowering his voice has undergone over the years as the main reason de-aging would have been detrimental.

Of course, this is just the latest example of how fandoms refuse to accept that their favorite actors will eventually age out of their signature roles, if it hasn’t happened already: Star Wars aficionados cheer when a blatantly deepfaked young Mark Hamill appears in The Mandalorian, and some fans of the original X-Men movies are still hoping the actors – some of whom are reprising their roles in Avengers: Doomsday – will continue to play the same characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe going forward. Yes, it was funny when Deadpool joked about Hugh Jackman possibly playing Wolverine well into his 90s, but there will come a time when even the beloved Australian thespian will cease to be believable in the part.

It is ironic that two of the fandoms most resistant to new actors are the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings ones, given the precedent set by both franchises: while their respective prequel trilogies were both quite divisive, they also received near unanimous praise for the casting choices when it came to the younger versions of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Bilbo Baggins (in the former case, Ewan McGregor’s return to the galaxy far far away, which eventually happened in 2022, was a popular request). So why not trust the filmmakers a second time? And bear in mind, the current outcry is merely over an unsubstantiated rumor. I dread to imagine what’s going to happen once the actual cast of the movie is announced…

I assumed the Cairo International Film Festival would be the final movie event of the year for me, but for the first time since its inception, the Altroquando Festival’s schedule and mine were perfectly in sync, so the artistic director Davide Staffiero invited me to attend. The festival, taking place on the last Friday and Saturday of November, is a celebration of genre literature and cinema, with the latter strand bringing movies to the big screen for what is usually the only time in the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland.

I did skip the opening screening due to a family commitment, although a part of me would have loved to see that movie again: of the four Stephen King adaptations released in theaters this year, The Long Walk is arguably the best, by virtue of actually committing to the sublimely bleak universe the author crafted with this story of young people forced to walk uninterruptedly until only one of them is still alive. I was not very impressed with how The Running Man handled its source material’s famous ending (see below). Well, The Long Walk also deviates from the book in the final stretch, but in a manner that retains the overall pessimism of the original.

The Saturday screenings I did not miss out on, mainly because, much to Davide’s surprise, I hadn’t seen two of the three films (and the third one I wanted to rewatch anyway because I hadn’t seen it in the cinema). The early afternoon offering was Babak Anvari’s Hallow Road, a tense exercise in minimalism as most of the movie takes place within a car, with two parents (Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys) trying to reach their daughter after she gets stuck in the woods. Thrilling until the very end, with two sublime performances.

After that came what everyone involved with the festival described as the most fun we’d have. They were correct: The Toxic Avenger, Macon Blair’s reimagining of the Troma cult classic, is hilariously deranged in its approach to cartoonish violence paired with unsubtle political satire. Admittedly, I never quite got over the slight disconnect of watching a Troma movie made with a proper budget and recognizably famous actors (the company is famously non-union), but it didn’t matter in the long run because the whole thing was just exhilaratingly over-the-top, made even funnier by the fact we were watching it inside Lugano’s preeminent arthouse venue.

Marking the end of the festival was the Norwegian horror The Ugly Stepsister, which I had seen in January but only on my computer, for reviewing purposes. What had impressed me back then was even more impactful on the big screen, as the Cinderella story told from the stepsister’s point of view gets even more deranged than the brothers Grimm originally envisioned it. The screening was preceded by a local short film, For Your Own Good, a Jessica Hausner-like meditation on eating disorders which served as the graduation project for its director, the young talent Emma Cavadini. Whatever she does next, I will be watching with great interest.

And if nothing gets in the way, I will definitely be back for the sixth edition of Altroquando in November 2026.

Earlier this year, Paola Casella, one of the vice presidents of FIPRESCI (the International Federation of Film Critics), asked me if I wanted to take part in an initiative involving the Federation and the European Film Academy. Specifically, be a member of the committee that chooses the nominees for one particular category at the European Film Awards, namely European Discovery – Prix FIPRESCI. As the name suggests, it’s the category where fiction feature debuts are spotlighted.

I accepted the assignment, and was therefore brought into a group that included my fellow FIPRESCI member Salome Kikaleishvili, a Georgian critic based in Portugal, as well as two Academy members: Ibtisam Omer from Sweden and Mira Staleva from Bulgaria. Over the course of several months, during which we weren’t allowed to divulge what we were doing (our roles were made public a few days ago, with the final nomination announcements), we watched the 130 films (a record-breaking amount) that were submitted for consideration, either in theaters – most of them were festival premieres – or on a designated viewing platform.

For my part, the experience was a remarkable example of just how much gets made, strictly on the European level, and the ways in which one can access them. I attend one or two film festivals per month (but most of them only for 3-4 days), and even I did most of my committee viewings via the platform: out of 130 submitted films, I saw about a quarter of them on the big screen. Of the six titles we eventually nominated, only two were theatrical viewings for me, and not for lack of trying.

Without going into detail (as we’re not supposed to talk about the films that didn’t make the cut), I can say the overall batch of submissions painted a very good picture of the breadth of European productions. Some countries will typically produce – and usually submit – more, but the whole continent was fairly well represented across the titles that were sent our way, in terms of nationalities, cultures and languages, and I think that is also reflected in the six films we chose at the end of the process.

Little Trouble Girls (Slovenia/Italy/Croatia/Serbia) is a tender coming-of-age story about the relationship between two teenagers who are part of an all-girls choir at a Catholic school; My Father’s Shadow (United Kingdom/Nigeria) affectingly follows two young brothers as they spend a day with their estranged parent against the backdrop of the 1993 Nigerian presidential election; On Falling (United Kingdom/Portugal) is a stark, engaging portrait of immigrant blue-collar work in the UK (one can see why Ken Loach responded to the material and joined the project as a producer); One of Those Days When Hemme Dies (Turkey/Germany) deals with a seasonal laborer and his compelling journey to repay a debt; Sauna (Denmark) is a captivating, layered queer love story; and Under the Grey Sky (Poland) is the riveting true story of a Belarusian journalist who was arrested for livestreaming unwarranted violence against peaceful demonstrators.

I heartily recommend all six movies to anyone who’s interested in the current state of young European cinema, and I’m quite curious to see how the overall Academy membership will respond to the nominees, with the winner set to be announced during the 38^th European Film Awards on January 17, in Berlin.

On November 23, 1963, a certain British program made its debut and changed the face of television forever (quite apt, since the show ended up revolving around a protagonist who periodically changes their physical appearance). That was Doctor Who, which holds the record for the longest running science fiction TV series of all time: the original iteration from 1963 to 1989, and the revival which began broadcasting in 2005 (this year marks the 20^th anniversary of Christopher Eccleston’s tenure as the Doctor, as well as of David Tennant’s first full appearance in the role in The Christmas Invasion).

To say I’m a fan of this show would be a huge understatement: my profile picture on Instagram is one I took at the Locarno Film Festival in 2010 with Matt Smith, who had just completed his first year as the Eleventh Doctor; when his final regular episode happened to air on my birthday in 2013, I invited a few like-minded friends over to my house to watch it together; in 2014, I had the privilege of interviewing Colin Baker (the Sixth Doctor) at the Swiss Fantasy Show in Morges; And in 2023, while out for dinner with the cast and crew of the UK thriller Femme (for which I did the post-screening Q&As at the Zurich Film Festival), I entertained Nathan Stewart-Jarrett – who had appeared in an episode of the series – with my impression of the Doctor’s archenemies, the Daleks.

As I’m writing this, the show is scheduled to return in December 2026, with a Christmas Special scheduled to usher in a new era with Ncuti Gatwa’s successor in the role of the Doctor. The nature of said successor remains a mystery at present, which is the main charm of the series: after many decades on the air, it still manages to surprise and find new ways to deal with its long-established tropes. This is not surprising when one remembers the show’s central gimmick – that the Time Lords, including the Doctor, can regenerate and thus alter their looks and personality when fatally injured – was invented simply to keep the program on the air once it became clear original star William Hartnell was no longer at the top of his game due to health problems.

From when I first started watching the revived show (on DVD, then TV during the Matt Smith era, and most recently Disney+ for the two seasons they co-financed), I always loved the fact no one episode was like the other: the Ninth Doctor (Eccleston) would travel to the end of the world in one installment, and then hang out with Charles Dickens in the next. Even the recurring stuff – the so-called “Doctor-lite” stories where the main character barely appeared so the actor could film the more time-consuming episodes, and the annual Christmas Specials – always felt fresh and had its own distinct identity. Much like the Doctor themselves, the show changes on a regular basis, and is all the better for it.

And yet, recent years have been plagued by the main nuisance in contemporary pop culture: online trolls who claim to be lifelong fans while at the same time behaving in a way that suggests they never understood the show they claim to love (their actions are at odds with the Doctor’s motto “Never cruel, never cowardly”). Jodie Whittaker (the first female Doctor) and the aforementioned Ncuti Gatwa (the first openly queer actor to play the role) received substantial amounts of hate, paired with rants about the series having become “woke” all of a sudden.

The latter assertion is particularly amusing to read, given the show has always been progressive and attuned to social issues: most blatantly, the Daleks have been based on the Nazis since their very first appearance. Additionally, the idea of a woman playing the Doctor was first mentioned by Sydney Newman – the series creator – in the 1980s. And of course, Newman’s key collaborators on the early episodes were producer Verity Lambert (a woman) and director Waris Hussein (a gay man of Indian descent). Together, they set the tone for a program that has lost none of its ability to entertain, while also retaining certain educational qualities.

Where exactly the show will go a year from now is currently unclear (the cliffhanger that ended the most recent season was supposedly a last-minute addition, its ramifications still vague). But one thing is certain: I will be watching. Because few series are as imaginative, energetic, funny and sometimes heartbreaking. It’s always familiar, and yet unpredictable. Perhaps the best summation of its transformative nature is the line that introduced a surprise guest appearance in one of the 50^thanniversary episodes aired in 2013: “I’m a Doctor, but probably not the one you were expecting.” Indeed, and it’s always a delight. Happy birthday, Doctor Who!

[Note: the following contains spoilers for the book and both film adaptations of The Running Man]

If you’re familiar with Stephen King’s prose, you’re probably also aware of the running joke among critics and fans that his endings are not that great, a gag that took on a meta layer in the film It Chapter Two, where King himself cameos as a shopkeeper who expresses similar opinions about the writings of Bill Denbrough, one of the protagonists. Personally, I think the assessment is a bit too harsh, although it is true that, given his writing method (he does not have the entire plot in mind when he starts putting words on the page), the conclusion is sometimes not the most memorable part of his novels (that he wrote a few of them under the influence of alcohol and/or cocaine up until the late 1980s probably didn’t help either).

It is not surprising, then, that Hollywood adaptations of his work have sometimes altered the endings significantly, starting with the very first movie based on one of his books, Carrie (Brian De Palma rightfully upped the ante in the final stretch to match the overall intensity of the rest of the film). In fact, of the four (!) King-inspired pictures that opened in cinemas this year, only one – Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck – contained no major changes. The last of those four films, in release order, is Edgar Wright’s The Running Man, arguably the most frustrating of the bunch from an adaptation standpoint.

First published in 1982, The Running Man is one of five novels from that period that King published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman (this was done at the behest of the publishers, who thought putting out more than one book a year would tarnish the author’s brand). All five share one key characteristic: even by King standards, they’re proper downers. One of them, Rage, is famously “now out of print, and a good thing”, as the man himself puts it in the introduction of the Bachman Books collection, after it was found in the locker of a high school student who had shot eight of his peers at a prayer meeting.

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November is the month that marks the end of the film festival season for me. Usually – not this year, but we’ll get to that at a later stage – the end point is in Winterthur, where I’ve been a regular attendee since 2016 (when the main focus, fittingly enough given my background, was on the Nordic Countries). For six days, this city located a stone’s throw from Zurich becomes the hub for all things tied to the short format, whether it’s young filmmakers starting out or seasoned directors who enjoy the world of brevity even after they’ve begun making feature films (one good example of the latter is Gabriel Abrantes, whose work I first became familiar with at the 2016 edition).

Like I always do, the first screenings I signed up for the on-location experience were the two explicitly crowd-pleasing programs: Hot Shorts and Kill Your Darlings. Though curated by different people, they share a common theme: showcasing films that didn’t make the cut for the official competitions, but were just too damn fun to be left out of the overall selection. In last year’s write-up, I talked about how the Hot Shorts strand lifted my spirits, the day after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, with an Estonian film called Turdy and the Little Fart. Well, this year’s batch featured another bowel-themed animation, the hilarious German entry müssen müssen (or, to use its international title, Mambo No. 2). The biggest laugh, however, came during the Kill Your Darlings introduction, when curator Kyros Kikos talked about his habit of using the program to sneak in his own shorts (in this case, an irreverent recap of human history called To Be or Not to Be).

On the more serious front, the Country in Focus for this year was India, with six programs celebrating its rich history through shorts spanning several decades, from 1957 all the way to 2025: the most recent title in the selection was a world premiere, Amartya Ray’s You in This City, This City Inside You. A hauntingly lyrical meditation on life in an ever-changing big city, it depicts modern day Mumbai through glimpses of everyday life underscored by the unanswered phone calls made by the narrator. It was the ideal culmination of a journey highlighting the layers and diversity of a country whose full cinematic scope remains largely unknown to mainstream moviegoers.

The awards ceremony was a very emotional one, as the Grand Prize, for the best film in the International Competition, went to Morgenkreis, a Canadian production set in Germany and dealing with themes of loss and displacement. Director Basma al-Sharif, who is of Palestinian descent, evoked the highly personal nature of this story of life in exile as she accepted the award. On the Swiss side, the top prize was a slightly more amusing affair, as it crowned the achievement of Marvin Merkel and Noa Epars, whose religiously themed documentary Always Wanted to be God, Never Wanted to Do Good came with the most memorable visual of the festival: a pink inflatable church that attendees could physically visit outside the Kino Cameo theater.

On a more personal note, this was the first time since the pandemic I actively mingled with people in between screenings or at the afterparty, which led to some fun encounters: I ended up recommending comic book stores in Zurich to an animation producer and mentioning the paradoxical nature of a Finnish right-wing political party while in conversation with a Mongolian director. Much like the films, those interactions were brief, but terrific. I can’t wait to be back in 2026 for the 30^thanniversary.

Dear readers,

How lovely to reconnect with you. It’s been almost six months since my last piece, and this long break was not planned at all. A very intense work schedule was a factor, as was the fact, after a while, that I do have a terrible habit of procrastinating (case in point: I had set out to start writing a novel – more on that in the future – in March 2024; I finally got around to it earlier today). Additionally, it must be said, I was not in the right headspace for most of the summer.

What happened was, at the end of April my family was told Frendie, our beloved yellow Labrador (see picture below), had – at best - only a few months left to live. So when I said goodbye to her on the morning of May 12, before leaving for Cannes, I knew there was a chance that was our last interaction. So, while I was dutifully covering the festival on the Croisette, I was also getting regular updates from my parents as to the status of our beloved four-legged friend.

After Cannes, I made a point of spending as much time possible with Frendie. She dutifully obliged, sometimes in an extreme manner: because the sun doesn’t properly set in Finland during the summer, she would wake up at 4 AM and think it was time to start the day. Other than that, she remained her usual adorable self, having adjusted surprisingly well to being the only canine presence in the house after her big sister Frida passed away last November.

By all accounts, she was doing remarkably fine given her medical status, so it was with a slightly more optimistic attitude that I then attended the animation film festival in Annecy (this year’s high point: the world premiere of Genndy Tartakovsky’s Fixed) and Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, although the latter was once again a bit of a chore because of the heat. Still, that event is always hugely enjoyable, and the 39^th edition was no exception, particularly when it came to the screening of a 70mm print of Close Encounters of the Third Kind that, per Grover Crisp from Sony, was basically a treat for the festival audience since that version, created from scratch at Steven Spielberg’s request, is not meant for regular theatrical exhibition.

On June 26, I was back at my parents’ place in Finland to take care of Frendie, who was still as cheerful as ever, although she was getting noticeably worse: her breathing got so belabored she couldn’t avoid coughing unless she was lying down. On July 3, she joined Frida in the Good Place, and for the first time in 22.5 years there was no dog in the house. This is probably the main reason I ended up watching James Gunn’s Superman five times in the theater (Krypto stole the show for me ever since the first teaser). I’d also like to give a special shoutout to a few people whose friendship and emotional support proved vital for the rest of the summer: Andrea Giordano, Susanne Gottlieb, Gianmarco Bonelli, Eleonora Bruk, Milena Hügli, Elisa Erriu and Marilena La Luna.

Under the circumstances, it was fitting that my next professional engagement was at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. I’ve maintained for years one of the main reasons I enjoy going to festivals is hanging out with my peers and friends, and rarely has that been more true than in Karlovy Vary, where a few of us are basically an extended family of critics and programmers. This year was an especially emotional one, as we gathered together to remember one of our own, whose premature departure shook us all earlier this year, and on that same occasion, the aforementioned Eleonora and I had an extended heart to heart regarding our absent pets.

Next came Locarno, always the most intense professional engagement of the summer for me due to my double duty as an interviewer for the festival’s official YouTube channel and a regular journalist (I wrote 18 pieces for my main outlet, the daily newspaper Il Corriere del Ticino). This year was additionally meaningful, in that my name appeared in the credits of one of the films in the official selection: the Swiss short Tusen Toner, for which I proofread the subtitles since the film – Francesco Poloni’s graduation project at CISA, the local film school whose students shoot and edit the video interviews mentioned previously – is almost entirely in Swedish (my mother tongue). All personal biases aside (a lot of the people associated with the school have become good friends of mine over the past eleven years), I’m happy to be able to work alongside such talented young filmmakers.

After that, a first: through my friend Milena, I became acquainted with IPFO, the International Photography Festival Olten. It was a very nice break from the film scene (although cinema was still tangentially connected to the event, as one of the photographers showcasing his work was the Lausanne-born actor Carlos Leal), and an excellent chance to literally cool down – especially on opening night, when the rainfall was positively Biblical – after two weeks under the scorching Ticino sun. A lovely experience all around.

It was back to the usual stuff with Venice, but with a twist: as luck would have it, a local couple had breakfast every morning along my route to get to the festival venues, and their yellow Labrador quickly began waiting for me to show up on a daily basis for a few minutes of ear and belly rubs. No disrespect to the films (Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein and Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice among them), but that was the high point of my two weeks on the Lido, besides reconnecting with my Italian circle of friends in the critics community.

Doing San Sebastián and Zurich back to back was intense, but tons of fun, again thanks mainly to the “families” I’ve become part of at both festivals. In the case of Zurich, it’s the team of moderators handling the introductions and Q&As before and after screenings, carefully chosen by the programmer Valeria Wagner (or, as I like to call her, my ZFF BFF), and it was especially fun to get to know the people helping us make sure things ran smoothly inside the cinemas (shoutout to Chantale at Frame and Daniela and Florian at Blue Cinema Corso). The Q&As themselves went wonderfully, particularly the ones for the Belgian drama We Believe You and the Italian coming-of-age story A Year of School.

And then came October, with the usual brief trek to Lyon for the Festival Lumière, where people flock to see even the most obscure titles from the past (when I interviewed festival president Irène Jacob a few weeks later, she said she’s always happy to see so many younger viewers in attendance), followed by the Viennale, where I had the honor of serving on the FIPRESCI jury alongside Roman Scheiber (Austria) and Yun-hua Chen (Germany). Our discussions were lively and fruitful, culminating in the choice to bestow our prize upon the film BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions, a playful and illuminating deconstruction of the documentary form. I absolutely loved every minute of the experience (full disclosure: dogs were involved at two of the official dinners), and a special shoutout goes to Leonie Wimmer, who masterfully coordinated the jury activities.

Thus ends the hiatus (I will have two more posts up during the weekend), and stay tuned for something special next week…

(The following contains spoilers for all six Final Destination films)

Final Destination Bloodlines, the sixth entry in the popular franchise about young people cheating death and then getting their comeuppance, is now in theaters, so what better opportunity to go down memory lane and revisit some of my favorite moments from the series? Also, given my close encounter with the reaper two years ago, it feels kind of cathartic to publish this on my birthday.

The following are listed in the films’ release order, so you can skip the relevant paragraphs if you haven’t seen a specific movie. Enjoy.

1. Flight 180 (Final Destination)

The first, and best, of the movies begins with what is very much a mission statement, introducing what will become the franchise formula: the young protagonist has a horrific vision of impending doom, manages to save themselves and a few other people, and we then see the incident play out. And while Death’s payback usually takes on at least some over-the-top forms, the opening disasters tend to be grounded in reality and rooted in real fears. Case in point: who has never thought the plane they were on might crash? And so a whole new cinematic phenomenon was born, via a bravura sequence that shows director James Wong had learned well from his experience helming episodes of The X-Files.

2. Paris (Final Destination)

Up to and including the third film, the endings seen on screen were the result of test screening feedback, with preview audiences thinking the original versions lacked a certain punch. This led to the creation of another franchise staple: the epilogue where the remaining survivors realize Death will eventually come for them after all, a knowledge that is imparted with a healthy touch of dark humor as the final shot disposes of the most annoying character in the whole movie.

3. Beware the logs (Final Destination 2)

The first sequel does, at times, feel like a basic rethread of the original, but what it lacks in narrative originality it more than makes up for in spectacle, with what is generally considered the best opening incident of the series: a pileup caused by a log truck, a visual that scarred viewers and generated dozens of memes, becoming the most referenced event of the franchise in subsequent installments (each successive sequel contains at least one visual callback to that sequence). To this day, seeing such a vehicle in front of one’s own car is likely to be terrifying.

4. Barbecue (Final Destination 2)

Another final gag, this time to add a bit of pep to what is, technically, the only entry in the series with a proper happy ending (aside from a deleted scene that was planned for the third movie, it’s pretty much canon that the two protagonists are still alive beyond the events of the film). A celebratory moment turns into a perfectly timed explosion of body parts, giving a whole new meaning to the word “barbecue”. Absolutely brilliant.

5. Tanning beds (Final Destination 3)

I’m not really a fan of the third installment (the character work is severely lacking), but it contains a masterclass in dark humor as two of Death’s intended victims meet their demise in the most elaborately excruciating manner: their tanning beds’ temperatures keep rising to uncomfortable levels, until the whole system breaks down and the two girls brutally burn to death, a wooden plank having obstructed their way out of what is basically a makeshift coffin. The match cut to their actual coffins, as we transition to the funeral, is the delightfully twisted cherry on top.

6. The opening credits (The Final Destination)

The fourth movie is generally regarded as the worst, even by the producers (and apparently the released version was an improvement on what had been put together before 25 script pages’ worth of reshoots). Still, the opening credits sequence, which goes through the best deaths in the previous films (shown as CGI X-rays), manages to instill some hope that the series’ taste for the macabre will live up to its reputation once more. It didn’t, but the movie made enough money to justify the (far superior) fifth installment, so it wasn’t all bad.

7. The bridge (Final Destination 5)

Perhaps as a statement of intent after the negative fan response the fourth movie, the fifth installment opens with the longest disaster in the franchise’s history, one that makes exquisite use of the series’ habit of filming in Vancouver, Canada (the outlier is The Final Destination, which was shot in New Orleans) and highlights a local landmark while gleefully pretending to destroy it. Add the use of 3D, which was all the rage back then, and this was a clear signal: Death’s list was back, with a vengeance. And speaking of…

8. Flight 180 2.0 (Final Destination 5)

By the time the fifth movie entered production, it was pretty much a given no one would make it out alive at the end (Final Destination 3 was the last movie to not show everyone dying, although it’s heavily implied in the closing scene). But even the most eagle-eyed viewers were generally caught off guard when the mandatory “happy ending” preceding Death’s last hurrah revealed the whole film had been a prequel to Final Destination, and the last two survivors were about to meet their fate on the infamous Flight 180. As full circle moments go, this was an inventively macabre one.

9. Back to the past (Final Destination Bloodlines)

The sixth film is all about family, and Death going after the entire bloodlines of those who survived the collapse of a restaurant tower in 1968. Said collapse is at the center of the opening scene, a spectacular set piece that opens up the world of the franchise by expanding on the notion that such disasters, and Death course correcting if someone managed to cheat him, have been going on for years. Also worth noting: this is the first opening tragedy to be completely averted, since the vision leads to the protagonist disrupting all the elements that would lead to the actual collapse.

10. Bludworth Begins (Final Destination Bloodlines)

For a quarter of a century, fans speculated about the true nature of William Bludworth, the mortician/coroner who laid out the rules regarding Death, the list and how to (possibly) survive it. Was he an angel? A demon? The grim reaper’s spokesperson? Bloodlines answers the question by giving actor Tony Todd a final moment in the spotlight, and it’s one hell of a moment: the actor’s real-life terminal illness becomes Bludworth’s, as he explains he once survived a disaster of his own and has made peace with the fact he too will die eventually, encouraging the new gang of youngsters to enjoy life to the fullest while they still can. With his own demise just around the corner, Bludworth drops the dark humor he used to exhibit previously (“I’ll see you soon”, he told the survivors of Flight 180), and exits stage right with a sincere parting line: “Good luck.”

This time tomorrow, I will be in Cannes to cover the 78^th edition of the world’s most prestigious film festival (in addition to regular dispatches in this neck of the woods, you can also read my stuff over at The Film Verdict and Next Best Picture). As usual, there will be plenty to discover, including the ten movies listed below that are the ones I’m personally most eager to see (provided, of course, the festival’s infamous online booking system doesn’t act up). Vive le cinéma!

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10. Sentimental Value (Competition)

Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World was one of the highlights of the 2021 edition, so I’m greatly looking forward to his new comedy-drama, once again starring the great Renate Reinsve who, courtesy of her previous collaboration with the director, has become one of the most mesmerizing recurring faces in contemporary European cinema. And then there’s the Swedish icon Stellan Skarsgård, who’s generally much more interesting when he does Nordic work and always a welcome presence in a Norwegian context.

9. Alpha (Competition)

2016’s Raw, a coming-of-age cannibal movie, was a masterful calling card by Julia Ducournau, who then made history in 2021 with Titane, the second female-directed film to win the Palme d’Or (and the first to do it without sharing the prize). While I did find the latter a tiny bit messy in places, it was also an undeniably strong cinematic experience, very much the brainchild of its visionary creator. Her third movie is billed as her most personal work to date, about a troubled mother-daughter relationship. I’m very curious to see how it will play out.

8. Nouvelle Vague (Competition)

After American musical theater in Blue Moon (which I talked about in my Berlin writings), Richard Linklater is going to France with his second 2025 release, a film going behind the scenes of the seminal New Wave work À bout de souffle(Breathless). Will the filmmaker’s sensibilities translate well in a Gallic context? I’m eager to find out, especially since Jean-Luc Godard (already portrayed in fictionalized form in the divisive Redoubtable in 2017) remains a sensitive topic in cinephile circles.

7. Eddington (Competition)

Ari Aster is not everyone’s cup of tea (to put it mildly), but I quite like the eerie worlds he conjures, and chuckled quite a bit with the trailer of this contemporary Western set during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 (a detail Aster added after the project – which he originally envisioned as his debut – got pushed back). Plus, Joaquin Phoenix versus Pedro Pascal? Yes, please.

6. Magellan (Cannes Premiere)

There’s no one quite like Lav Diaz, who to some extent embodies the stereotype of the kind of film one sees at festivals: artsy, in black and white, and very long (Phantosmia, which played in Venice last year, was on the shorter end of the spectrum at a “mere” four hours). In that sense, this new film is an anomaly in that it presents itself as his most mainstream endeavor to date: a biopic of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, played by a recognizable international star (Gael García Bernal). But just how mainstream is it? I hope to find out soon.

5. Marcel et Monsieur Pagnol (Special Screenings)

Having previously paid homage to Jacques Tati with The Illusionist, master animator Sylvain Chomet is back with a tribute to the great Marcel Pagnol, a man whose work is consistently ripe for rediscovery (not too long ago, some of his films were theatrically re-released in France). As someone who recently began familiarizing himself with Pagnol’s universe, I’m very curious to see Chomet’s take on it.

4. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (Out of Competition)

It’s no secret I’m a huge fan of the Tom Cruise-led action franchise, particularly the films directed by Christopher McQuarrie. After 2023’s Dead Reckoning, I’m dying to see the continuation of Ethan Hunt’s fight against the Entity, i.e. an extended metaphor for Tom Cruise’s standing as an old school movie star in an industry that’s increasingly dominated by digital technology, sometimes to the detriment of the films themselves. Needless to say, I was thrilled to manage to get a ticket on the first try (not always a given with Cannes).

3. Adam’s Sake (Critics’ Week)

One of my favorite films of 2021 was Playground, Laura Wandel’s deceptively straightforward, quietly devastating drama about elementary school bullying, which was also chosen as Belgium’s submission for the Oscars that year. That the Critics’ Week (the independent section showcasing first and second feature) chose to entrust its opening slot to her sophomore effort is quite the endorsement, and I can’t wait to see what she cooked up this time.

2. Die, My Love (Competition)

Last year, when I visited Stockfish in Iceland, I had the immense pleasure of interviewing Lynne Ramsay, who mentioned some of her upcoming projects, including this one. Specifically, she said, “It’s a comedy and a love story, but it’s my kind of comedy and love story, so it’s going to be dark and f**ked up.” Add the fact the leads are Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, and I’m basically already queueing outside the Debussy theater.

1. Dangerous Animals (Directors’ Fortnight)

It’s been ten years since we last heard from Sean Byrne, the Australian horror director who took the festival circuit by storm with The Loved Ones (2009) and The Devil’s Candy (2015). His third feature promises to deliver plenty of thrills, with its watery setting and dual menace consisting of sharks and – based on the trailer – a deliciously deranged Jai Courtney, who once again gets to flex his more sinister acting muscles with a role that appears to be much juicier than what he gets to do in Hollywood movies.

(The following contains minor spoilers for Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts*, now playing in cinemas)

Marvel is back in theaters with Thunderbolts*, the 36^th entry in a film series that has been going on for almost two decades. Per a recent Wall Street Journal article, the movie – the final cinematic installment of what is referred to as Phase Five of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – was the first to enter production after Marvel Studios decided to reduce its overall output and have greater quality control following a bit of a rough patch. Based on critical and audience reactions so far, mission accomplished. And yet, there’s one aspect where the studio was uncharacteristically sloppy.

The film centers on a team of antiheroes, four of whom – Yelena Belova/Black Widow, John Walker/U.S. Agent, Ava Starr/Ghost and Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster – bump into each other at the very beginning of the movie when they are unknowingly sent on the same mission, which was engineered by their employer to kill them. Dreykov dies during the initial confrontation between the four, while the other three team up, with help from Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian and Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier, to take down their mutual enemy.

As director Jake Schreier explained in a spoiler interview, the decision to kill off Taskmaster – who, based on actress Olga Kurylenko’s prominent billing in the credits, was originally supposed to have a larger role – came about as a byproduct of the 2023 Hollywood strikes, which delayed the start of filming by eight months. During the hiatus, Schreier and the writers – once their strike was over – went over the script and came to the conclusion that one of the Thunderbolts had to die, preferably at the beginning so it wouldn’t impact the film’s emotional arc too much.

The script was adjusted accordingly, and Kurylenko’s screentime thus reduced to a single scene (with some wondering, after seeing the film, if she was even on set, since the brief shots where Taskmaster is unmasked could have been added later). Given Marvel’s penchant for extensive reshoots, it’s to Schreier’s credit that he made such a decision before the start of shooting, leading to a smoother creative process. And then the marketing department came along.

Since Antonia’s death is meant to be a surprise, the character features prominently on the posters with the rest of the team (including one depicting an actual scene from the movie that takes place after she’s been killed). So far, so good. The trailers, however, were another matter: while the teaser did try to conceal the truth by adding her to a shot in the third act (where her placement is, with hindsight, blatant fakery), fans quickly caught on to the fact she was largely missing from most of the major set pieces.

Then, on March 26, Marvel announced a large chunk of the cast for the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, including most of the Thunderbolts* actors. Notably absent was Kurylenko, which was seen as confirmation that Taskmaster would not have a major role in her second – and presumably last – appearance (fans have speculated someone else could take over the mantle, given the MCU version differs a bit from the comic book original).

Such carelessness was surprising, given Marvel’s reputation for keeping spoilers at bay: the first trailer for Avengers: Infinity War contained digitally altered shots whenever Thanos wore the Infinity Stones, and the epic final moment of the team running towards the camera was created specifically for the trailer to hide the fact the Hulk was AWOL after the opening scene; the teaser for Spider-Man: Far From Home was carefully edited to avoid all mentions of how Avengers: Endgame, unreleased at the time, ended; and the sequel, No Way Home, digitally erased its two major guest stars from the main trailer. Granted, the last two examples were technically Sony Pictures, but the point still stands.

And, of course, by the time the Doomsday marketing kicks in later this year, it stands to reason some trickery will be required once again, especially after the dismissal of the recent Yesterday lawsuit, which some speculated could have impacted movie advertising going forward (two fans of actress Ana de Armas took Universal to court because they had rented the film after seeing her in the trailer, not knowing her character had been removed from the final cut). So, why did they fumble the bag with Taskmaster?

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To prepare for the upcoming release of the new Netflix series based on the Astérix comic books (available April 30), I’m rewatching the films starring the famous Gaul and his best friend Obélix, specifically the five live-action ones and the three most recent animated ones (the last two having a visual identity that is similar to the show).

In an amusing twist of fate, this month also marked the theatrical release (in French-speaking markets) of an unsuccessful adaptation of Natacha, a popular comic book that’s been in print since 1971 (the most recent album was published shortly before the film’s debut), and the first edition of Kidult Mania, a convention organized by Clap.ch (one of my outlets in Switzerland), where the guest of honor was one Jean-Pierre Talbot, a Belgian actor known for having played Tintin in two live-action films.

All this had me thinking: why do French producers insist on trying to adapt these stories for the screen in a medium other than animation? It’s a veritable obsession, one I often cite as the main piece of evidence disproving the lazy cliché of France’s cinematic output being nothing but artsy dramas where people talk, drink, smoke and sometimes have sex. When I was living in Lausanne, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, Franco-Belgian comic book adaptations were generally greeted with a heavy sigh at the end of the press screening. And there were a lot of them.

Funnily enough, Natacha is, for my money, on the more accomplished end of the spectrum: none of the set pieces are particularly creative, but the gag rate is consistent and the actors have great timing. But I’m not surprised audiences have largely ignored it, after years of being subjected to live-action takes on comics that do not have their place in the live-action filmmaking realm.

That’s because, in the family-oriented domain especially, the Franco-Belgian style is one predicated on humor, exaggeration, caricature. The characters rarely look like regular human beings and their worlds are frequently equally bizarre, which is why attempting to replicate that aesthetic in live-action is often a foolhardy endeavor, because unless one commits to the madness (as Alain Chabat admirably did with his Astérix film in 2002), the result tends to be weird to look at (I still cringe when I think back to the Spirou and Fantasio movie from a few years ago).

Of course, this doesn’t automatically mean the more adult-oriented comics fare much better: Jan Kounen’s take on Blueberry was so weird the estate of co-creator Jean-Michel Charlier tried to have his name taken off the movie, and Luc Besson’s Valerian, while having its moments, quickly got lost up its own backside, like a less fun version of the 2011 Green Lantern movie (which wasn’t much fun to begin with).

Steven Spielberg understood this when he eventually fulfilled his decades-long ambition of making a Tintin film, opting for performance capture to fully convey the magic of Hergé’s visuals, and it’s also why recent Astérix productions have generally done better in animated form, leading to the new show which marks Chabat’s return to the world of Roman-occupied Gaul in the year 50 B.C.

Not that it’s going to stop others from trying to crack the live-action formula for the loveable warrior, with a sixth – undoubtedly very expensive - movie in the works even though the fifth failed to really impress fans. To paraphrase Obélix, these producers are crazy…

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As someone who kind of keeps track of release dates for professional reasons, I’m always a bit annoyed when something fairly important drops on a streaming platform with little to no fanfare. Such was the case of the second season of Light & Magic, the docuseries focusing on the history of the visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Unlike season 1, there were no press screeners for the new batch of episodes, which debuted on Disney+ on April 18 as though they were just one of many new titles popping up out of nowhere and not part of a project honoring one of the key components of the contemporary Disney empire and of American movie history in general.

First released in the summer of 2022, the inaugural season of the show recounted the company’s history from its inception to the mid-1990s, when Jurassic Park paving the way for CGI as a new viable tool in ILM’s arsenal. While I did criticize those first six episodes for being a bit too Disney-centric (most of the stuff mentioned was connected to properties that now belong to the Mouse, chief among them Lucasfilm which is, of course, ILM’s parent company), I also admired the “warts and all” quality of the project, which was very honest about the difficulties the effects house faced, especially on Star Wars. And, because the show was made by people with intimate knowledge of the company (the first season was directed by Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote multiple Lucasfilm movies), access to materials and people was top notch.

Season 2, directed by Joe Johnston (who actually started as an ILM staffer before becoming a filmmaker), consists of only three episodes, structured around the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999-2005). As each film came with its own challenges and innovations, it’s a smart way of chronicling the company’s evolution and introducing new key players like John Knoll (who became ILM’s chief creative officer in 2013). There’s also a bit more space for non-Disney projects, most notably Twister and The Perfect Storm (where CGI became instrumental in helping the filmmakers basically “direct” the weather).

While the season’s brevity is a bit of a bummer (especially since at least one element suggests this could the show’s swansong), the attention to detail more than makes up for it, as even fans of the films discussed in the episodes might discover something new about how they were made: for example, there were more practical effects and miniatures in the Star Wars prequels than one would think (though on the flipside, there are entire shots where even the actors are computer-generated). And like in season 1, the corporate roots of the project do not get in the way of discussing the downside of the business.

In fact, the second episode opens with a content warning, due to it openly dealing with the suicidal thoughts that affected actor Ahmed Best after the negative reactions to Jar Jar Binks, the comic relief character he played across the prequel trilogy (with his role getting smaller after The Phantom Menace). Best, whose involvement went beyond his physical performance on set (he helped choreograph Yoda’s battle movements in Attack of the Clones, having befriended animation director Rob Coleman while working on the previous movie), started embracing his role in the franchise again in recent years, and his interviews shed a lot of light on just how much care went into something that a fair few immature fans responded to in the worst possible way.

As mentioned earlier, there’s a chance we won’t see any more episodes of Light & Magic, as there’s an air of finality to some of the material (as mentioned in the documentary itself, the last few interviews were conducted shortly before one of ILM’s storied locations, which has been used for the filming, was shut down permanently). And yet, in this age of discussions about the implementation of AI, more insights into the world of visual effects artists could only be a good thing because, as explicitly discussed in the final episode, all the innovations in the world would not really matter without the real key asset at companies like ILM: the people. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll see if I can track down my DVD of Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, which warrants a rewatch after listening to Dennis Muren’s breakdown of some of the sequences…

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