Author Bérénice Reynaud

It’s at Sundance that independent queer cinema was launched in the US media. Since Todd Haynes’ Poison (1991) (1) and Gregg Araki’s The Living End (1992), the notion of queer cinema has evolved, but Araki is st...

It was a vintage year in Vancouver, as the organisers had secured a series of programming “coups”. Two “special events” introduced audiences to epic-length narrative films, Raúl Ruiz’s Os Mistérios de Lisboa (T...

Handsome Men and Narrative Holes – Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s Howl (US Dramatic Competition) The best thing you could say about the Opening Night film Howl, was that it gave you the desire to (re)rea...

Odd Man Out With the plurality of choices it offers, a film festival constitutes a meta-text – and what you write about, ultimately, is your own journey within the grid of the published schedule, like a Baud...

I New wine in an old bottle? Such was the challenge faced by Rose Kuo, when she became AFI Fest’s artistic director in 2007. Now it seems that wine has spilled out and flown in a different direction. In other ...

Sundance: 15-29 January 2009 Pan African: 5-16 February 2009 Of Mormons and Men Never was the paradox of Sundance felt so profoundly, and, I will add, so creatively, as this year. The entire country was reel...

  AFI: 30 October–9 November 2008 AFM: 5–12 November 2008 Sprawlin’ thru Do cities have the film festivals they deserve? Or rather, what happens to the classical notion of cinéphilie in a sprawling...

17–27 January 2008 Market The shadow of the seemingly never-ending writers strike was looming over Sundance this year (we didn’t yet know it would end just on time for the Oscars!), and, when we were turn...

An insightful analysis of Nina Menkes’ films and the many distinctive virtues they possess.

27 September-12 October 2007 The renewal of cinema sometimes comes from unexpected places. Who would have believed, a few years ago, in a Romanian cinema Renaissance? And yet, since Cristi Puíu’s Moartea...

It is now a done deal: at the beginning of November, the American Film Institute Festival (1-11 November) and the American Film Market (31 October-7 November) are held quasi-simultaneously – one in a ...

January 18-28, 2007 In spite of a creeping feeling that Sundance 2007 was not a great vintage, there were some really good films – albeit sprinkled in different sections. The inaugural edition of “New Fr...