‘Booksmart’: A Fun Coming-of-Age Comedy
Wilde’s coming-of-age comedy directorial debut is simultaneously hilarious and entertaining, and remarkably heartfelt and relatable.

This SovKino production was a major early experiment in Soviet historical film about the oprichnina period of Muscovite history, combining the costumed drama and Gothic thrills of the genre with historical materialist commentary on the dialectical collision of scientific progress and patriarchal religious tyranny under Tsar Ivan the Terrible. It follows a self-taught inventor from the serf class Nikishka, whose efforts to build a flying machine incite accusations of witchcraft. Nikishka and his beloved Fima are persecuted by the feudal lord Kurlyatev, who took their village in a petty land squabble. They’re rescued when Kurlyatev’s lands are taken by the Tsar in his autocratic campaign against the feudal system. Ivan puts Nikishka to work in his linen mill, where the young serf is coveted by Tsarina Maria Temryukovna, who the Tsar’s been ignoring in favor of his cupbearer Feodor. A series of harrowing intrigues wind a bloody dance through bedchamber, feast hall, cathedral and dungeon.
Wilde’s coming-of-age comedy directorial debut is simultaneously hilarious and entertaining, and remarkably heartfelt and relatable.
The film exhibits a respect for the craft and an empathy for human tribulations that have historically been ignored.
This 2016 winner of an Ophir Award for Best Film focuses on the forbidden romance of a young, Bedouin woman and the ramifications it has for her family, her identity, and her culture.
As Sexual Assault Awareness Month comes to an end, I’d like to urge viewers and filmmakers to take a long and hard look at how rape is portrayed on screen.
Although Tuner is technically a heist movie, music and sound are woven into almost every aspect of Niki’s story. That’s what made Tuner such a pleasant surprise. I expected a film about music and discovered a heist movie, only to find that music was still at the heart of it.
In Deaf, the Spanish director Eva Libertad explores pregnancy and motherhood from the perspective of a deaf woman. Her movie examines how the world imposes the notion of disability on her main character while she actually does not feel disabled herself.