Reviews by Anne-Katrin Titze

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  Breath (2017)

  Review preview for Breath

  Samson Coulter and Ben Spence give startling, intensely physical performances.

  Two teenage boys form an unlikely friendship and embark on adventure.
• 
  The Gospel According To André (2017)

  Review preview for The Gospel According To André

  Flashes a light to illuminate different stages in the life of the man who invented himself with style and grace.

  Portrait of André Leon Talley.
• 
  Pope Francis: A Man Of His Word (2018)

  Review preview for Pope Francis: A Man Of His Word

  The insightful and intimate interviews Wenders conducted with the Pope are interspersed with footage of his extensive travels that show the meaning of his words.

  A documentary about Pope Francis, his work of reform and his answers to today's global questions.
• 
  Yellow Is Forbidden (2018)

  Review preview for Yellow Is Forbidden

  Guo Pei is full of contradictions and Yellow Is Forbidden doesn't try to hide that, quite the opposite.

  Documentary about Chinese designer Guo Pei and her struggle to become part of the world of haute couture.
• 
  Disobedience (2017)

  Review preview for Disobedience

  When the price of obedience is a life of lies where humiliation has no bounds, the pent-up desire explodes.

  After the death of her estranged rabbi father, a New York photographer returns to the Orthodox Jewish community in north London where she grew up and, in doing so, reignites long-dormant passions and controversies.
• 
  Hitler's Hollywood (2017)

  Review preview for Hitler's Hollywood

  The ghosts return and it is important to question them in order to assemble a future that doesn't repeat the past.

  A essay film on German cinema during the era of Nazi propaganda.
• 
  Jeannette: The Childhood Of Joan Of Arc (2017)

  Review preview for Jeannette: The Childhood Of Joan Of Arc

  Eternal greatness encounters sacrifice and the film dares to musically tackle questions of complicity in evil. Péguy's socialism, patriotism, and Catholicism mix well with the eager young actors. This is unlike any film you have ever seen.

  Musical about the French heroine.
• 
  Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco (2017)

  Review preview for Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco

  Kindness and joy not always come to mind when one thinks of the fashion world. This is the rare portrait where they do. As the documentary unfolds, we marvel at the diversity, the celebratory mood.

  Documentary about the fashion illustrator.
• 
  Ismael's Ghosts: Director's Cut (2017)

  Review preview for Ismael's Ghosts: Director's Cut

  How does Ismael have the derring-do to believe that all these women are there, like a bouquet, for him to choose from? He is an artist, of course, who creates his own reality.

  A filmmaker's life is sent into a tailspin by the return of a former lover just as he is about to embark on the shoot of a new film.
• 
  Foxtrot (2017)

  Review preview for Foxtrot

  Samuel Maoz steps into the rhythm of the foxtrot to give structure to the three separate chapters of his intense, reverberating film.

  A family's world is rocked when they are told about the death of their son.
• 
  Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017)

  Review preview for Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

  Her life story plays out like an adventure novel overflowing with intrigue.

  A documentary about the celebrated actress and inventor.
• 
  All The Money In The World (2017)

  Review preview for All The Money In The World

  These are the pigments of luminous cinema.

  The story of the kidnapping of 16-year-old John Paul Getty III.
• 
  Downsizing (2017)

  Review preview for Downsizing

  Alexander Payne's latest, unclassifiable film gallivants with us through a number of different worlds that all seem familiar, yet perplexing.

  Satire about a man who starts to think he would have a better life if only he could shrink himself.
• 
  Phantom Thread (2017)

  Review preview for Phantom Thread

  Phantom Thread is a film about fabric, craft, beauty, but at heart asks all the crucial, complicated questions about love.

  In Fifties London, the fastidious life of a renowned dressmaker is disrupted by a young, strong-willed woman who becomes his muse and lover.
• 
  Arthur Miller: Writer (2017)

  Review preview for Arthur Miller: Writer

  We get family background and find out why fathers are always mythological figures.

  A documentary exploring the life and work of Arthur Miller.
• 
  Jane (2017)

  Review preview for Jane

  Morgen infuses new life into Jane Goodall's groundbreaking wildlife study that took place over half a century ago.

  Documentary about primatologist Jane Goodall.
• 
  Wonder Wheel (2017)

  Review preview for Wonder Wheel

  When Allen foregoes his crutches, any kind of movie seems possible.

  On Coney Island in the 1950s, a lifeguard tells the story of a middle-aged carousel operator and his beleaguered wife.
• 
  Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold (2017)

  Review preview for Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold

  It is always wonderful when a film about a writer you admire produces sentences - be it in dialogue, commentary or excerpts you overlooked or forgot from the published texts - that are so poignant in the here and now and feel brand new.

  A documentary portrait of the filmmaker's aunt.
• 
  Call Me By Your Name (2017)

  Review preview for Call Me By Your Name

  It is fundamentally a film about the workings of infatuation with a charmed fever that contaminates its characters.

  First love blooms over a long, hot summer for a teenager in Italy.
• 
  The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected) (2017)

  Review preview for The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected)

  The balance of the super real with intricately timed artifice and how they collapse into each other is Baumbach's crown achievement.

  Comedy drama about a family who gather in New York to celebrate the work of their dad.
• 
  The Rider (2017)

  Review preview for The Rider

  The craft, the knowledge, the deep communication with the animal, shown without words - this is breathtaking, transcendent cinema.

  A young cowboy tries to carve out a new identity.
• 
  Lucky (2017)

  Review preview for Lucky

  Deadpan absurdity, everyday madness and enlightenment through routine merge in an attempt to answer the big questions of life.

  The spiritual journey of a 90-year-old atheist.
• 
  Battle Of The Sexes (2017)

  Review preview for Battle Of The Sexes

  Everything feels alive and the production design by Judy Becker is impeccable.

  True story of the tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.
• 
  The Graduation (2016)

  Review preview for The Graduation

  The film shimmers and provokes where it is least expected.

  A documentary about selection procedures at cinema school La Fémis in Paris.
• 
  School Life (2016)

  Review preview for School Life

  The camera of Ní Chianáin has the light touch of a welcomed guardian angel, not an intruder.

  Life at a boarding school, where the teachers' careers are drawing to a close.
• 
  Keep The Change (2017)

  Review preview for Keep The Change

  Keep The Change tells an intricate love story, featuring people we rarely get to see on the big screen

  The unlikely love story of two people who meet in a support group.
• 
  House Of Z (2016)

  Review preview for House Of Z

  The film travels from Hip-Hop to humility, from red carpets, back to Posen's studies in London.

  Portrait of designer Zac Posen.
• 
  Bronx Gothic (2017)

  Review preview for Bronx Gothic

  You cannot be certain if it is the performer, Rossi or yourself who has strayed from the path to discover a new world within the clutches of history.

  Documentary, exploring the work of Okwui Okpokwasili.
• 
  Maudie (2016)

  Review preview for Maudie

  The performances under Walsh's direction capture the fine splinters of motivation and the mystery that we all are to each other.

  Story of folk artist Maud Lewis.
• 
  KEDi (2016)

  Review preview for KEDi

  Torun, who spent much of her childhood in the city, lets us get supremely close to seven exquisitely different felines.

  A documentary following seven different cats through the streets of Istanbul.
• 
  Slack Bay (2016)

  Review preview for Slack Bay

  The absurd exaggerations and the wild parishes of humor are completely original, never cruel, and attached to a physicality that is pure cinema.

  Period comedy, set in 1910, about the investigation into disappearances from beaches in France.
• 
  Letters From Baghdad (2016)

  Review preview for Letters From Baghdad

  As the voice of Gertrude, Tilda Swinton seductively pulls us in, reading her letters sent from afar.

  The story of Gertrude Bell, who shaped the destiny of Iraq after the First World War.
• 
  Norman: The Moderate Rise And Tragic Fall Of A New York Fixer (2016)

  Review preview for Norman: The Moderate Rise And Tragic Fall Of A New York Fixer

  Cedar aims for emotional truth through visceral recognition and he succeeds in feeding our desire to understand what makes humans do the things we do.

  A fixer falls in with a rising Israeli politician and is soon trying to bluff his way into the big time.
• 
  Cézanne And I (2016)

  Review preview for Cézanne And I

  It is the two world-famous guys Thompson tries to pin down like butterflies, as if she were a lepidopterist. They escape, of course, because their works are still alive.

  Drama about the friendship between Cézanne and Émile Zola.
• 
  David Lynch: The Art Life (2016)

  Review preview for David Lynch: The Art Life

  We get to watch Lynch work on a sculpture, sit and smoke, or interact with his toddler daughter Lula in the present. Family photos and home movies light up the past.

  Documentary about the American filmmaker.
• 
  Sophie's Misfortunes (2016)

  Review preview for Sophie's Misfortunes

  It all works together to pay tribute to the tiny, all important, personality-building feelings that are so often forgotten.

  A girl's life changes dramatically after she is left in the care of her stepmother.
• 
  Nocturama (2016)

  Review preview for Nocturama

  It is in the second half of Nocturama - which takes place in a department store by night - that Bertrand Bonello's prowess at showing us worlds closing in on themselves comes to full force.

  One morning in Paris. A fistful of adolescents, from different backgrounds. Individually, they begin a strange dance through the labyrinth of the metro and the streets of the capital. They seem to be following a plan.
• 
  From The Land Of The Moon (2016)

  Review preview for From The Land Of The Moon

  Cotillard's face oscillates mysteriously between the past depicted on the screen and a woman of the present who tries to understand.

  Twenty-year story of the loves of a passionate, free-spirited woman.
• 
  Frantz (2016)

  Review preview for Frantz

  Frequently and not at all randomly, the film switches to colour, posing a charming riddle that reflects states of happiness or other kinds of intensity.

  In the aftermath of WWI, a young German who grieves the death of her fiancé in France meets a mysterious French man who visits the fiancé's grave to lay flowers.
• 
  I Am Not Your Negro (2016)

  Review preview for I Am Not Your Negro

  The full use of what film can do is eye-opening - the juxtapositions jolt awareness of what is important and remains necessary.

  Essay film based on James Baldwin's writing about the story of race in modern America.
• 
  The Seasons In Quincy (2016)

  Review preview for The Seasons In Quincy

  The combination allows for fascinating interplay of concerns.

  Four film essays about the much loved artist and storyteller.
• 
  Lion (2016)

  Review preview for Lion

  To its great merit, the film does not go for romanticizing or exploiting this child's life-threatening dilemma and the impossibly difficult decision-making process can be felt throughout.

  An Indian man who was adopted by an Australian couple as a boy heads off to find his real family.
• 
  Journey Through French Cinema (2016)

  Review preview for Journey Through French Cinema

  This film is not an encyclopedia entry but a living, breathing adventure ride into French cinema through the eyes and ears of the filmmaker.

  A personal look at French cinema, the films, directors and composers.
• 
  MA (2015)

  Review preview for MA

  Director Celia Rowlson-Hall, a dancer and choreographer, is able to make visible through movement what harms the soul.

  In this modern-day vision of Mother Mary’s pilgrimage, a woman crosses the American Southwest, deconstructing the world around her.
• 
  Cameraperson (2016)

  Review preview for Cameraperson

  The people encountered while working as a cinematographer for different documentarians, shooting all over the globe, are woven into a fascinating, irregular net of meaning.

  Cinematographer Kirsten Johnson documents her career working with filmmakers.
• 
  20th Century Women (2016)

  Review preview for 20th Century Women

  Annette Bening gives a glorious, all-encompassing performance.

  The story of three women in 1979 southern California.
• 
  Aquarius (2016)

  Review preview for Aquarius

  The closer the glance at the specifics, the more universal the plight becomes.

  A retired music critic is the last resident of a building targeted by developers - she becomes engaged in a cold war of sorts with the company.
• 
  A Quiet Passion (2016)

  Review preview for A Quiet Passion

  Davies looks at questions of the soul, family, war, creativity and how to be true to yourself - all in stunningly beautiful images.

  The story of American poet Emily Dickinson.
• 
  Certain Women (2016)

  Review preview for Certain Women

  Certain Women is a film suffused in uncertainties.

  Triptych of stories about women in small-town America.
• 
  Manchester By The Sea (2016)

  Review preview for Manchester By The Sea

  Manchester By The Sea is a masterful study of clumsiness.

  A man returns to his hometown following the death of his brother.