2019 Oscars: A Look at Latin American Films in This Year’s Foreign Language Oscar Race
Our weekly Foreign Language Film Oscar race analysis pieces are back! For the next eight weeks, we will be taking a close look at this... Read More
Mina Takla
Mina Takla is a foreign correspondent for AwardsWatch and the co-founder of The Syndicate, an online news agency that offers original content services to several film brands including Empire Magazine’s Middle East edition and the Dubai Film Festival. Takla has attended, covered and written for multiple film festivals online including the Dubai International Film Festival, Abu Dhabi Film Festival, Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Annecy Film Festivals. He has been following the Oscar race since 2000 with accurate, office-pool winning predictions year after year. He writes monthly in Empire Arabia, the Arabic version of the world’s top cinema magazine and conducts press junkets with Hollywood stars in the UK and the US. He holds a Master’s degree in Strategic Marketing from Australia’s Wollongong University and is currently based in Dubai, UAE.
A Cry From the Heart: An interview with ‘Capernaum’ director Nadine Labaki
With CAPERNAUM, Nadine Labaki has captured the hearts of audiences across the globe. From Cannes (where the film nabbed the Jury Prize) to Sarajevo and... Read More
Cannes Review: Kore-eda’s unforgettable ‘Shoplifters’ is his best film to date
SHOPLIFTERS is Hirokazu Kore-eda’s best film to date, and one of the most pleasant surprises of the Cannes Film Festival. A deceptively simple but utterly... Read More
Cannes Review: Gaya Jiji’s glacially paced tale of sexual repression ‘My Favorite Fabric’
[divider style=”normal” top=”20″ bottom=”20″] Gaya Jiji’s directorial debut MY FAVORITE FABRIC is an undercooked, lacking melodrama that takes points for being one of the rare... Read More
Cannes Review: Zhao Tao is a Best Actress Contender in ‘Ash is Purest White’ from Jia Zhang-ke
One of the most commercial and straightforward films of his career, Jia Zhang-ke’s ASH IS PUREST WHITE is accessible but not superficial, entertaining but never... Read More
Cannes Review: Mads Mikkelsen burns up the screen in icy ‘Arctic’
Survival films can go either way: they can be engaging viewing experiences that expand their scope beyond their basic premise or can be slogs that... Read More
Cannes Review: Pawel Pawlikowski’s bleak and beautiful ‘Cold War’
Pawel Pawlikowski’s COLD WAR is one of those films that you can respect but not outright love. Beautifully made but far more slight and bleaker... Read More
Cannes Review: Kirill Serebrennikov’s arthouse crowdpleaser ‘Leto’
Kirill Serebrennikov’s LETO is a tribute to music, dreams of youth and the power – and beauty of ambition. Despite a masterful and at times... Read More
Cannes Review: A.B. Shawky’s gripping and emotional debut ‘Yomeddine’
[divider style=”normal” top=”20″ bottom=”20″] Rarely do debut features play in competition at Cannes. In fact, of the debut features that played in the festival’s most... Read More
Cannes Review: Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego’s immersive and unforgettable ‘Birds of Passage’
In his follow-up to the Oscar-nominated EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT, Colombian director Ciro Guerra teams up with director Cristina Gallego to deliver a remarkable feature about... Read More
2024 Black Reel Awards Nominations: ‘Nickel Boys,’ ‘The Piano Lesson’ Lead 
2024 Online Association of Female Film Critics (OAFFC) Nominations 
Interview: ‘Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl’ Directors Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham on Bringing Back Two of Animation’s Most Beloved Characters [VIDEO] 
2024 Florida Film Critics Circle (FFCC) Winners: ‘The Beast’ Named Best Picture, Director; Kieran Culkin is Best Actor for ‘A Real Pain’