Savina Petkova

‘Fallen Leaves’ review: Love wins in Aki Kaurismäki’s tender tragicomedy of the working class that finds him at his romantic best | Cannes

Savina Petkova May 22, 2023

A title as poetic as Fallen Leaves entirely suits the fourth installment of Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki’s working-class series, which began with Shadows in Paradise,... Read More

‘The Zone of Interest’ review: Jonathan Glazer’s Auschwitz-set drama is monumental in its representation of the seen and unseen horror of the Holocaust | Cannes

Savina Petkova May 20, 2023

Exactly ten years after the singular sci-fi achievement that was Under the Skin, writer-director Jonathan Glazer is back in Cannes’ Main Competition with a new,... Read More

‘In Water (mul-an-e-seo)’ review: Hong Sang-soo blurs the lines of his own self-reference to middling effect | Berlinale

Savina Petkova February 24, 2023

What’s a year without a Hong Sang-soo film? Does a film festival even exist, if it does not feature a regular slot for the prolific... Read More

‘Past Lives’ review: Celine Song’s poignant debut is a nuanced little wonder | Berlinale

Savina Petkova February 23, 2023

Three devastatingly attractive people are sitting at a bar: who are they? Or more importantly, who are they to each other? This initial curiosity bordering... Read More

‘Manodrome’ review: Jesse Eisenberg is phenomenal in John Trengove’s fascinating take on toxic masculinity | Berlinale

Savina Petkova February 19, 2023

The Wound, the acclaimed debut by the South African director John Trengove, provides a good launchpad for his sophomore feature, with Xhosa initiation traditions swapped... Read More

‘Reality’ review: Sydney Sweeney is a tour de force in intense U.S. election whistleblower thriller | Berlinale

Savina Petkova February 19, 2023

Playwright Tina Satter makes her screen debut with Reality, a simmering investigative drama reconstructing the arrest of Reality Winner, an NSA contractor and ex-Air Force... Read More

‘The Adults’ review: Dustin Guy Defa misses the mark in this quirky family drama | Berlinale

Savina Petkova February 18, 2023

American indie favorite Dustin Guy Defa returns to Berlinale with a feature almost a decade after his short film Person to Person screened fresh out... Read More

‘BlackBerry’ review: 90s nostalgia yields little cinematic juice in what feels like mid-TV at best | Berlinale

Savina Petkova February 17, 2023

BlackBerry, the follow-up to his 2016 docu-fiction Operation Avalanche, sees actor-director Matt Johnson put inventors, investors, and the internet to the test in a nostalgia-fueled... Read More

Cannes Review: Riley Keough and Gina Gammell’s ‘War Pony’ is a well-intended but often performative look at letting Lakota people telling their stories [Grade: B-]

Savina Petkova May 28, 2022

The origin story of Riley Keough and Gina Gammell’s feature debut, War Pony, coincides with the production of another film, Andrea Arnold’s 2016 Cannes Jury... Read More

Cannes Review: Paul Mescal plays a troubled father in Charlotte Wells’ delicately stunning debut, ‘Aftersun’ [Grade A-]

Savina Petkova May 28, 2022

What can we do with our fickle memories of childhood, especially the ones painting our parents with idealistic brush strokes, as if they were something... Read More