Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR
ROTTERDAM Film Festival is a key event for the independent film industry internationally, particularly from Asia and the Global South. Appropriately, the Tiger Award top prize went to the Indian film Pebbles.
Set in a rural village in southern India, Pebbles follows an alcoholic and abusive father and his young son as they embark on an eight-mile walk under scorching sun in a bid to reunite with his wife, who has fled his violence.
The feature debut of director Vinothraj PS, it has a a non-professional Tamil-speaking cast and, despite its grim subject matter, is a captivating and warm-hearted tale imbued with beauty and humour.
ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
RITA DI SANTO talks to Scottish-Irish filmmaker MARK COUSINS about his new panorama of world cinema The Story of Documentary Film
RITA DI SANTO takes us through the prize winners, and takes the temperature of a festival that prioritised narratives of exile, state violence and class division
ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review The Ceremony, Eddington, The Life of Chuck, and The Thursday Murder Club



