AMARGA NAVIDAD/BITTER CHRISTMAS (NYFF 2026) – Review by Diane Carson
In Amarga Navidad/Bitter Christmas, Pedro Almodóvar intertwines stories Noted Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar is at heart an experimental filmmaker working
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Author: Diane Carson
PAPER TIGER (NYFF 2026) – Review by Diane Carson
A get rich quick scheme tears a Jewish family apart in 1986 Queens, New York. Ex-NYPD cop Gary Pearl and his brother Irwin, an engineer, husband and father, become involved with Russian operatives. Quickly becoming a nightmare, it begins as a beneficial financial agreement to follow federal regulations in disposal of oil drums containing toxic waste at the Gowanus Canal. When the Russian criminals opt for illegal dumping, which they always intended, the entire Pearl family, including Irwin’s two sons, become a threat to be intimidated into capitulation or eliminated.
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FATHERLAND (NYFF 2026) – Review by Diane Carson
Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski’s Fatherland reminds viewers of the attentive commitment of Thomas Mann’s daughter Erika (an always superb Sandra Hüller) to her father (Hanns Zischler). In fact, the formidable Erika enjoyed a full life as an actress, writer, and rally driver. In 1946 she reported on the Nuremberg war crimes trials before traveling to California to care for Thomas who was being treated for lung cancer. In Fatherland’s 1949 Germany Erika and Thomas drive in their black Buick sedan across the ruins of Germany, from Frankfurt to Weimer, from the former city under US control to the latter under Soviet domination where Thomas delivers a passionate, courageous anti-Nazi address advocating freedom from tyranny.
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THEY’RE HERE (NYFF 2026) – Review by Diane Carson
Unfolding in the style of horror film, which it is, directors Laura Poitras’ and Rachel Lauren Mueller’s They’re Here documents ICE’s illegal, combative activity in Minneapolis, Minnesota, this past winter. Immediately mimicking the menacing, stalking point-of-view shots that evoke anxiety in that genre of films, the association is apt given ICE’s threatening, frightening, even terrorizing men, women, and children. In a revealing, informative 25 minutes, They’re Here presents the array of tactics used by ICE agents in military uniforms and, almost universally, with partial masks covering their faces, thereby concealing their identity.
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Telluride Film Festival 2026 Overview (Part Two) – Diane Carson reports
The outstanding films described in the 53rd Telluride Film Festival Overview Part One comprise just a diverse sampling. Here, in Part Two, among other diverse selections meriting praise, again documentaries and fiction films figure in the mix. Most striking, actors’ performances in the narratives deserve particular commendation for their exceptional realization of complex, often fraught and difficult characters. For their part, the nonfiction works bring their topics to vivid life through well-chosen footage, fine editing, and unobtrusive music and sound.
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Telluride Film Festival 2026 Overview (Part One) – Diane Carson reports
Familiar issues of cultural and national politics with the accompanying struggle for personal freedom and identity dominated the outstanding films showcased at the 53rd Telluride Film Festival, always held Labor Day weekend in Telluride, Colorado. Nonfiction and fiction, American and international, historical and contemporary—all the selections offered strong presentations of themes and concerns relevant to the current ideological environment.
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MAKING MARIE ANTOINETTE (Telluride FF 2026) – Review by Diane Carson
Already celebrated for her dazzling, incisive Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991) documenting the filmmaking trials of husband Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, Eleanor Coppola’s Making Marie Antoinette (2026) confirms and enhances her reputation as an accomplished filmmaker in her own right. Early in the documentary, in excerpts from her journal spoken by Diane Lane, Eleanor acknowledges that she much prefers to stand back and observe, that “it is against my personality to shoot a documentary, and yet I continue to do so.”
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THE NATURAL STATE (Telluride FF 2026) – Review by Diane Carson
At the heart of The Natural State, a decidedly unusual documentary, is the emphatically reluctant Indian anti-guru U.G. Krishnamurti. And yet, in a daring endeavor, director Matthew Dougherty relentlessly probes the charismatic appeal of U.G. who repeatedly and adamantly tells his followers that he has no secrets or truths to share with them and that, moreover, he has no interest in changing them. Rejecting that pronouncement, in 1989, abandoning her family, Julie Thayer left New York City for the Swiss Alps, eventually attaching herself and her psychological wellbeing to U.G. Ignoring his periodic commands to go away, Julie filmed hundreds of hours of U.G. while also keeping a diary of her despair alternating with ecstasy. Drawing on Julie’s footage and writings, Dougherty interprets the curious and nonsensical events defining U.G. and his uninvited entourage.
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TWIGGY – Review by Diane Carson
As engaging and straightforward as its title luminary, British director Sadie Frost’s documentary Twiggy skillfully explores this multitalented model, film, theater, and television star. Through candid interviews with Twiggy, her daughter Carly, husband Leigh Lawson, numerous friends, and others with whom she worked, a personal and professional profile emerges of a multifaceted, largely unaffected, vivacious talent. With a factually oriented approach to Twiggy’s life, Frost balances Twiggy’s good luck at 16 to be dubbed “The Face of ‘66” by London’s Daily Express and thereafter catapulted to stardom with her dedication and hard work for succeeding decades.
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LEARNING TO FLY – Review by Diane Carson
Watching the pain and fortitude required for 100-plus mile ultramarathoners, the question that recurs is “Why?” The daunting challenge of the grueling distance (almost four traditional marathons back to back) is compounded in several races that require running uneven, gravel trails through the night with a total elevation gain of over 18,000 feet. The most difficult 108 mile Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) involves a loop around that 15,781 foot mountain with an elevation gain of 32,800 feet and an equivalent elevation descent. Runners must finish in under forty seven hours. Painfully and reluctantly, some will have to withdraw. Others will complete the course to their incalculable delight, even as they collapse at the finish line.
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