Cannes FF 2025 – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

NOUVELLE VAGUE (Cannes FF 2025) – Review by Diane Carson

June 11, 2025June 11, 2025 Diane Carson Breathless, Cannes FF 2025, French New Wave, Jean Seberg, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Nouvelle Vague, Raoul Coutard, Richard Linklater

In a fortuitous union of sensibilities, director Richard Linklater adopts and honors the French New Wave’s style in Nouvelle Vague. Known for his imaginative approach to film, his creative inclinations align perfectly with the innovative, untraditional approach of 1950s and 1960s French cinema. Among the iconic works of those rule-breakers, Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 “Breathless” (“A bout de souffle”) remains a celebrated triumph. Credit, then, to Linklater’s courage in deciding to recreate Godard’s day-by-day production of that film and to do it in black-and-white while also identifying Godard’s many famous Cahiers du Cinéma friends and colleagues, their names superimposed over those playing them on screen. In addition, the casting of lookalike actors brings the imagined production to life: those for Godard, director of photography Raoul Coutard, and stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg.

Festivals Reviews

THE SECRET AGENT (Cannes FF 2025) – Review by Diane Carson

June 11, 2025June 10, 2025 Diane Carson brazilian films, Cannes FF 2025, Cannes’ Best Director award, dramatization, Kleber Mendonça Filho, O Agente Secreto, The Secret Agent, Wagner Moura

A complex dramatization of tragic history comes to vivid life in Brazilian writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent (“O Agente Secreto). Set in 1977 Brazil, academic leftist and technology expert Marcelo retreats to his home town of Recife, hoping to elude violent retaliation in the military dictatorship rampant with corruption and indifferent to human life. Using a pseudonym in an attempt at concealment, Marcelo opposed a government minister ready to exploit and monetize scientific researchers’ discoveries while also disbanding the university department. For his ethical stand, Marcelo earns candidacy for targeted elimination.

Festivals Reviews

YOUNG MOTHERS (Cannes FF 2025) – Review by Diane Carson

May 29, 2025June 5, 2025 Diane Carson Belgian films, Cannes FF 2025, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Jeunes Mères, Luc Dardenne, Young Mothers

At any age, mothers everywhere confront challenging changes in their bodies and their lives. Ratcheting this up several degrees, Belgian directors and brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne profile five teenage mothers in Liege, Belgium, each of the young women struggling in different ways to adjust to new realities. Focused primarily on four stories, all presented with clarity and distinctive details, the teenage women personalize a diversity of problems.

Festivals Reviews

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT (Cannes FF 2025) – Review by Diane Carson

May 29, 2025February 1, 2026 Diane Carson A Simple Accident, Cannes FF 2025, iranian films, It Was Just an Accident, jafar panahi, palme d'or

The Iranian title alone, It Was Just an Accident, suggests that dire consequences will surely follow in the wake of an innocent incident. That writer/director Jafar Panahi included details of the brutal treatment he learned about from prisoners during his own detention in Iranian prisons means the film’s impact is as frightening as it is real. As Panahi said at his Cannes Film Festival press conference, “It’s the Islamic Republic of Iran that made this film.” He added that he listened to many stories of inhumane treatment. Once on the set shooting, Panahi ensured authenticity with other ex-prisoners on hand for corroboration.

Festivals Reviews

THE GREAT ARCH (Cannes FF 2025) – Review by Diane Carson

May 29, 2025May 30, 2025 Diane Carson Cannes FF 2025, Johann Otto von Spreckelsen, L'inconnu de la Grande Arche, Laurence Cossé, Stéphane Demoustier, The Great Arch, y Sidse Babett Knudsen

Contemplating the embattled story of a talented, uncompromising architect brings to mind Brady Corbet’s award-winning The Brutalist starring the Academy Award Best Actor winner Adrien Brody as László Tóth. While incorporating aspects of some Brutalist architects’ experiences with nods to historical elements, the film is, at heart, fictional. Now, with some uncanny parallels to The Brutalist, fast forward to co-writer/director Stéphane Demoustier’s The Great Arch (L’inconnu de la Grande Arche). It documents the true story of 53-year-old Danish architect Johann Otto von Spreckelsen, an unknown talent, who in 1982 wins French President François Mitterrand’s open-call competition for design of the Grand Arch.

Festivals Reviews

THE PRESIDENT’S CAKE (Cannes FF 2025) – Review by Diane Carson

May 24, 2025May 24, 2025 Diane Carson Baneen Ahmed Nayyef, Cannes FF 2025, eric roth, Hasan Hadi, Iraqi film, Sajad Mohamad Qasem, The President's Cake, Waheed Thabet Khreibat

The President’s Cake cleverly reveals the intricate, unnerving details of Iraqi life in the 1980s. On the occasion of Saddam Hussein’s upcoming April 28 birthday, special preparations must be made by everyone, no matter their status. This extends to nine-year-old Lamia’s school where a lottery drawing designates a ‘special’ boy and a girl to bring an assigned tribute. So says the belligerent, cantankerous children’s teacher. And thus it falls to Lamia’s classmate friend Saeed to bring fruit for juice and, more problematically, for Lamia to bring a cake. The President’s Cake won the Directors’ Fortnight top prize, the sole Cannes Film Festival award voted for by attending audience members

Festivals Reviews

FUORI (Cannes FF 2025) – Review by Diane Carson

May 24, 2025May 24, 2025 Diane Carson Cannes FF 2025, Elodie, Fuori, Goliarda Sapienza, Ippolita Di Majo, Mario Martone, Matilda De Angelis, valeria golino

Italian co-writer/director Mario Martone’s Fuori captures a provocative chapter in the life of Goliarda Sapienza, called Goli. Along with MartonE and Ippolita Di Majo, Sapienza contributed to the adaptation of her own 1983 novel, The Universe of Rebibbia, that title a reference to the prison in Rome where Goli served a five-day sentence for theft of a friend’s jewelry. The publishing world’s rejection in 1976 of Goli’s historical novel The Art of Joy, a nine-year literary enterprise, edged her into financial distress. Job searches didn’t pan out. When she applied for any job at hotels, potential employers rejected her for lack of experience, prompting Goli’s betrayal and theft. When her friend’s housemaid recognized the jewelry at a resell fair, Goli went to prison, a life-altering sentence.

Festivals Reviews

SENTIMENTAL VALUE (Cannes FF 2025) – Review by Diane Carson

May 24, 2025May 24, 2025 Diane Carson Cannes FF 2025, elle fanning, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Joachim Trier, Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value', Stellan Skarsgård

Family dynamics command, have even dominated, dramatic narratives for all history, including a prime place in cinema. A fascinating combination of psychological complexity and emotional density often confers noteworthy viewer involvement as well, a benefit from shared human experiences. Mining this rich vein, Danish-born Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value adds a poignant chapter through the deeply problematic relationship of sisters Nora and Agnes with their formerly absent father Gustav, an aging film director. From avoidance both metaphorical and physical, from sparring to embracing, the trio wrestles with the past in an unsettled present

Festivals Reviews

THE LITTLE SISTER (Cannes FF 2025) – Review by Diane Carson

May 19, 2025May 19, 2025 Diane Carson Cannes FF 2025, Hafsia Herzi, LGBTQI, The Little Sister

Writer/director Hafsia Herzi’s The Little Sister calmly and insightfully observes French Algerian 17-year-old Fatima’s lesbian inclination, exploration, and confirmation. Wisely, rather than presenting an expansive, sweeping survey, Herzi sensitively and without histrionics follows seventeen-year-old, Muslim teenager Fatima’s tentative questioning of her own desires, pursuing online postings, and responding with curiosity to nurse Ji-Na’s lingering eye contact during a doctor’s visit for her father.

Festivals Reviews

DIE, MY LOVE (Cannes FF 2025) – Review by Diane Carson

May 19, 2025May 18, 2025 Diane Carson Ariana Harwicz, Cannes FF 2025, Die My Love, Enda Walsh, jennifer lawrence, lynne ramsay, Robert Pattinson, Seamus McGarvey, Sissy Spacek

Director Lynne Ramsay courageously and perceptively tackles the daunting subject of a woman’s mental health illness exhibited erratically and uncontrollably. In Die, My Love, the individual more at risk to herself than to others is Grace. Targeting the subject of post-partum difficulties, discussed too seldom to this day, Die, My Love contributes a valuable addition that may, and hopefully will, prompt more attention.

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