The Film Stage

2 days ago | thefilmstage.com | Jordan Raup

It looks like Cannes was saving our most-anticipated premiere for last: it was just announced last week that Bi Gan’s sci-fi detective tale Resurrection has been added to the main competition. With a score by M83 and cast including Jackson Yee, Shu Qi, Mark Chao, Li Gengxi, Huan Jue, and Chen Yongzhong, the latest film from the Kaili Blues and Long Day’s Journey Into Night director is among the longest at the festival, clocking in at 160 minutes.

2 days ago | thefilmstage.com | Dan Mecca

20 years ago, 20th Century Fox began the summer-blockbuster season with a sword-and-sandals epic about the Crusades. Kingdom of Heaven‘s pedigree was impressive, if not bulletproof. Ridley Scott was only five years on from his Best Picture-winning Gladiator (not to mention immediate hit follow-ups Hannibal and Black Hawk Down, both in 2001) and newly minted movie star Orlando Bloom had plum, stand-out roles in two successful franchises (one of which had just won Best Picture itself).

3 days ago | thefilmstage.com | Nick Newman

In a city where the rents are too high, the subways are too slow, and morale barely hovers above cope, repertory options might make such troubles worthwhile. So one thinks while looking over Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us, a career-spanning, 35mm-rich, two-cinema retrospective that began last weekend at Japan Society and will continue at Metrograph.

3 days ago | thefilmstage.com | Devan Suber

Recent times have been a boon for films by or about Indian women. On top of Cannes Grand Prix winner All We Imagine As Light, 2024 also saw the premiere or release of Suchi Talati’s Girls Will Be Girls, Sandhya Suri’s Santosh, and Kiran Rao’s controversial Best International Feature pick Laapataa Ladies. Into that mix comes Karan Kandhari’s Sister Midnight, an offbeat black comedy partly about the difficulty of being a modern Indian woman.

5 days ago | thefilmstage.com | Jared Mobarak

The Matron (Rima Te Wiata) of Te Motu School for Incorrigible and Delinquent Girls truly believes she’s doing the work of God through her three education principles: “Christianize, civilize, and assimilate.” Why? Because they saved her as a young Māori teenager adrift and in search of purpose.