KVIFF 2026: “The Guest,” “Lover, Not a Fighter,” “Incinerator”

This year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival concluded with numerous worthy films being awarded, from directing honors for the cringe-inducing family drama The Guest in the Crystal Globe Competition, to recognition for two very different coming-of-age stories in the festival’s Proxima competition: the appealing comedy Lover, Not a Fighter and the mysterious and mesmeric Incinerator. […]

KVIFF 2026: “Only Beautiful Things to Look At”

In communist Czechoslovakia, the state encroached on its citizens’ lives in the most horrifying way imaginable: coerced sterilizations and abortion control was exerted over thousands of women, particularly Romani women. Abortions would only be approved after the women laid bare the intimate details of their lives and relationships before a committee, while other women were […]

KVIFF 2026: “Tycoon,” “Five Years, Four Months,” “Against Nature”

This year marks my first time attending the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, and I’ve been amazed not only by the beauty of the Czech spa town where it takes place, but the diversity of its programming, which has been exciting to experience whether I’ve gelled with a film or not. The three films reviewed […]

KVIFF 2026: “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma”

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) has just settled into her room in a sleepy hotel in a rural town, bordering a forest that’s blanketed with snow. If that remote environment sounds rather too quaint for a seemingly savvy young person, know that this trip isn’t purely for pleasure. At 29 years old, Kris is a Sundance wunderkind […]

KVIFF 2026: “Black Money for White Nights”

The White Nights are a natural phenomenon like no other. For a brief period over the summer, the sun barely dips below the horizon in high latitude areas, meaning that daylight sticks around for a full 24 hours. It’s a sight that Marina (Tanya Shahova) has yearned to witness for the last 30 years. Sixty […]

KVIFF 2026: “Chica Checa”

Zdena (Pavla Tomicová) works as a mail carrier in the small Czech town where she’s lived all her life. She promised her husband before he passed away that she’d be able to take care of their house on her own, but she’s managing that about as well as her life. The building is in desperate […]

KVIFF 2026: “The Match”

Juan Cabral and Santiago Franco’s documentary The Match couldn’t feel more timely. Following its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, the absorbing and detailed account of the now-legendary match between Argentina and England at the 1986 FIFA World Cup quarter-finals screens as the opening night film at the Karlovy Vary International Film […]

Annecy 2026: “Julián,” “We Are Aliens”

An affirming tale of self-acceptance and identity told with vibrancy and tenderness, director Louise Bagnell’s Julián— premiering in competition at the 2026 Annecy Film Festival— finds its title character and beating heart in a young Afro-Latino boy (voiced by Knyght Darius Jack) journeying with his father (Anthony Sardinha) to spend the summer with the grandmother […]

Review: “Toy Story 5”

I was five years old when Pixar’s first feature-length film, Toy Story, was released in theaters at the end of 1995. Now I’m 35, and the fifth installment of what’s become a classic animated series with an unfathomable amount of supplementary media and that kickstarted an entire studio’s popularity is just entering theaters. It’s so […]

Review: “Leviticus”

What do you do when the object of your desire turns against you— or you turn against it? That tension between lust and livelihood is explored quite literally in writer and director Adrian Chiarella’s debut feature Leviticus, which fast proves to be an incredible concept for a queer horror movie that’s ultimately too sparsely realized […]