Because I cover film festivals (8-10 each year), I get to discover many international films before their US release. Now you can experience your own international film festival in the comfort of your own home for free – with kanopy.
You can sign up for your own kanopy account for free with your public library card. I have the kanopy app on my Roku and my smart TV, right along with Amazon Prime, AppleTV, YouTube, HBO Max, Criterion, etc.
I’m curating your personal film festival with five movies from Britain, Germany, Italy, Palestine and Mexico, plus an American documentary about Venezuelans traveling to Colombia, Panama and New York. Except for one film by a famous director, these are the first or second films by new directors. I’m sure you haven’t heard of most, if not all, of these films, but they include some major award winners. None received a wide US theatrical release, but now all are free on kanopy.
- To a Land Unknown: no good choices. This searing thriller takes us to Athens, into the underground world of Palestinian migrants stuck until they acquire false passports that will get them into Germany. Yasser (Mohammed Ghassan) is a decent family man forced into low level criminality to survive and raise money for the forged passport; he is also burdened by responsibility for his cousin, whose drug addiction is a ticking bomb. Repeatedly exploited and defrauded, Yasser conceives of one very risky way out – to scam the very human traffickers preying on him. How “international” is this British film about Palestinians in Greece? – it’s the first feature for Dubai-born director Mahdi Fleifel, who works between Britain, Denmark and Greece. (UK, 2024)
- Diciannove: coming of age – his way. The title of this coming-of-age film is Italian for nIneteen, the age of Leonardo (Manfredi Marini), who is leaving his Palermo home for the first time to begin college in London. Ever restless, he is eager to embark on his life journey, but doesn’t know where to head, and, being nineteen, he won’t listen to anyone else. In mere days, Leonardo pivots from business courses in London to the study of Italian literature at a university in Siena. He discovers a passion for old Italian writers – just not the ones his professor assigns. Nineteen is an age that most of us sample experiences, but Leonardo is an introvert, sometimes bratty, who refuses to socialize, and we wonder if he will ever forge relationships or act on his sexual urges. Diciannove is that highly original coming-of-age film in which what even Leonardo chooses NOT to do is interesting, and we can’t predict what could make his spirit soar at the end. Diciannove is the debut feature for writer-director Giovanni Tortorici, a protege of Luca Guadagnino, who produced the film. Tortorici and cinematographer Massimiliano Kuveiller (who has also worked with Guadagnino) maintain visual interest by throwing everything at the screen – disco scenes with an operatic score, slow motion, animated dreams and every kind of fancy cut. Nighttime scenes in a cold and hard London give way to lovingly beautiful shots of tranquil Siena.Tortorici may be a visual show-off, but he has an uncommon gift for creating a realistic, but compelling and unpredictable character. (Italy, 2025)
- Afire: the summer of his discontent. Afire is an agreeable slow burn that builds to a revelatory conclusion. The lumpy, dour Leon (Thomas Schubert) needs to polish off his second novel. He and his friend Felix (Langston Uibel) head off for a week at the woodsy vacation cottage owned by Felix’s family, a short walk to the beach on the Baltic Sea – and they’re not even there yet when things start going off the rails. Felix rolls with the punches, but each annoyance makes Leon harrumph, roll his eyes and stalk off complaining about the distraction to his work, but he’s really worried that his new manuscript is shitty. As we watch Leon stumble around in his behavioral misfires, it seems that we are watching a comedy of manners. But Afire evolves into a study of creative self-sabotage until a heartbreaking tragedy, a moment of redemption, and a final hopeful glimmer of personal fulfillment. It’s the best final fifteen minutes of any 2013 film, unpredictable but grounded in reality and humanity, and emotionally powerful. Writer-director Christian Petzold is one of cinema’s most significant contemporary auteurs. I loved and admired his simmering paranoid thriller Barbara and his Phoenix, a riveting psychodrama with a wowzer ending. Afire is his most intimate and funniest film, and I think, his most subtle and his best. Afire won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the 2023 Berlinale. (Germany, 2023)
- The Eight Mountains: two men, each finding himself. This is the closest thing to an art movie in this festival. The Eight Mountains is a remarkably genuine portrait of a masculine friendship, between boys and then between men. It captures the way such a friendship can resume instantly after a years-long pause. And it authentically depicts how male friends can communicate without verbalizing. This story of two men’s individual growth and common friendship over 30 years, an intimate and tightly focused human story, is juxtaposed against an epic setting. The scenes of mountaineering in the Italian Alps are stunning enough, and then part of the story moves to the Nepali Himalayas. Won the Jury Prize at Cannes. (Italy, 2023)
- Mayor: potholes and tear gas, all in a day’s work. In this engrossing documentary, the camera shadows a mayor as he goes about his daily duties – and he’s the mayor of the Palestinian city Ramallah. Director David Osit, in just his third feature, has created a masterpiece of cinéma vérité that informs us about human foibles and aspirations, nestled within the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.Just like every local American elected official, Ramallah Mayor Musa Hadid goes glad-handing among his constituents and hears face-to-face gripes about the equivalent of potholes. And, of course, between ribbon cuttings, he is beset by hapless bureaucrats and shady contractors. Ramallah, however, brings its own unique challenges. Not many mayors have to utter a sentence like “the soldiers are up there shooting at the kids.” At one point, the mayor is tear gassed in his own city hall, as the Israeli army rolls right up to the front windows. (US/UK, 2020)
- Roads of Fire: an edge-of-your-seat documentary. This doc explores undocumented immigration into the US by cross-cutting together three stories: an Ecuadorian asylum-seeker preparing for her deportation hearing, a small NGO facing the tsunami of migrants being dumped by the Texas Governor into NYC, and a group of Venezuelans trying to get from Columbia to Panama on the first leg of their journey. The inside story of the Venezuelans is an incredible insider’s view – down to their orientation by their smugglers. We hear the Ecuadorian woman’s description of the same harrowing route as we follow the Venezuelans. Wow. Many of the shots involve zipping through the jungle on motorbikes, hiding from authorities and interfacing with human traffickers. With its oft-breathtaking derring-do, Roads of Fire is a significant achievement for filmmaker Nathaniel Lezra. Every year, I screen a bunch of immigration-centered documentaries, and hardly ever do I see one with this much punch. (US, 2025)
- We Shall Not Be Moved: trauma, bitterness, catharsis. The salty, grumpy Socorro is an elderly Mexico City attorney with a decidedly downscale clientele. She is haunted by the traumatic loss of her brother, killed in 1968 in the police repression of student demonstrations just before the 1968 Olympic Games known as the Tlatelolco massacre. Shortly after, she secured a photo of the soldier who killed her brother, but his identification eluded her.For over five decades, Socorro has been consumed by the thirst for unfulfilled, and apparently impossible, vengeance. Just when it looks like Socorro’s health will end her quest for revenge, she is surprised by new information. Ever resourceful, she enlists a network of shady associates to launch a man hunt. It doesn’t turn out as she, or we, would expect. Of course, an old lady is an unlikely assassin, and there’s plenty of humor here, stemming from Socorro’s unrepentant irascibility and clever resourcefulness, and the foibles of the quirky folks in her life. We Shall Overcome is an impressive first feature for director and co-writer Pierre Saint Martin. We Shall Not Be Moved won four Ariels (the Mexican Oscar) for Best First Feature, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Breakthrough Performance, and is Mexico’s submission for the Best International Film Oscar. (Mexico, 2025)
Here’s the trailer for Mayor.