When Aboriginal Australians say they are, or are going, “on country”, they don’t just mean they are physically on the lands their ancestors have inhabited for 60,000 years. It also implies that they are shaped by the place, connected to it, and recognize a responsibility to care for it. It is this meaningful phrase that … Continue reading “On Country”
In a world searching for hope, James Gunn revives the DC Universe with a humanist reinterpretation of Superman, its oldest superhero. With the global release of Superman on July 9, 2025, James Gunn officially launches the new cinematic universe of DC Studios. Following several uneven attempts to bring Superman into the modern age, this film … Continue reading “Superman 2025: Return of the Hero”
Ari Aster changes the setting but not the intensity. With Eddington, the American filmmaker plunges into a small New Mexico town shaken by the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Far from the hallucinations of Midsommar or the neuroses of Beau Is Afraid, this new fiction explores the shifting ground of political divisions, power struggles, … Continue reading “Power, Fear, and Pandemic: Welcome to Eddington!”
Percival Everett received the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction for his reworking of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. James, as the title implies, looks at the events of the book through the eyes of Jim, the enslaved man who accompanies Huck on his raft ride when he runs away. … Continue reading ““Huckleberry Finn” from Another Point of View”
Richard Avedon was a famous fashion photographer, producing many Vogue covers. But between 1979 and 1984, he took a road trip through the Reagan-era American West to produce a series of portraits of the people he found there. Far from the stereotypes, Avedon photographed workers, some very young, and all sorts of interesting characters. The … Continue reading “In the American West”
Over the next few months, look out for these films in English that were chosen for the official competition at the Cannes film festival. As well as being the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Cinémathèque in Paris, Wes Anderson was back on the Croisette with his latest feature, The Phoenician Scheme. This is … Continue reading “Featured at Cannes”
David Hockney’s new exhibition in Paris is entitled David Hockney, 25. Not a reference to the artist’s age – he will be 88 this year – but the focus he has put on the most recent 25 years of his work. Because he is still creating and still innovating, from iPad paintings to monumental landscapes … Continue reading “David Hockney: A Life in Pop Art”
Ozi: Voice of the Forest is an animated film with an ecological message. Its protagonist, Ozi, is a young orangutan who is separated from her parents during a forest fire. She finds refuge in a sanctuary where she learns sign language. But when she hears her parents are alive, she sets off to find them. … Continue reading “Orangutan Eco-Warrior”
Lyon’s Quais du Polar festival is celebrating its 21st edition from 4 to 6 April. This year the festival will welcome 160 authors from 17 countries, including several English-speaking ones. Two bestselling American authors will be “in conversation” on the stage of the Chapelle de la Trinité. Forty years after the publication of the Lloyd … Continue reading “Quais du Polar Lyon 2025”
The Mississippi is in the spotlight in April at the Institut Franco-Américain in Rennes. A talk and a documentary film explore the river. On 1 April, Hervé Nicolas, recently retired researcher from l’Institut Agro Rennes-Angers, will give a talk about the effects of climate change on the fourth longest river in the world. On 3 … Continue reading “Down the Mississippi”