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Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier returns to Cannes with Sentimental Value, which had its world premiere Wednesday night in the festival’s Competition section.

Trier and his cast, including Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgard and Elle Fanning, strolled up the famous steps of Palais des Festivals.

The film marks Trier’s follow-up to The Worst Person in the World, which premiered in Competition at Cannes in 2023, launching the international career of star Reinsve, who won the festival’s best actress honor. Worst Person became a crossover art house hit and was nominated for two Oscars, including best international feature and best original screenplay for Trier and co-writer Eskil Vogt.

Sentimental Value is a family drama centered on the estranged relationship between Gustav (Skarsgard) and his two daughters, Nora (Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas). In an attempt to reconnect, Gustav, a film director, offers Nora, an actress, the role of playing a...

From Sherlock Jr. to The General, the current decade will mark the 100th anniversary of several of Buster Keaton's movies. However, unlike other yesteryear stars, Keaton's filmography is somehow not dated. It has instead been influential to the history of cinema as a whole, particularly in the action and comedy genres. His collective work definitely makes him as significant as other silent comedy stars like Charlie Chaplin — with whom he finally shared the screen in the 1952 drama Limelight. Known for his deadpan facial expressions and exaggerated body language, Keaton and his work are worth revisiting for enthusiasts of silent cinema, physical comedy, and even stunt choreography.

To view Buster Keaton's movies in chronological order, cinephiles can start off with his features from the 1920s, a period considered to be the high point of his career. This was the era of silent film classics like Sherlock Jr., Three Ages, College,...

Although known for his silent movies, Miles Mander was a pioneer of the 'phonofilm', paving the way for directors such as Alfred Hitchcock

The BFI's restoration of the 1928 silent The First Born, with Stephen Horne's new score performed live, was one of the big events of the BFI London film festival. Full of surprises, including two racy "making eyes" scenes that had the Queen Elizabeth Hall audience all aflutter, it lives up to Michael Powell's description of the "fluent, expressive, visual story-telling" of late silent cinema that had been cut short by the introduction of synchronised sound. Directed by Miles Mander – a black-sheep Old Harrovian with a background in boxing promotion, aviation and sheep farming – it's a topical tale of a hypocritical, philandering politician who exploits his wife to mop up the women's vote. It was released just after the 1929 "Flapper Election", which brought women under 30 into the franchise for the first time,...

Jack Nicholson, Five Easy Pieces (top); Ivor Novello, Mabel Poulton, The Constant Nymph (middle); Jean Seberg, Breathless (bottom) Bob Rafelson‘s biting social critique Five Easy Pieces (1970), starring Jack Nicholson and Karen Black; Adrian Brunel‘s silent romantic drama The Constant Nymph (1928), a tale of "forbidden love" starring stage and movie idol Ivor Novello and Mabel Poulton; and Jean-Luc Godard‘s New Wave classic Breathless (1959), starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, are some of the features to be screened on Friday, Aug. 20, at London’s bfi Southbank. Five Easy Pieces remains one of the most impressive accomplishments of the more mature Hollywood cinema of the ’70s, with Jack Nicholson and Karen Black delivering relentlessly raw performances. It’s unfortunate that American cinema, now senile, is going through its second infancy. In other words, movies such as Five Easy Pieces hardly ever get made — if they get made at all. Even...