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David Mackenzie is full of deceit. His movies, not him.

Mackenzie can lure you with the cunningness of an illicit couple, played by Tilda Swnton and Ewan McGregor, in his 2003 drama Young Adam. “Give us a come-hither look,” I remember him instructing Swinton on a barge berthed on the Forth and Clyde Canal in Scotland.

Treachery of a different kind is afoot in his latest film Relay, which had its world premiere Sunday at TIFF.

The chicanery is there. There’s no sex, but there’s seduction.

The audience is being seduced too; we’re being lulled. You’ve been warned.

The two protagonists are played by Riz Ahmed and Lily James, at the top of their game. And what delectable games they play.

Beige is the color of conformity. James is first seen wearing a suit in that tone because she doesn’t want to stand out. She’s...

Marco Bellocchio is always welcome in Cannes. The Italian maestro first landed a film in the Cannes FIlm Festival’s competition lineup back in 1980 with A Leap in the Dark and has been back regularly over the past two decades: in 1984 with Henry IV, 1987 for The Prince of Homburg, 1999 for The Nanny, 2002 for My Mother’s Smile, 2009 with Vincere, and 2019 with The Traitor. In 2021, the French festival gave him an honorary Palme d’Or for lifetime achievement.

Bellocchio’s latest feature, marking his eighth time in the Cannes competition is Kidnapped. Set in 1858, the film traces the true story of Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish boy in Bologna who was secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby, transforming his fate. Back then, papal law for territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct rule of the Pope required all baptized children, regardless of their religious heritage, to receive a Catholic education.

Marco Bellocchio, who is in Cannes with TV series “Esterno Notte” about the kidnapping and assassination of former Italian premier Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists, is set to return behind camera in late June.

The veteran Italian auteur and Cannes aficionado will reconstruct the true tale of Edgardo Mortara, a young Jewish boy who was kidnapped and forcibly raised as a Christian in 19th century Italy.

Mortara was a young Jewish boy living in Bologna, Italy, who in 1858, after being secretly baptized, was forcibly taken from his family to be raised as a Christian. His parents’ struggle to free their son became part of a larger political battle that pitted the papacy against forces of democracy and Italian unification. Mortara went on to become a priest in the Augustinian order.

It’s a story that Steven Spielberg had his eye on, having announced in 2016 that he would make a...

Italian director, screenwriter and producer Marco Bellocchio has opened up about his career and upcoming projects during a masterclass at the 53rd edition of Visions du Réel, where he received an honorary award.

The 82-year-old master is guest of honor at the documentary film festival, which includes a retrospective of a dozen of his works and a screening of his latest film, “Marx Can Wait,” a documentary about his twin brother Camilo’s suicide in December 1968.

Featuring footage filmed during a family get-together, personal archive material and clips from his films, it is an intimate and poignant documentary that explores how his brother’s death deeply influenced Bellocchio’s work over the decades.

At the time, Bellocchio explained, “the revolution of ’68 was underway, there were protests and riots, and I said to myself ‘I have to do something.’ So in September, together with friends who had founded the Maoist movement,...