Young Mothers, directed by the celebrated French filmmakers Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, is one of the most notable works of contemporary social cinema. The film premiered this year at the Cannes Film Festival, where it not only received strong critical acclaim but also won the Best Screenplay Award. Shot in an almost documentary-like manner, Young Mothers directly addresses the problems and challenges faced by teenage mothers in modern societies.

The documentary Riefenstahl (2024), directed by Andres Veiel, examines the life of Leni Riefenstahl through a critical lens. She is a filmmaker whose name has remained suspended in the history of cinema between artistic admiration and moral condemnation. The film traces her career from celebrated works such as Triumph of the Will and Olympia to the final years of her life, and for the first time makes use of her personal archive, including home movies, letters, notes, and private conversations.

Ardeshir Farah’s music has always felt to me like a lived truth rather than a manufactured fusion. When we talk about artists who genuinely embody more than one culture, Farah stands among the rare few whose sound is not the result of strategy or trend, but of biography, memory, and instinct. His guitar speaks a language shaped by deep Iranian roots, years of displacement, and an intimate, organic dialogue with Latin music that never feels borrowed or superficial.

At first glance, it may seem unlikely that the publication of a novel in the early nineteenth century could play a significant role in shaping ideas about artificial intelligence or technologies such as ChatGPT. Yet Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley’s enduring masterpiece, is not merely a literary work but a foundational text in the history of human thought about artificial intelligence.

Why do international film festivals prefer to view Iran through Jafar Panahi’s lens rather than Saeed Roustaee’s? The choice between these two cinematic visions is not merely aesthetic; it reveals deeper cultural, political, and ideological expectations placed on Iranian cinema by global institutions. Yet the consequences of this preference are often overlooked. Roustaee emerges from the bruised, exhausted margins of Iranian society, where poverty, humiliation, and unspoken trauma shape daily existence.

Austin-based writer/director/graphic designer Yen Tan’s fifth feature film, All That We Love, begins poetically with the sound of bird songs over the opening credits on a dark screen followed by shots of a tiny bell ringing in a breeze, framed photos of people and a dog, and shots of a dog’s bed, food bowl, and water bowl. After we are shown a small ball on the floor, we hear the voice of a woman singing “Go get your ball,” and finally see that woman cradling a large dog and telling him, “You can go.

Reports by Nargess SamadiThe good news is that Ms. Nargess Samadi, Festival Reporter and Reviwer of Cinema Without Borders, will cover the 2026 Berlin International Film Festival — taking place from February 12 to March 3 — with daily reports. he festival’s professional and industry activities, European Film Market / EFM (Feb. 12–18, 2026 – with the kickoff on the afternoon of February 11), the Berlinale Co-Production Market(Feb.

Trifole establishes its world from the earliest moments as a story about the slow disappearance of a way of life, one rooted in the Langhe region of Italy, where the tradition of truffle hunting has been passed down for generations and now stands on the verge of extinction. The narrative centers on Igor, an aging truffle hunter whose knowledge of the land runs deep, and his granddaughter Dalia, a teenager who returns to the family home not with her mother, now a busy surgeon who left the village years ago, but in her place to assist her grandfather.

Most film critics keep a “sacred list” of their favorite filmmakers and films — a small circle that rarely changes. These lists usually include the same handful of names, and newcomers are seldom welcomed into this elite group. Yet, every once in a while, a film or filmmaker emerges with such undeniable power and charm that it breaks through the rigid walls of cinematic tradition and earns a place among the untouchables.

The Old Bachelor, a landmark film in Iranian cinema, draws its distinctive strength from the way it uses the language of psychology to expose power structures and the wider social order. The film operates on two main levels: on one, it invites a psychological reading that could be the subject of specialist analysis; on another, it develops into a socio-political critique rooted in the family relationships at its core.

Last week, Sandra Lipski is the founder and director of the Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival, announced the winner of Cinema Without Borders' Bridging the Borders Award at the closing ceremony of 14th Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival. Sandra Lipski read CWB's jury statement in fron of over 600 people at the Mallorca's Opera house: "The jury of the Cinema Without Borders’ Bridging the Borders Award…

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk offers an intimate, firsthand perspective on life under siege in Gaza, captured through video calls between director Sepideh Farsi and 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist and poet Fatma Hassona. Combining raw immediacy with deep humanity, the film captures daily life during the conflict through the eyes and unwaveringly optimistic presence of Fatma, a talented photographer whose generation is trapped in an endless cycle of war, famine, and resistance.

Little Trouble Girls (2025) The film begins with a sensory confrontation of hearing; a chain of whispered, prayer-like murmurs creates a mysterious, almost sacred atmosphere. A voice emerging from the inner world of a young girl transforms, under the cold light of the rehearsal hall, into an image: a painting on a simple ceramic tile showing red lips. At first glance, it seems to depict the beauty of femininity, yet beneath the surface lies the symbolic mouth of sexual awakening.

Cinema Without Borders jury announced the winners of the Bridging The Borders Award for 2025 Lucas International Film Festival for Young Film Lovers in Germany. GIRLS DON’T CRY a documentary film by Sigrid Klausmann and Lina Luzyte wins 2025 Bridging The Borders Award and our Honorary Mention goes to the OLIVIA AND THE INVISIBLE EARTHQUAKE Directed by Irene Iborra Rizo. Bridging the Borders Award is offered by Cinema Without Borders Foundation and sponsored by 360 MEDIA Consulting…

François Truffaut’s The Soft Skin (1964) at first glance seems to tell a story of infidelity, yet it is, in truth, an exquisite study of form, time, and the act of seeing. Unlike the vibrant energy of the French New Wave, Truffaut turns here toward silence, order, and the details of modern life. Having conducted his long conversation with Hitchcock the year before, Truffaut pays homage to his mentor through every shot of this film.

On Tuesday, October 21, at 7:00 PM, the Cinema Without Borders Foundation honored acclaimed filmmaker Rodrigo García with its prestigious Bridging the Borders Award, recognizing his lifetime achievements and contributions to global cinema, at the beautiful Laemmle Royal Theatre in Santa Monica. The Bridging the Borders Award—previously bestowed on legendary filmmakers such as Andrzej Wajda and Asghar Farhadi—places García in distinguished company.

Raymond & Ray Rodrigo García’s intimate comedy-drama about two half-brothers drafted into the strangest possible last act of filial duty, is the rare film that breathes with lived-in feeling from its very first frame and keeps deepening as it goes. Ewan McGregor (as Raymond) and Ethan Hawke (as Ray) arrive like two sides of a single wounded coin—one taut with manners and denial, the other loose with charm and habit—but what García pulls off is a duet in which both men gradually find the same rhythm, a rhythm that only grief, memory, and shared humiliation can teach.

From the moment Familia begins, one senses right away that Rodrigo García has crafted something intimate, deliberate, and quietly powerful — a film that refuses spectacle and instead trusts in the small fissures of connection, memory, conflict, and love to carry its weight. In a cinematic landscape saturated with bombast, this is a welcome reminder of how much drama, and how much beauty, can unfold in a single afternoon, simply by putting a group of people in a room and letting their pasts and present demands collide.

Rodrigo García’s Four Good Days (2020) is a film that, at first glance, might seem to belong to the familiar cinematic terrain of addiction dramas. Yet García, true to his lifelong sensibility as a storyteller of quiet emotional earthquakes, transforms this apparently simple narrative into an intimate psychological study of love, endurance, and the almost unbearable fragility of hope. The film, co-written by García and Eli Saslow (based on Saslow’s Washington Post article “How’s Amanda?

Paul Anderson’s latest film makes it clear from the very first moment that it has no intention of belonging to the Hollywood mainstream. By tackling themes such as structural racism, political violence, and gendered exploitation, the film situates itself within the tradition that critics and theorists have described as Third Cinema, a mode of filmmaking defined in the 1960s and 1970s by figures like Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, aimed not at consumer entertainment but at exposing mechanisms of power and mobilizing critical consciousness.

There are films that attempt to recreate the divine through spectacle, and there are others that dare to approach it through silence. Last Days in the Desert, directed by Rodrigo García, belongs to the second kind — a film that listens instead of preaching, that breathes instead of shouting, that dares to imagine the mystery of faith as something painfully human, fragile, and trembling before its own reflection.

Albert Nobbs is not simply a period drama set in the streets and rooms of nineteenth-century Dublin; it is a meditation on survival, disguise, solitude, and the fragile hope that flickers even in the most stifled lives. Rodrigo García directs the film with the same quiet intensity that has defined his career, and in doing so, he transforms what might have remained a small and contained story into a haunting portrait of the human need for recognition.

The 14th Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival (EMIFF), taking place from October 21–29, 2025, is widely regarded as the most prestigious boutique film festival in Europe. Set against the stunning Mediterranean backdrop of Palma, EMIFF draws top-tier talent, industry decision makers, and fresh new voices from the indie film scene. EMIFF’s mission is to bridge cultures and showcase diverse films, fostering creative exchange and collaboration between filmmakers from around the world.

On Tuesday, October 21st at 7:00 PM, the Cinema Without Borders Foundation will honor acclaimed filmmaker Rodrigo García with its prestigious Bridging the Borders Award, recognizing his lifetime achievements and his contributions to global cinema. Legendary filmmakers such as Andrzej Wajda and Asghar Farhadi have previously received this award, placing García in distinguished company. The celebration will be held at the Laemmle Royal Theater, 11523 Santa Monica Blvd, 1st Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90025.

Cinema Without Borders Foundation is honored to welcome Hessam Abrishami—the internationally celebrated Iranian-born American artist—to its Advisory Board. Known for his emotionally charged and vibrantly colored contemporary figurative paintings, Abrishami’s art is a celebration of the human spirit, capturing energy, elegance, and dreamlike depth with remarkable intensity. After pursuing higher education at the Accademia di Belle Arti Pietro Vanucci in Perugia, Italy, Abrishami embarked on a prolific career that has spanned decades and continents.