PARADISE (2026) Berlin 2026

PARADISE hooked me from the opening moments when a young man races in a boat to a burning cargo ship ship in the ocean. It is one of the most visually arresting things I've seen in a while, and if Oscar noticed films like this it would be the moment the film became an Oscar contender for best cinematography. Beyond the near perfect marriage of sound and image, PARADISE has a killer story.

Nominally the film is the story of missing fathers. Kojo is in Ghana and is torn between the traditional life that his fisherman father lives and the street gang who fills his time when his dad is out to sea. At the same time we get the story of Tony, a teen in Canada who discovers his mother is having a relationship with a sea captain.

I will not say any more about the plot. I say this because what happens is not what you expect and the result is like a punch in the face. It speaks volumes that director ends the film without music and just let's us sit in the darkness. This is a story unlike anything we seen before and it is wonderful. 

As I sit here writing this I am trying to find the words to express how much I like this, but I find I am too deep under the emtional spell this film has cast to do so. I know it's early into 2026 but I have penciled this into my list of the best films of 2026

See this film. More to the point - if you can see it on a big screen see it in a darkened theater where it will get inside you and haunt your soul.

AMANSA TIAFI (Public Toilet Africa) (2021) Tallgrass 2022

One of the best looking at the films at Tallgrass concerns a woman who comes back to the city where she was given to a white art dealer as a child in order to repay an old debt. (Actually there are several other narrative threads running through this film  but the revenge one is that is the through line.)

I have mixed feelings for this film. Beautiful to look at, excellently acted and with style to burn it is a fantastic calling card for director Kofi Ofosu-Yeboah. There are some stunning sequences where everything comes together in a glorious cinematic vision. On the other hand there is a bit too much going on with perhaps too many characters coming and going.  Its not fatal it’s just messy.

While I’m mixed the film is still worth a look for anyone wanting to see great cinematic talent at work.

Invisible Hands (2018) AAIFF 2018

God bless the Asian American International Film Festival for bringing some of the most vital documentaries to New York. The programmers this year have had the good luck to find and the good sense to program some truly important films. Among them is INVISIBLE HANDS about child labor abuses across the globe.

Spanning the globe INVISIBLE HANDS shows us the cost of employing children as workers. Many are essentially slaves having been trafficked into becoming abused and poorly paid worker. Others have been sent by their parents who need the money they can earn. No matter how they end up in the work place the kid’s lives are altered almost always for the worse, thanks to the abuse hurled at them and the dangerous conditions they work in.

What most people don’t realize is just how many products either do or potentially do employ child workers in their manufacture. One of the examples they use is the listing of items with palm oil. It’s used in everything. So many products are named that you’ll be shocked that something you use could be the result of child labor. We see the products.

One of the strengths of the film is that it doesn’t shy away from naming names. Dow Chemicals is mentioned as a source of danger since often the insecticides and herbicides it manufactures but can’t sell in developed countries which  are used in places with no regulation thus posing a poisoning danger to the kids who use them. Apple’s checkered history is mentioned, as it their change in corporate policy which now requires those companies caught using child labor to pay their salary until they are old enough to legally work. And Nike is singled out as being one of the good companies, taking steps to assure no children are used and safe work places.

While there are times the film can seem by the book in its telling, the sheer weight of the facts overwhelms any concerns and leaves one rocked at the end.

A vital and important film and a must see at AAIFF.

INVISIBLE HANDS plays July 27th. For more information and tickets go here.

Doing Jewish: A Story From Ghana (2016) New York Jewish Film Festival 2017

While volunteering at a women's group in Ghana director Gabrielle Zilkha began to feel lonely for her Jewish roots. Not because she was ever particularly religious but because being alone in Africa she felt that she didn't even have the option. Her mother hearing of her plight tells her about a community a days travel away where there is supposed to be a group of centuries old practicing Jews. Making the trip she finds a ancient community who until relatively recently didn't know that they were part of a larger religion.

Good but kind of fluffy tale of  one woman reconnecting with her own heritage by discovering it some where else. This is an intriguing tale full of lots of good people and some rather interesting questions. While I had heard of various Jewish communities being found in Africa I had never heard of this one and I was enraptured by the history of the tale.

The problem with the film, and hence the fluffy description, is that Zilkha takes a splashy kind of jokey attitude toward the making of the film with lots of shots that were clearly staged, showy wipes, knowing narration and light sense that make it hard to take the whole thing seriously. Personally I found the whole subject fascinating but I wasn't always so keen on the presentation.  I get the feeling that she shot most of the documentary footage and interview material and then went back and shot linking material. I suspect this because some stuff was obvious shot by one person while a lot of the stuff I didn't like was clearly shot by a second camera.

While I truly love the story I only really like the film because the film doesn't quite seem to have a hard enough edge to it.

Regardless  DOING JEWISH is recommended when the film plays Wednesday the 11th at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

Nakom (2016) New Directors New Films 2016

I could talk about how this film was co-directed by two women, how the film is the first filmed in Kusaal language or how it was shot on location over four months with a cast of non-actors. I could talk about a lot of things to make this review longer or to distract you from themain point, but I'm not going to do any of that. I'm simply going to say that this is one of the best films I've ever seen at a New Directors New Films festival.

The Nakom of the title is a village that Iddrisu returns to after his father's sudden death in a motorcycle accident. the plan is to bury his father and then return to school, but it doesn't go that way. The family is deeply in debt and unless he helps the family make it to harvest the family may have no future.

Yes, we've been here before. Yes, there probably isn't anything new here, but damn this film transcends the plot you've seen before to become something that is one of the treasures of the film year. And for all the talk of the basic plot being something we've seen before the ending, isn't and it packs a real punch.

Why does the film work as well as it does?

To start of with the music by Daby Balde. Simple themes drift through the film filling in emotion where needed. Its never over done and it beautifully compliments the emotion of the scenes. Actually the music often acts as bridges between scenes and it helps keep the magic flowing.

The second thing the film has is the cinematography. Not only do the images look beautiful and awe inspiring but they give the film a real sense of place. We are in Nakom and the fields around it. The house all feel real and lived in. This is more than filming in real places but it feels as though it's filming real lives.

And of course there is the cast. Yes things can be bumpy and imperfect, but at the same time there is a rawness that makes it more real. And at the center is Jacob Ayanaba as Iddrisu. He may very well be the find of the year. He has a naturalness and an ease on screen that only the truly great actors have. More importantly he makes you believe what he is doing. For me the moment that sold him, and made me want him to be discovered by Hollywood was the sequence where he is carrying his father's body for burial. Watch how the strong man slips and becomes the grieving son. Its all in the eyes,

As I said above this is one of the best films I've seen at a New Directors New Films over the last seven or eight years.

A must see.

For tickets and more information go here.