WATCH THE WORLD

Our goal is to open up the world to everyone through film. Everyone should travel if they can (the world is amazing), but it costs time and money which we don't always have. That's where FilmRoot comes in. We bring the world of films to your couch, so you can travel wherever you want to without the flight fees.

Use our World Map to find the best films from each country, choose a continent below to explore the best films from each continent, or simply scroll down to see our latest posts featuring films from around the world. Or, if you're up for a challenge, work your way up to the top of our Film Difficulty Rankings to become a World Film expert.

Latest Posts

The Oscar Shorts – Get to Know All 15 Nominees

By Rowan Sullivan & Sebastian Torrelio

As the main categories at the Oscars are becoming more predictable and less diverse, the Oscar Shorts are diversifying. This year, the 15 Oscar Shorts originate from 6 different countries and feature stories from 9. Their issues span from young girls escaping from patriarchy and war by taking up skateboarding to battle rappers running for U.S. office. So forget the Best Picture for a minute and take some time to get to know the Oscar Shorts.

The Animated Oscar Shorts

Daughter (Czech Republic)

A silent story about the relationship between father & daughter, along with the tension between them that grows from the lack of speech – him in his sick bed, her by his side, and a small bird that crashes through their window, allowing unhealed memories to flood back into their lives.

Daughter arguably hosts the most abstract narrative of the five shorts, a story that would, oddly enough, benefit from a little more overhead description. There’s nothing wrong with silent film of this nature at face value, but Daughter shoots its action so frenetically at times, bouncing and careening down staircases and hallways, there’s no denying a little explanation would root this film in something closer to emotion, rather than confusion. -ST

Hair Love (USA)

Following the mysterious absence of her mother, young Zuri looks to her mom’s old blog videos (voiced by Issa Rae) for advice on combing her unmanageable locks. Enter dad, who’s no expert on the subject himself, in a heavyweight match-up against Zuri’s overwhelming curls.

Hair Love combines a more sentimental, dated animation style with pastel colors to resemble more modern 3D studio visuals. It blends well, even if the stylization of Zuri’s hair and her pet cat are somewhat jarring depending on what serves the narrative. But among the five nominees, Hair Love is the closest to serving the values of everyday life, a story in which the simplicity becomes the biggest asset. -ST

Kitbull (USA)

A stray kitten, stubborn and independent beyond help, wanders into the den of a ferocious-looking pitbull. The events that follow bond the two unlikely compatriots in a friendship to set them off on better paths.

Obviously, Kitbull is a profusely charming short film. The titular characters of Kitbull are radical caricatures treated with the movement & attitude of real animals. In appearance, it compounds into a very believable and unlikely adventure, and emotionally, it works into the most tender of this year’s shorts, a tearjerker for the pleasure crowd. -ST

Memorable (France)

Louis lives with his wife Michelle, who encourages his penchant for painting and artistry even as it starts to take over his mind. Slowly, the objects in Louis’ life start to lose shape, disintegrating and releasing their objective state of matter – soon enough, his mind does the same.

Satisfyingly, the most memorable of this year’s animated shorts, “Memorable” is touching and devastating in equal measures. What begins as a commentary on the condition of those who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease mutates into an engaging and abstract visual representation of losing touch. With some hints of Loving Vincent inspiration, Memorable dreams up a piece of filmmaking that only animation could perform, a painful headspace that paints with what we can only imagine outside of the living world. -ST

Sister (USA)

A biopic-esque tale of a young man’s recollection of growing up in 1990s China, welcoming and regretting the recollection of his treatment toward his annoying little sister in their childhood home. He wonders what may have happened had he woven their experiences differently.

An analysis of the Chinese one-child policy, Sister takes a few liberties in re-contextualizing its story to serve a twist ending that doesn’t necessarily benefit its greater message. The felt animation is some of the more impressive as the Academy has ever recognized, but Sister doesn’t focus too much its style over its substance, a somewhat bland take on the premise that tries to aim for too much among an already emotional pool of entries. -ST

The Documentary Oscar Shorts

In the Absence (US/SOUTH KOREA)

When the passenger ferry MV Sewol sank off the coast of South Korea in 2014, over three hundred people lost their lives, most of them schoolchildren. Years later, the victims’ families and survivors are still demanding justice from the national authorities.

In the Absence contains the most memorable images of any of the short films nominated for the Academy Awards. Seeing the MV Sewol slowly sink with most of its passengers on board whilst coast guard operators debate whether the situation is serious enough to send help is chilling. However, taken as a whole short film, In the Absence loses its way visually and narratively in the following scenes. It becomes more reliant on words displayed on bland backgrounds instead of trying to convey the words visually. It also tries to rapidly cover the whole scope of all the disaster and its aftermath in the final 10 minutes, such as the impeachment of the President, which mists the narrative of the film. It might work better if these events were left out instead of referenced without explaining how they affect the main narrative. -RS

Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If you’re a girl) (UK/US/Afghanistan)

In Afghanistan, many young girls are not able to participate in sports because of the ongoing war, as well as cultural customs. As a result, there are limited recreational opportunities for women and girls, especially those from impoverished backgrounds. However, Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl) tells the story of a skate charity which helps Afghan girls to read, write, and skateboard in Kabul.

This short documentary covers everything you might expect of a film titled ‘Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)’. It features a lot of skateboarding in a warehouse, frequent anecdotes of bombs exploding near the student’s homes, and a lot of stories about girls limited by the patriarchy. There aren’t any surprises or cinematographic flourishes as the film doesn’t need them; the combination of skateboarding in a warzone if you’re a girl is already special enough. -RS

Life Overtakes Me (USA)

Over 400 refugee children in Sweden have withdrawn into a coma-like state because of previous trauma. Life Overtakes Me tells the story of two of these traumatized young refugees, and their families, that develop this rare psychosomatic illness called Resignation Syndrome.

Life Overtakes Me shines a light on an unknown illness. Resignation Syndrome still doesn’t appear to be fully understood, which makes it all the more strange and terrifying. The two children shown in the film both appear to be permanently sleeping and their families have no guarantee that they’ll ever wake up or return to normal. Life Overtakes Me shows how heavy the emotional burden is on their families, and also how their refugee status, despite the obvious trauma they’ve experienced, is not guaranteed. -RS

St. Louis Superman (USA)

St. Louis Superman follows Bruce Franks Jr., an activist by day and a battle rapper by night who runs for office in the Missouri House of Representatives. To succeed, he has to overcome personal trauma and political obstacles to pass a bill to recognize the impact gun violence has had on his community.

Bruce Franks Jr. is an example of who should be elected to each state’s House of Representatives. He appears to be a pretty normal guy from Ferguson. He’s a father, he’s from the area, he grew up in poverty, he protests with people in his community, and battle raps as a side hustle at night. The only difference between him and other people from the area is that he ran for office. St. Louis Superman reminded me of a bite-size version of Netflix’s Bring Down the House. Both films feature grass-roots local activists entrenched in their community running for office to make a change. -RS

Walk Run Cha-Cha (USA)

Paul and Millie Cao fell in love as teenagers in Vietnam, but were soon separated by the war. Paul managed to escape from Vietnam, and a few years later managed to get papers for Millie to join him in California. After a few decades of working hard to build new lives abroad, they are making up for lost time on the dance floor. Walk Run Cha-Cha is their story.

Whilst their stories are inspirational, they feel underdeveloped and unemotional. We learn that Paul left Vietnam a few years before Millie, but we don’t hear much about why he left first, why Millie was stuck in Vietnam, and how they coped without each other for those years. We also don’t hear much about the decades they lived together in California before they started dancing. It’s not clear what happened in these decades and how they grew apart (if they did), and why they felt they needed to start dancing together to make up for lost time. Walk Run Cha-Cha could also do with more emotion. Both Paul and Millie tell their stories very factually, without any color, making it harder to sympathize with their struggle to be together. As a result, it feels more like a film about a normal retired couple that takes up dancing as a pass time. At least there’s bonus points for showing off their ballroom dancing at the end. -RS

The Live Action Oscar Shorts

A Sister (Belgium)

Alie is in trouble. It’s night-time, and she’s stuck in a car with her abusive partner. The only thing she has is the person on the other end of the emergency call line.

A Sister is the perfect short thriller. The script fits snugly into the 16 minute run time. Any longer and it would feel stretched, and any shorter and it would feel underdeveloped. A Sister also manages to renew something that has been done before (see The Call) by focusing on a woman in an abusive relationship instead of a woman attacked randomly. Abusive relationships are much more common than random attacks, which makes the film feel more real and the message feel much closer to home. Whilst it highlights the danger of an abusive relationship for women, it also forces men in relationships watching the short to see themselves in her violent male partner. It packs a punch. -RS

Brotherhood (Canada, Tunisia, Qatar, Sweden)

Mohamed is a hardened shepherd living in rural Tunisia with his wife and two sons. However, he’s deeply shaken when his eldest son Malik returns home from fighting with ISIS with a quiet young wife. The silent tension between father and son rises until it reaches breaking point.

Brotherhood is a well-made international art-house short set in Tunisia. The shots of rural Tunisia indicate the beauty of the country as well as the isolation of Mohamed and his family. He doesn’t have any neighbors. His family is completely alone. So when Malik returns and Mohamed refuses to communicate with his son, he cuts him off from his family and society. Without a dad that trusts him, Malik is thrown to the lions. – RS

Nefta Football Club (France)

Nefta Football Club is a light comedy featuring two young brothers living along the Tunisian/Algerian border. Whilst they’re biking through the desert they come across a headphone wearing donkey carrying lots of cocaine.

The synopsis sounds like a recipe for disaster for the two young brothers. However, the director Yves Piat manages to keep the film light, keeping it away from the bleakness of Amat Escalante’s Heli. The lightness is achieved through the absurd images (e.g. a donkey wearing headphones and the final image of the football pitch) as well as the good natured, naïve younger brother who believes the stash is just a lot of washing powder. -RS

Saria (USA)

Saria follows two inseparable orphaned sisters, Saria and Ximena, as they fight against daily abuse and unimaginable hardship at Virgen de la Asuncion orphanage in Guatemala. The film imagines the daily events leading up to the tragic fire at the orphanage in 2017 that claimed the lives of 41 orphaned girls.

It’s great to see more dramatic films from Central America featuring indigenous leads, but Saria felt too short to feel truly invested in Saria’s life. It depicts a very quick build up to a riot, escape, and finale which would be more engaging and thrilling with a bit more time invested into the characters. Ultimately the story would be a better fit for a feature film rather than a short, so hopefully we’ll get to see a feature version of Saria in the next few years that improves the film just like the feature of Les Miserables and Atlantics built on the short. -RS

The Neighbor’s Window (USA)

The Neighbor’s Window features Alli and her husband, parents of young children fed up with their daily routine and responsibilities. Their frustration increases when a young couple in their twenties move in across the street and show off their affection for each other with complete disregard for whoever is watching. It’s a Rear Window for the Instagram generation.

Just as seeing pictures of your friends traveling around the world on your phone whilst your working long hours in the office drives jealousy, the parents in The Neighbor’s Window rue on their lost youth whilst they watch their young neighbors dramatically make love in the apartment opposite. Their relationship gets worse when they start fighting over a pair of binoculars to help see them clearer. However, ultimately, The Neighbor’s Window shows that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, and that we should always be grateful for what we have. It’s a life-affirming message that might just win it the best live-action short at the Oscar’s. -RS

A Guide to SBIFF, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Whilst many of you were getting ready to cover the International Film Festival in Rotterdam or the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, I went to Santa Barbara to cover the 35^th edition of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF). Attracting around 100,000 attendees across 11 days of films, SBIFF is one of the largest film festivals in California running just after the equally prestigious Palm Springs Film Festival. It’s also one of the closest to Los Angeles, a city which surprisingly doesn’t have a single big film festival in the way that San Francisco, New York, and many cities around the world do, despite being the home of Hollywood. (More on Los Angeles’ film festivals later this year). Because of its proximity to Hollywood, and the fact that it takes place a few weeks before the Academy Awards, it’s always a stop for many of the directors and actors campaigning for Oscar glory.

That being said, I wasn’t there to interview A-list celebs on the red carpet or catch re-runs of some of the Academy Award contender. I was at SBIFF to sample its lineup of films from 50 countries, in particular, the films screening for their International and Spain/Latin American competition.

So how was it? You’ve probably read some of the quick reviews we’ve been posting from the films we’ve seen on the SBIFF page, but what was SBIFF actually like?

The Audiences

One thing I noticed during my first day at SBIFF – a Saturday – was that I was the youngest person in the theater for every screening. By a long way. Most of the audience were 50+ with most of them being seniors. One lady that sat next to me for one screening even commented that it was nice seeing a young folk at the festival. I’m 28, so not being the oldest isn’t new to me, but I’ve never felt so young in a movie theater. They also mentioned that they didn’t see a person under 40 at the Palm Springs festival which they attended the week before. Maybe it’s a small city thing. Maybe it’s a U.S. thing as the audiences at the AFI Fest in Los Angeles weren’t young either.

However, this definitely isn’t a Film Festival thing as the BFI London Film Festival has a lot of young cinema goers. The BFI do a great job at getting students and people in their 20’s into their screenings. They offer cheap tickets to anyone 25 and under 30 minutes before the screenings start if there’s still space available (I’ve never been turned away as film guest seats are always freed up). As a result, most of their screenings are full or close to it. It would be great to see similar initiatives to boost younger audiences at SBIFF to ensure the loyal older audience is still there in 40 years’ time.

The City

Santa Barbara is a great small city. If you’re there for the week reviewing films, you have plenty of options for places to eat State Street. It’s also just nice wandering around the mission style buildings – the place is pretty. You can even walk to the southeastern end of State Street if you want to chill on the beach, which is a rarity at a major film festival. Plus, those of you in Rotterdam and Sundance would no doubt appreciate the warm sunny weather that’s almost guaranteed daily in Santa Barbara.

However, one of the main downsides to Santa Barbara is that it isn’t cheap. The food options were more expensive than many areas of Los Angeles as well as London and Berlin. For those on a budget, I’d recommend living off the Ralph’s deli at West Carrillo Street/Chapala Street and bringing your own water if you don’t want to spend $10+ per meal. Accommodation also was expensive for the MLK day weekend, so I was relived that one of my relatives was able to host me from just outside the city (thanks Javi).

The Experience

Just like all the other film festivals I’ve attended, the queuing situation at SBIFF was organized chaos. Before every block of screenings at the Metro 4 theater on State Street there were at least 5 lines full of people. The lines would spill onto the streets and completely block the sidewalk on that side of the road, so anyone not attending the festival has to cross the road to walk past it. However, I never saw or heard anyone complaining, apart from one guy cycling along the sidewalk blasting music that should have been on the road anyway. So even though it appeared chaotic, it did work. People queued up for the films they wanted to see and appeared to get to see them thanks to the many lines.

There were a lot of Q&A’s too, which is what helps a film festival to stand out. At SBIFF they had a lot of special stand-alone Q&A’s with Hollywood celebrities, but they also had roughly a 40% turn out for crew and/or cast member Q&A’s for all the international films which is a pretty good turnout for a small city like Santa Barbara. All of them were managed pretty well, even though, unfortunately, no film festival is immune from bad audience questions.

The volunteers were all great too, so it was a nice touch that SBIFF included a slide saying “Please give a round of applause for all the volunteers at SBIFF” before the start of every film.

The Films

Last, but not least, how were the movies at SBIFF?

Overall, I thought the selection of films could have been better. As soon as I saw the schedule, I was a disappointed in the lack of diversity in the films selected for the festival. There were over 70 World Premieres and films from 50 countries, but almost all of the international films were from Europe and the Americas. Most noticeably was a distinct lack of African films; I only noticed one feature film from North Africa (Papicha, the Academy Award submission from Algeria) meaning there were zero sub-Saharan African films. There was also a very slim selection of films from Asia, apart from the odd Turkish film and screenings of Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite.

The International Competition

The lack of diversity was most obvious in the International Competition, in which 10 of the 12 films were European. The other two were Canadian, leaving 4 of the 6 movie producing continents left unrepresented.

Nevertheless, here’s my rankings of the 9 films I saw that competed in SBIFF’s International Competition:

The top three stood out, whilst the bottom 4 disappointed.

Spain/Latin American Competition

The Spain/Latin American competition made up for some of the diversity woes of the International competition with 11 films from 3 different continents (ironically one more than the international competition).

Of the 7 films I saw from the competition, there was a distinct split between Art-house festival fare and cheesy heartwarming films. The bottom two fell into the latter whilst the top 4 fell into the former. The top 4 were 4 of my favorite films I saw at the festival, showing that the Spain/Latin American competition didn’t just trump the International competition on diversity but quality as well.

Best of the Rest

The International and Spain/Latin American competitions weren’t the only films I managed to see thanks to some screeners sent out early by the filmmakers. The two best screeners I received were for Out Deh, a documentary about three inspiring young men from Jamaica and Song Sparrow, a short film depicting refugees being trafficked in the back of a refrigerated truck. The other short films I saw were all interesting too even if they weren’t perfectly executed.

Whilst it didn’t go as far as Palm Springs, which screened every single Academy Award submission for Best International Feature Film, SBIFF also screened a few submissions that haven’t received U.S. distribution yet.

Conclusion

Overall, SBIFF is a festival worth attending. Whilst you may not find a program that’s as diverse or weird as some of the other film festivals in California, you will at least get to be in a beautiful small city by the beach.

If you’re based near Santa Barbara, make sure you leave time to attend in 2021. Or, if you’re based in Los Angeles or further afield, it’s definitely worth making a long weekend trip and mix International films with mountain hikes and strolls along the sea.

Song Sparrow – Short Film Competition – SBIFF

In Song Sparrow the freezing temperature of a smuggler’s truck turns a group of refugees’ hopes for a better future into a struggle for survival.

Song Sparrow starts in an eerie forest, where a group of people are peering into the back of a meat truck with meat carcasses hanging from the roof. This is their ominous escape route. You can feel their nervousness in their blinking eyes and the cutting between the meat truck and their faces, alone in the forest. Their anxiety turns into excitement whilst they’re in the back of the truck as the refugees share blinking looks and dance to music. However, this changes when the truck’s refrigeration system kicks in.

It’s a short animated film that contains everything you want to see from a short animated film. Firstly, it gains true story points for basing the story on two tragic events (NBC News: 71 Refugees Found Dead in Truck in Austrian Highway, BBC News: Essex Lorry Deaths) that didn’t get the coverage they should have. Secondly, for its short film creds, it tells it’s story concisely and precisely whilst taking enough time to evoke sympathy for the characters involved. Lastly, for it’s animation creds, it’s uniquely animated with puppets with blinking eyes. They don’t say anything, but you can feel their anxiety, their relief, their excitement, and their despair in their blinking eyes. It’s proof that something so simple can be so effective.

However, creating the sets were not simple. To give you a better perspective on how they were made, and to prove how impressive it is visually, here’s a quick comment from the Director Farzaneh Omidvarnia and some images from the set:

“Firstly, the size of the puppets and sets are larger than they look (see the attached pictures); the Puppets are each around 70 cm tall. Secondly, it is a live action animation and I tried to animate and record the movements lively. The filming process took 80 days. I applied animatronics to develop the blinking eyes and eyeballs, and the eyes are controlled remotely. The movements are not conducted by stop motion. Nevertheless, I consider this a developing method that I am actually trying to exploit and advance it. In fact, it might be more challenging than for example stop-motion for some scenes, but I believe regarding the contents, it might convey the message and senses more clearly. So all my hope is that this technique gets established more strongly through my next movies.”
Farzaneh Omidvarnia

Three Shorts From SBIFF – Tribes, Kopitiam, Mochitsuki

Here’s a quick round up of three shorts from SBIFF.

1. Tribes – SBIFF Shorts

Tribes is a short film in which an African-American man, an Arab-American man, and a white man rob a subway car in New York. Problem is, they don’t want to rob people from their own race.

It’s a funny concept, but the tone is diluted. Tribes starts off seriously before breaking into a funny argument between two of the robbers. However, their hold of their hostages and the credibility of the film quickly dissipates when the passengers start adding to the robbers debate. It feels like they’re interrupting the film by adding unnecessary quips.

The rest of the credibility is seriously lost when one of the robbers starts siding with the hostages and starts a long monologue. Monologues can work, however, unfortunately this one is backed by a crescendo of uplifting music that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Pepsi commercial. It just makes it feel fake. It’s a good message but it feels way too preachy and fake like the ‘I voted for Obama’ dad in Get Out.

That being said, I believe this script is perfect for the stage. The setting, monologues, and arguments would fit it perfectly. Plus it would feel much more authentic without the music.

2. Kopitiam – SBIFF Shorts

Kopitiam is a short documentary about a coffee shop owner in NYC and her experience living as a Malaysian in the U.S.

It’s interesting to hear about how we live through food. The coffee shop owner raises some interesting points about how everyone has a cooking blueprint which allows cooks to live on after their death. Also how food and how you cook it is one way of passing down your culture – but you have to accept that your work will be adapted

However, I wish Kopitiam focused on one thing. You hear fragments about her shop, her dad, her partner, growing up, cooking, maintaining culture, but they’re only communicated in short sentences. It doesn’t give her enough time to truly share her life and experience. Because it’s quick, we don’t get enough time to identify with her and walk in her shoes.

3. Mochitsuki – SBIFF Shorts

Mochitsuki features a Japanese American family in California getting together for New Years to partake in Mochitsuki – an annual gathering to make mochi. Like Kopitiam it features an Asian American family using cooking and food as a way to pass on heritage, legacy, and maintain their link to Japanese culture.

However, in contrast to Kopitiam, Mochitsuki passes on tradition through their own family gathering, rather than by sharing it with anyone interested. It shows the eldest generation of the one family partaking in the ritual with the newest generation of the family – old and young working together to show the direct transmission of culture from generation to generation. It’s a testament to the strength of Japanese culture in this family that has survived through the adversity of internment. Maybe that shared hardship has created a stronger culture.

Mochitsuki is engaging because it focuses on one thing (the mochi making ceremony) and uses it to tell a brief story about this Japanese American family instead of trying to cover lots of different stories.

Lane 4 – Spain/Latin American Competition – SBIFF

In Lane 4, Amanda is most comfortable in the water. Lacking her parents’ attention at home, swimming is the only thing she has. But she’s not alone in the pool. Priscila, the star of her swim team, becomes her friend and rival in the pool and in life.

The film starts with Amanda completely still, floating underwater in the fetal position in a swimming pool. By comparing the swimming pool to a womb, the opening image shows Amanda’s desire to return to the womb, to escape all the stresses of her daily life (see Freud’s Thanatos Instinct). In the pool, she can escape from her parents who don’t understand her, the social pressures of maintaining a ‘cool’ image, and her own growing pains. However, unfortunately for her, she cannot stay underwater forever. Eventually she has to surface for air. When she breaks from the fetal position and swims to the surface, it’s symbolic of her second birth. It’s her rebirth as a woman and a world full of expectations for her.

The scenes of Amanda underwater are the corner stones of Lane 4. Each one of them indicate her underlying desires. First, as mentioned above, she’s reborn from a girl into a woman, even though she desires to return to the simplicity of the womb. Secondly, she dives to the bottom of the pool on her own to reluctantly collect a hairband given to her by her mother. This image symbolizes her reluctance to grow up and tie back her hair – something that her mum thinks she should do to show off her ears. The third underwater scene shows her diving towards Priscila’s boyfriend. This scene starts to reveal her desire to assume Priscila’s position as the coolest girl on the swim team which are confirmed in the last underwater scene to end the film. Above water, Amanda is mostly silent and rarely reveals what she thinks, but underwater, she reveals all of her underlying desires and urges.

Lane 4 contains most of the typical coming of age film tropes, such as:

Dealing with absent parents.
Dealing with friends who have grown up before you.
Dealing with a dad that still sees you as a little girl.
Jealousy of the popular girl at school.
Wanting to go out with most attractive boy at school.
Her first period.

As a result, it will feel very familiar to other coming of age films, such as Alba. The main thing that sets apart Lane 4 from other films is that it’s set within a competitive swim club. This environment, and the underwater scenes that reveal her hidden desires, made Lane 4 one of the most memorable films at SBIFF.