Lily and Generoso spoke at length with writer/director Phạm Thiên Ân, whose stunning and pensive feature, Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, garnered the Camera d’Or at the most recent Cannes Film Festival.

For Lily and Generoso, 2023 was a fantastic year at the cinema! They select and review their ten favorite films, six supplemental features, and one extraordinary repertory release seen at microcinemas, archives, and festivals.

During AFI Fest 2023, Lily and Generoso interviewed director Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir, whose impressive debut feature, City of Wind, carefully examines the juxtaposition between the identity of place and tradition against the powers of modernity in contemporary Mongolia.

Since 2015, Lily and Generoso have reviewed the offerings from the American Film Institute’s annual festival. With AFI Fest 2023 in the books, they are here to present their top ten favorite features from this year’s impressive slate of 140 films!

During AFI Fest 2023, Lily and Generoso spoke at length with director Radu Jude about his darkly comedic feature, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, the winner of the Special Jury Prize at this year’s Locarno Film Festival and Romania’s entry in the Best International Feature Film category for the 96th Academy Awards.

Director Pietro Marcello follows up his heralded adaptation of Jack London’s Martin Eden with Scarlet, a bold reimagining of Aleksandr Grin’s classic 1923 novel, Scarlet Sails. Lily and Generoso review Marcello’s exceptional contemporary take on this beloved fairy tale.

On Friday, May 5, 2023, Ashley McKenzie’s emotionally complex and intimate second feature, Queens of the Qing Dynasty, opens at the Metrograph in New York City. Lily and Generoso sat down and spoke with her about her process, the film’s Unama’ki Cape Breton setting, and the roles that technology and reality play in her work.

Director Helena Wittmann follows up her acclaimed debut feature, Drift, with Human Flowers of Flesh, an immersive and meditative journey that traces the history of the French Foreign Legion. Lily and Generoso review this intriguing Golden Leopard nominated work.

Mikko Niskanen’s recently restored 1972 mini-series Eight Deadly Shots is a complex look at the real-life murders of four police officers in the farming community of Sääksmäki, Finland, in March 1969. Lily and Generoso review the powerful fictionalized adaptation of this tragic incident.

Lily and Generoso review Smoking Causes Coughing, the newest creation from surrealist comic genius Quentin Dupieux (Rubber, Mandibles) that follows the adventures and storytelling endeavors of the kaiju-fighting Tobacco Force!

With its 4K restoration ready to hit theaters in early 2023, Lily and Generoso review director Bernardo Bertolucci’s masterful 1970 feature, The Conformist.

With a year of festival and microcinema screenings behind them, Lily and Generoso select and review their ten favorite films, six supplemental features, and one exceptional repertory release of 2022.

Director Laura Citarella, of the famed filmmaking collective El Pampero Cine, has created with her newest feature Trenque Lauquen a provocative transformation of her protagonist Laura (Laura Parades), whom Citarella first introduced in her 2011 film Ostende. Lily and Generoso enjoyed an in-depth conversation with Citarella about Trenque Lauquen when it screened at AFI Fest 2022.

Back in 2018, Lily and Generoso selected Adirley Queirós’s Once There Was Brasilia as a top ten film. That feature’s cinematographer, Joana Pimenta, has now co-directed with Queirós one of the most expansive political films we’ve seen this year, Dry Ground Burning. Lily and Generoso interviewed Pimenta at AFI Fest earlier this month.

Director Miryam Charles’s compelling and personal hybrid documentary feature debut, Cette Maison, was a favorite of Lily and Generoso’s at AFI Fest 2022. They spoke at length with Charles during the festival about her film, which examines the emotional impact resulting from her young cousin’s death.

Set in the year 2700 in the imaginary city of Asche, Flaming Ears is a daring micro-budget sci-fi film from 1991 that envisioned a dystopian urban landscape that now seems eerily familiar. Lily and Generoso share their thoughts on the film’s new 4K restoration.

If the Horace Andy and Adrian Sherwood collaboration Midnight Rocker left you wanting more, then help is here in the form of their newest album together, Midnight Scorchers! Lily and Generoso share with you their thoughts on this expansive gem.

AFI Fest 2022 is a wrap! From November 2 to 6, the American Film Institute’s annual festival presented 125 titles. Lily and Generoso select and review their top 10 picks from this year’s programming.

The winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2021 Viennale, The Tale of King Crab has documentarians Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis creating their first hybrid-fiction feature, which expands on the provocative mythologies birthed in the town of Vejano, Italy. Generoso and Lily review this immersive and imaginative film.

Lily and Generoso review Hold Me Tight, the sixth feature directed by renowned actor Mathieu Amalric. Centered around a brilliant performance from Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread, Bergman Island), Hold Me Tight is an unpredictable and remarkable psychological drama.