What The Critics are Saying about the Films at Cannes
ABC Africa (Iran)
"[Abbas Kiarostami's latest] takes place amid the children's hospitals and orphanages of AIDS-stricken, war-ravaged Uganda, is a return to the unfettered examination of children's issues that dates back to Kiarostami's earliest shorts, and a continuation of the exploration of life and death begun in "Life and Nothing More. [Contains] one of the greatest sequences in all his work."
Variety, Scott Foundas
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I didn't use this new digital camera as a serious work tool. I took it with me more like a still camera, to take some notes with it. But when I actually started using it -- and when I realized its possibilities and what I could do with them -- I realized that I have wasted, in a way, 30 years of my career using the 35mm camera, because that camera is more of a hindrance than a communication tool." Abbas Kiarostami from Indiewire
Ameli From Montmarte (France)
"...fresh, funny, exquisitely bittersweet tour de force, about a lass who makes sly incursions into the lives of her neighbors, is ambitious yet intimate, defiantly personal yet gleefully universal."
Variety, Lisa Nesselson
Apocalypse, Now Redux (USA)
"A bravura piece of filmmaking, the new "Apocalypse Now" has a dynamic new six-channel soundtrack created by the wizardly Walter Murch (who won an Oscar for editing the first version) and a new
Technicolor dye transfer print that is so spectacular that cinematographer and fellow Oscar winner Vittorio Storaro says, "I almost cried, it was so beautiful." Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan

"``When you ask about the best films of the festival, people say ``Apocalypse Now,'' which is the
most impressive film so far, and it's not even competing,'' - Variety
Chelsea Walls (USA)
"The film documents the drunken musings of a brilliant, womanizing writer (Kristofferson), the isolated existence of a poet (Thurman),
a pair of soul-searching musicians, both from Minnesota like Dylan, and two young lovers." Reuters
Ephemeral Town (Greece)
"Documaker Giorgos Zafiris makes a respectable feature bow with "Ephemeral Town," an atmosphere piece about an oldster searching for his lost family home on an island. Pic falls squarely in the Greek art-film tradition, not a drawing card for most viewers; limited fest life looks like pic's biggest gratification."
Variety, Deborah Young
Fatma (Tunisia)
"...captures the wide range of attitudes towards female sexuality in one of the most liberal Arab societies. Film is quite interesting on a sociological level, but has trouble going deeper into its young heroine's mind and especially in creating a compelling storyline."
Variety, Deborah Young
Hush! (Japan)
"focuses on a triangle of characters... engaging lighter touch laced with sly humor, this meandering melodrama about gay relationships, friendship, loneliness and the elastic notion of family is considerably overlong and hampered by too many superfluous scenes. While it ultimately works despite this, re-acquaintance with the editing shears could significantly heat up its arthouse welcome, particularly with distribs specializing in gay product."
Variety, David Rooney