News

As the anxiety-ridden year of 2020 winds down, much will be said about how the pandemic has forever changed the film industry: crippling the arena of theatrical exhibition, yet also making films available for a wider-than-ever audience. Like most cinephiles, we’re looking to get our hands on the titles that may have slipped under the radar or simply gone unseen, so—as we do each year—we’re sharing a rundown of the best titles available to watch at home.

Curated from the Best Films of 2020 So Far list we published for the first half of the year, it also includes films we’ve enjoyed the past few months and some we’ve recently caught up with. This is far from a be-all, end-all year-end feature (that will come in December), but rather something that’s hopefully a helpful tool for readers to have a chance to seek out notable,...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.

And Then We Danced (Levan Akin)

To be a Georgian male is to be masculine—especially in dance. Merab’s (Levan Gelbakhiani) teacher Aleko (Kakha Gogidze) demands that he stand straighter and stronger, a monument that can withstand any blow. While his country’s aesthetic had allowed for a softer tone, conservative tradition prevailed a half century ago to move things back to the rigid separation of gendered movement and the complete erasure of sexuality. How Aleko’s dancers perform becomes a visual metaphor for their nation. It will not be defeated. It will not show weakness. And anyone who dares to refuse giving one hundred...

“There is no sex in Georgian dance,” declares a gruff dance instructor named Aliko (Kakha Gogidze) at the beginning of Levan Akin’s And Then We Danced. The line’s obvious irony inspires titters from his students, who are uniformly young, hot, and fit; as we will soon learn, sex is just about the only thing they talk…...

To be a Georgian male is to be masculine—especially in dance. Merab’s (Levan Gelbakhiani) teacher Aleko (Kakha Gogidze) demands that he stand straighter and stronger, a monument that can withstand any blow. While his country’s aesthetic had allowed for a softer tone, conservative tradition prevailed a half century ago to move things back to the rigid separation of gendered movement and the complete erasure of sexuality. How Aleko’s dancers perform becomes a visual metaphor for their nation. It will not be defeated. It will not show weakness. And anyone who dares to refuse giving one hundred percent to that goal can leave. It doesn’t matter how much passion Merab possesses or how many hours he practices. In their eyes he isn’t Georgian. He isn’t even a man.

It’s no wonder that writer/director Levan Akin’s film And Then We Danced was met by protests in Georgia.