REVIEW: Madres paralelas [Parallel Mothers] [2021]

I don’t regret it. Janis (Penélope Cruz) and Ana (Milena Smit) find themselves as roommates in a Madrid maternity ward—two single women about to give birth to their first child. The former is a successful photographer who conceived while having an affair with a married man (Israel Elejalde‘s Arturo). The latter is a teenager, the father and circumstances surrounding her pregnancy not yet explained. Ana is trepidatious about the whole ordeal for obvious reasons while Janis is looking forward to the experience, her maternal instincts already kicking in as a…

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BNFF11 REVIEW: The Frost [2009]

“What is your bloody wish!” I am not familiar with Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen or his play “Little Eyolf”, on which writer/director Ferran Audí based his film The Frost. Doing some quick research shows that he was a man who wrote about morality and questions of love and loss, so I can assume Audí instilled his spirit since those aspects play a huge role in the film. Viewing it at the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival, the story actually reminded me a lot of William Shakespeare’s “MacBeth”, feelings of guilt and…

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