Journal
The customs, the works, the films and the places that make European culture. By the Novars editors.
The French New Wave, simply explained
In the late 1950s, a band of young critics decided French cinema had grown too polite. They picked up the camera, took to the streets and invented a way of...
Read the article
How to recognise a Hitchcock film
Suspense rather than surprise, an object everyone chases that serves no purpose, an enigmatic blonde and a director who walks across the frame: the master’s grammar, in five clues.
Films with an “old money” aesthetic
Mediterranean villas, crumpled linen, turquoise pools and palace balls: a selection of films we watch as much for their light and their houses as for their story.
The Cannes Film Festival: a guide
The red-carpet steps, the Palme d’Or, the dress code for evening screenings and what the public can actually see: everything you need to know about the most famous film festival...
Knowing what to say after a film
The lights come up, someone asks “So, did you like it?”, and you manage a yes. Four simple angles to turn that question into a real conversation, without playing the...
Contempt and the Villa Malaparte, a house made for cinema
A red house perched on a rock in Capri, a staircase climbing to the sky, Brigitte Bardot on the roof: in 1963, Godard filmed one of the most extraordinary houses...
The legendary cinemas of Paris
A neo-Egyptian palace in Barbès, an Art Deco auditorium of nearly three thousand seats, a little Latin Quarter cinema showing classics since 1938: Paris is the city of the silver...