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Chukotka, where Indigenous teenager Lyoshka lives a hardscrabble life in a remote whaling village, is the easternmost part of Russia. Beautiful in a forbidding, raw-boned way, with about half its territory above the Arctic Circle, it is separated from the westernmost Alaskan reaches of America by just 86 kilometers. But the cultural distance is immeasurably more vast, and only increased when Lyoshka’s village gets the internet, and, in an amusing tableau worthy of Aki Kaurismäki, burly men in weathered oilskins cluster round a glitchy screen on which blond camgirls pout in pink bedrooms for pay-per-minute customers.

The clash between the bleak traditional lifestyle of the villagers, who still use hand-tossed harpoons to secure their catch, reddening the sea, and the futurist fantasy of a Detroit-based online sex work enterprise is explored in uneven yet stirring ways in Philipp Yuryev’s feature debut, “The Whaler Boy.” , which perhaps convince most when they do not cohere.

In today’s Global Bulletin, Cannes creche returns; Andrei Konchalovsky to deliver Russian Key Buyers Event keynote; European Film Promotion elects board; drama series “The Holiday” sets lead cast; Canada opens women talent development initiatives; and Chinese blockbuster “The Eight Hundred” to premiere at Udine.

The Cannes Marché du Film and Parenting at Film Festivals are back with their daycare creche initiative Le Ballon Rouge, which was a success when introduced in 2019.

The daycare center, housed in a Covid-safe public school in the area, is available for children aged six months to 12 years from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and for a maximum of six hours at a time for each child during the Cannes Film Festival from July 7-14. In addition, a baby lounge will be available at the Palais.

Badges for the children and their caregivers will be provided by the Marché du Film for free.

Adef, British Film Institute,...

To say “Sin” is about Michelangelo is much too reductive. Rather than offering up a definitive portrait of the Italian artist, Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky has crafted instead He’s all those things and yet defined by none of them. It’s telling that “Sin” doesn’t actually spend much time with Michelangelo creating, less interested as it is in what makes a great artist than in the material conditions that shape and inspire one.

The Italian-language art film, which releases in virtual cinemas Feb. 19, opens with a written précis about the political rivalry between the Della Rovere nobility and the Medici family (soon to take over when Leo X ascends to the papacy), locating Michelangelo (an aptly disheveled Alberto Testone) squarely within the two. Much too broke to turn away handsome commissions (such as Pope Julius II’s tomb) and much too vain to refuse coveted endeavors (the façade...

Above: Dear Comrades!After a week of four films a day, unhealthy amounts of coffee, and dangerously little sleep, the countless screenings you’ve been shuttled into tend to merge into one confused amalgam. You’ve watched enough films for creative pairings between the selection to start percolating, and a great double bill came about yesterday, as the Lido welcomed back Andrei Konchalovsky and his latest, Dear Comrades! I watched it as a storm raged over the Lido, the thunders roaring above the roof of the Sala Darsena, a fitting soundtrack for a film that unearthed a tragic chapter of Soviet history, and brought me back to another Golden Lion contender from a few days ago, Quo Vadis, Aida? Both Konchalovsky and Jasmila Žbanić’s films home in on unspeakable massacres, and follow women struggling to protect their families against the forces of History. Incidentally, both are also among the...

Films by David Gordon Green, Andrew Niccol and Abel Ferrara will bring world premieres to the Lido di Venezia this year, as the Venice Film Festival has announced its selections for the 71st edition of the oldest such event in the world. Green's "Manglehorn" with Al Pacino, Niccol's "Good Kill" with Ethan Hawke and Ferrara's "Pasolini" with Willem Dafoe promise to bring a fair share of star power to the event, while actors such as Viggo Mortensen, Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver feature in films sprinkled throughout the Competition. "The Act of Killing" director Joshua Oppenheimer will also continue his look at the Indonesian genocide with a new documentary, "The Look of Silence." Playing out of competition are films by Barry Levinson ("The Humbling," also starring Pacino), James Franco ("The Sound and the Fury") and Lisa Cholodenko ("Olive Kitteridge"), while Focus Features will bring the new Laika film, "The Boxtrolls,...