''Carmen'' is a 2021

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

written and directed by

Valerie Buhagiar Valerie Buhagiar (born May 12, 1963) is a Maltese-Canadian actress, film director and television host. She studied acting at George Brown College in Toronto, Ontario, graduating in 1986. Her debut as a filmmaker was ''The Passion of Rita Camill ...

. Inspired in part by the real experiences of Buhagiar's own aunt Rita, the film stars

Natascha McElhone Natascha Abigail Taylor (born 14 December 1971), known professionally as Natascha McElhone (), is an English actress. In film, she has starred in the action thriller ''Ronin (film), Ronin'' (1998), the psychological comedy-drama ''The Truman Sho ...

as Carmen, a

Maltese Maltese may refer to: * Someone or something of, from, or related to Malta * Maltese alphabet * Maltese cuisine * Maltese culture * Maltese language, the Semitic language spoken by Maltese people * Maltese people, people from Malta or of Maltese ...

spinster who has spent her adult life serving as a caretaker for her brother, who is a

Roman Catholic priest The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in common English usage ''priest'' re ...

, but who finds herself feeling free to explore her own desires and goals in life as she nears age 50. The cast also includes Steven Love, Michaela Farrugia, Peter Galea, Mikhail Basmadjian, Henry Zammit Cordina, and

Richard Clarkin Richard Clarkin is a Canadian actor. He is most noted for his performance in the 2017 film '' The Drawer Boy'', for which he won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Supporting Actor at the 7th Canadian Screen Awards in 2019.2021 Toronto International Film Festival The 2021 Toronto International Film Festival, the 46th event in the Toronto International Film Festival series, was held from September 9 to 18, 2021.Barry Hertz"TIFF planning ‘substantially bigger’ 2021 film festival compared to last year’ ...

, but was not made available to the general public. It had its public premiere at the 2021

Whistler Film Festival The Whistler Film Festival (WFF) is an annual film festival held in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. Established in 2001, the festival is held the first weekend of December and includes juried competitive sections, the Borsos Awards, and the Pand ...

, where Diego Guijarro won the award for Best Cinematography in a

Borsos Competition The Borsos Competition is the main awards program for Canadian feature films screening at the annual Whistler Film Festival. The award is named in memory of Canadian film director Phillip Borsos. Introduced for the first time in 2004, the juried ...

film. In 2022, it was screened at the

Canadian Film Festival The Canadian Film Festival, formerly known as the Canadian Filmmakers Festival, is an annual film festival in Toronto, Ontario. Showcasing a program of Canadian independent films, it is held in March of each year and usually runs for five days. ...

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, where it won the award for Best Film. The film was released by Vortex Media in Canada in select theatres on August 19, 2022, and on

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films Digital distribution, digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typica ...

on September 23, 2022. In Malta, it was released theatrically on September 21, 2022. In the United States, it was released theatrically in major cities and on video on demand on September 23, 2022, by Good Deed Entertainment.

Reception

On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews from critics, with an average rating of .

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which uses a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

, assigned the film a score of 66 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* 2021 films 2021 drama films 2021 multilingual films 2020s Canadian films 2020s English-language films English-language Maltese films Canadian drama films Canadian multilingual films English-language Canadian films Films set in the 1980s Films set in Malta Films shot in Malta Maltese drama films Maltese-language films {{2020s-Canada-film-stub