Another World was made during an era of PC gaming when single-creator works were still the norm. Rounabout the same year when Jordan Mechner was plumbing the depths of level design with the Prince of Persia, Eric Chahi was pushing the boundaries of narrative videogames with Another World. As Chahi declared at the project’s post-mortem at the recent Game Developers Conference, “I just knew I wanted to create a game with a cinematic feeling, with the theme of science fiction, in the rhythm of a movie.” And that he did, sleeplessly, for two years of his life.

Released 20 years …

Carlos harks back to the days when movies were big. Five hours and 30 minutes long. Shot in nine countries. Dialogue in eight languages. Spanning two historic decades.  

This lavish international production is a biopic of the terrorist Carlos the Jackal (born Ilich Ramírez Sánchez), played by fellow Venezuelan Édgar Ramírez. It begins in Beirut in 1974, with Carlos offering to avenge the death of a Popular Front operative seen blown to bits in his car on a Parisian street, and ends with him writhing in pain in 1994 Sudan.

In between, Ramírez delivers a performance that critics have compared …

The Taste of Chlorine (Le goût du chlore, 2008) bears a simple story: Young man goes to the pool. Meets a girl. Using this simple premise, illustrator and author Bastien Vivès tells a compelling story through a series of vivid, nuanced and strangely lifelike drawings. We find ourselves in the shoes of the young man when we see his hopes rise, when he manages to create a spark with his newfound friend. And we’re disappointed when the girl disappears the next day, even though we know very little about either character and have little reason to empathize.

His …

When I was living in the US around 2003 to 2005, I often saw Persepolis (the book, released 2000) on display in bookstores. There was a renewed interest in serious comic books, or graphic novels, at the time, and Persepolis was one of its chief champions. The story centers around a girl with a rebellious streak growing up during the Islamic Revolution in Iran circa 1980. So not only is its story serious, but very relevant in the years following 9/11 in the US, when the national caricature of Muslims had gotten rather out of hand.

Like many other people, …