By Tom Ue. David Färdmar’s new film Are We Lost Forever explores what happens at the end of a picture-perfect relationship: Adrian’s (Björn Elgerd) and Hampus’ (Jonathan Andersson) partnership seems built to last. They are materially secure, and they are, for all appearances, compatible. One day, Hampus decides that the […]
Return of the “Beast”: Shawn Linden on Hunter Hunter
By Ali Moosavi. I knew that it was a story that could be done with very little resources, so the punch that it would have to pack would be thematic and content wise.” Like cigarettes, some movies ought to come with a health warning. Hunter Hunter, written and directed by […]
“A Proud Female Gaze”: An Interview with Alankrita Srivastava
Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare (2020) By Devapriya Sanyal. [Film directors] should have a vision for the film, and yet allow for others to add layers and texture and mould it further. Alankrita Srivastava is the director of Lipstick Under my Burkha which created waves when released in 2016. […]
A New Gamble: Rupert Penry-Jones on Getting to Know You
By Gary M. Kramer. I feel my whole life has been one big gamble from the moment I chose to become an actor. I feel the buzz of getting a job is the same as winning the jackpot.” Getting to Know You, available on demand November 24, is a poignant, […]
Questions of Discovery and Retribution: Massoud Bakhshi on Yalda, A Night for Forgiveness
By Ali Moosavi. After only two feature films and a documentary, Massoud Bakhshi has come to the forefront of the Iranian directors. He started his filmmaking career with the faux documentary, Tehran Has No More Pomegrenates!/ Tehran Anar Nadarad (2007). On the surface, it was a nostalgic, amusing, comedy-musical portrait […]
Crisis and Recall: An Interview on “Chapter 1: Liv” (2018) with Dominic Stephenson
Tom Ue
October 16, 2020
By Tom Ue. In “Chapter 1: Liv” (2018) by Manchester-based writer and director Dominic Stephenson (under eight minutes long), we learn of a car accident: Liv (Brooke Vincent) wakes up, apparently recovering from an injury, and she is encouraged by her mother (Sally Ann Matthews) to go over what she remembers. […]
From Playground to Labor: An Interview with Kodi Smit-McPhee on 2067
By Zoe Kurland. I felt a strange sense of identification as I watched 2067’s opening scene – my planet was burning, too, and I was powerless to stop it.” The film 2067 begins in the deep dark of space. As Earth spins slowly into view, fires erupt across its surface. […]
Oppression Descends: João Paulo Miranda Maria on Memory House (TIFF 2020)
By Gary M. Kramer. What I needed from Pitanga was the history of the cinema in his body and his eyes. I needed to bring to the screen the ‘blood in his eyes.’” João Paulo Miranda Maria makes an auspicious feature film debut with Memory House, which had its World […]
No Escape from the “Rooms”: An Interview with Director Will Wernick
By Ali Moosavi. You don’t have to be a seasoned movie fan to predict the entire course of the film very early on in the proceedings.” Before watching No Escape (Will Wernick, 2020), I was not aware of the entities called escape rooms, which apparently are very popular all over […]
“Anything but this project, I would have been wary”: An Interview with Daniel Kraus on George A. Romero and Writing The Living Dead
By Tony Williams. I had no intention of sending off Romero in anything less than grand style.” As discussed in my review essay, novelist Daniel Kraus began conceiving The Living Dead (New York: Tor Books, 2020) with Romero at a time when creative frustration with the film industry began to […]