By Anna Weinstein. Described by Variety as a “strange, savvy, big-hearted teen adventure,” Rosemary Myers’ debut film, Girl Asleep, is the story of a young girl navigating the frightening forest of adolescence. Myers describes this forest as “a place where characters go into the wild,” where they’re forced to confront […]
Fan A(Fic)ionados Unite!: Clay Liford on Slash
By Tom Ue. Clay Liford’s new film Slash (2016) centers on high school freshman Neil (Michael Johnston) and his slightly older fellow student Julia (Hannah Marks), both of whom write fanfic online. The process of writing for a public provides the introverted Neil with an outlet but it also pushes […]
Bringing Horror to Slovenia: Tomaž Gorkič on Killbillies
By Sotiris Petridis. Killbilllies (original title: Idila, i.e., Idyll), a harrowing tale of abduction, violence and hoped-for survival, is Slovenia’s first ever horror movie. It features a group of fashionistas from the city, including models Zina (Nina Ivanisin) and Mia (Nika Rozman), make-up artist Dragica (Manca Ogorevc) and photographer Blitcz […]
And Then I Was French: An Interview with Claire Leona Apps
By Tom Ue. Canadian-born Claire Leona Apps was raised in Hong Kong and Indonesia before relocating to Britain. She graduated in Pure Mathematics at Imperial College and then completed an MA at the London Film School, graduating as a director. For a decade her work has been fuelled by a vivid […]
Creating the Vision: An Interview with Cinematographer Billy Williams
By David A. Ellis. Retired cinematographer Billy Williams (born on 3 June 1929 in Walthamstow, London) began working in documentaries at age fourteen (his father, Billy senior, was also a cinematographer) and then graduated to television and feature films. He had Oscar nominations for Women in Love (1969) and On Golden Pond (1981) and had several […]
A Formidable Presence Onscreen: A Conversation with Salma Monani on Ecocinema
By Rayson K. Alex and S. Susan Deborah. Salma Monani is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania, United States of America, and currently a Carson Fellow at Rachel Carson Centre for Environment and Society in Munich, Germany. As an environmental humanities scholar, Monani’s primary research in ecocinema studies is informed […]
“A Big Job”: A Conversation About The Battle of Algiers with Saadi Yacef
By John Duncan Talbird. The Battle of Algiers (1966) is one of the essential postcolonial texts of the 20th century. It complicates many of the assumptions that too often get taken for granted even now, fifty years later: the essentialism of race, the terrorist/freedom fighter binary, the ethics and efficacy of torture […]
In the Season of the Witch: Victor Matellano on Vampyres
By Sotiris Petridis. Set in an English manor inhabited by two lesbian vampires and a man imprisoned in the basement, Vampyres enlivens the familiar territory with pulsating raw eroticism, wicked sado-masochism and bloody, creative gore. The lives of the vampires are upended when a trio of campers come upon the […]
“Just a White Dot, Remember?”: An Interview with Justin S. Lee
By Tom Ue. Justin S. Lee is a Student Academy Award-nominated writer/director with an MFA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. His storytelling roots began at an early age in childhood, when he grew up in the foreign cityscape of Taipei, Taiwan. Unable to speak its language and truly fit in, he […]
The Man Who Shot Oliver: An Interview with Cinematographer Ossie Morris
By David A. Ellis. The late notable cinematographer Oswald Norman Morris was born on 22nd November 1915 in Ruislip. Morris started his career as a clapper boy at Wembley Studios in 1932, making quota quickies, which were made in a week to meet the British quota. He was offered an […]
