By Roberto Cavallini. Yom Adaatou Zouli (The Day I Lost my Shadow) by Syrian director Soudade Kaadan, was presented as a world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Orizzonti Competition, where it won the prestigious “Lion of the Future, Luigi De Laurentiis award for a debut film”. The film soon […]
Charm in Spades: Tea with Dames
October 12, 2018
By Gary M. Kramer. The gentle, charming documentary, Tea with the Dames eavesdrops on the gossip, memories, and laughs shared by four grand British actresses: Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, and Eileen Atkins. Director Roger Michell films these longtime friends together, or in pairs, at Plowright’s “cottage,” asking questions […]
White Boy Rick: The Father and the City
By Christopher Sharrett. Yann Demange’s White Boy Rick is a smaller-budget film of the season almost buried by franchise movies like The Nun (of “the Conjuring Universe”), Predator (another franchise reboot), and the usual cascade of juvenilia. The film deserves notice. I want first to take note of one of […]
Film Scratches: Queen of the Nile Digest – Cleopatra Burst (2016)
October 4, 2018
Film Scratches focuses on the world of experimental and avant-garde film, especially as practiced by individual artists. It features a mixture of reviews, interviews, and essays. A Review by David Finkelstein. Cleopatra Burst is a 4 and a half minute found footage work by Dina Yanni with a very straightforward structure. Eleven […]
Film Scratches: Moving Between the Worlds – Trapped Between Frames (2014)
October 4, 2018
Film Scratches focuses on the world of experimental and avant-garde film, especially as practiced by individual artists. It features a mixture of reviews, interviews, and essays. A Review by David Finkelstein. Trapped Between Frames is a poetic 11 minute video by Nazare Soares which uses film as a metaphor for the experience […]
Film Scratches: Seduced by Spectacle – Where the Night is Going (2015)
October 4, 2018
Film Scratches focuses on the world of experimental and avant-garde film, especially as practiced by individual artists. It features a mixture of reviews, interviews, and essays. A Review by David Finkelstein. Near the beginning of Where the Night is Going, Mike Hoolboom’s sophisticated eleven minute essay film, a subtitle announces “On the […]
Cinema of Cascades: Victor Kossakovsky on Aquarela
October 3, 2018
By Yun-hua Chen. Watching Aquarela, a documentary under the section of Out of Competition in Venice International Film Festival, is definitely one of the most inspiring experiences during this year’s program. It is everything that cinema should be and at the same time, something that we have never seen on screen […]
“Good Sausage”: Felix Feist’s The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950) from Flicker Alley
By Tony Williams. Imagine Lee J. Cobb (1911-1976) playing a star role as an honest cop turned bad played for a sucker by femme fatale Jane Wyatt (1910-2006), an actress not usually associated with such parts but more as the contented spouse of Robert Young (1907-1998) in Father Knows Best […]
Abdolreza Kahani’s Free Like Air to Be Produced in Toronto
September 26, 2018
Iranian filmmaker Abdolreza Kahani will release his latest movie, the dark comedy Free Like Air, in Toronto in November. The movie is currently in pre-production, with a mix of actors from France, Canada, and Iran expected to star. Reza Attaran, a prominent Iranian actor, is now attached, after having collaborated with Kahani on […]
Assault of Independence: Lizzie
By Janine Gericke. Lizzie Borden’s infamous story is horrifying. On August 4, 1892, Borden’s father and stepmother were found bludgeoned to death in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts. Lizzie was arrested for the crime, but ultimately acquitted. According to the end credits of Craig William Macneill’s Lizzie, the all-male […]