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. Bobie (Yves Bommenel) is a French poet and composer who has created a series of inventive, invigorating videos of some of […]
Film Scratches: Disturbing Desires – Light-Sleep (2009)
November 15, 2016
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. Light-sleep, a 6 minute film of hand processed found footage by Hungarian filmmaker Péter Lichter, begins with a shot of a […]
Ida Lupino, Director by Therese Grisham and Julie Grossman
November 15, 2016
Rutgers University Press presents Ida Lupino, Director: Her Art and Resilience in Times of Transition (May 2017), the first study devoted to a fascinating and largely ignored voice in American cinema. While addressing the context of Lupino’s work, with special attention to censorship, authors Therese Grisham and Julie Grossman focus on the films of […]
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 […]
Being 17: Sexual Awakening and Race in the Hautes-Pyrénées
by Kate Hearst. A renaissance of teen films about sexuality has energized French cinema in recent years with works by Abdellatif Kechiche, Céline Sciamma, and Katell Quillevere, among others. Now, in Being 17, veteran filmmaker André Téchiné brings his unique sensibility to examine the complex inter-play of sexual awakening and […]
Life, Celebrated: Arrival is a Must See
November 11, 2016
By Elias Savada. In Hollywood, when you hear the words “alien invasion,” you might expect any manner of shoot-’em-up movies like Independence Day (1996) or Edge of Tomorrow (2014), among many other rousing popcorn-munching action pictures that have landed in our planet’s multiplexes. Arrival is a bit different. It is a wildly satisfying “alien […]
A Lovely Loss of Control: The Love Witch
By Jessica Baxter. You could never accuse writer/director Anna Biller of masking her influences. She has, to date, painstakingly created two films that would fit seamlessly within the sexploitation genre of the 60s and 70s. She follows up her sexual revolution comedy debut, Viva (2007), with The Love Witch, a […]
The Coming-of-Age Mosaic of Don’t Call Me Son
By John Duncan Talbird. We open Don’t Call Me Son on Pierre (astonishing newcomer Naomi Nero), pleasantly drunk or high, beautiful and mascaraed with long, wild hair, loping through a party, teens dancing by themselves or in pairs to electronic music. The handheld camera follows him and we see that […]
And Then I Was French: An Interview with Claire Leona Apps
November 8, 2016
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 […]
Blind Chance: Free Will in 4D?
November 8, 2016
By William Repass. In Kieślowski’s 1981[1] metaphysical/political triptych, Blind Chance, the subtlest of details cut across three alternate storylines to triangulate a Poland on the verge of Solidarity. Take, for example, which drink the protagonist Witek (Bogusław Linda) favors in each divergence following the train station scene—a hinge, as it […]