BFI London Film Festival 2016 – Programme Launch

By Cleaver Patterson.  You can always tell summer has come to an end and autumn is on the way when the BFI holds the programme launch for its annual celluloid viewing extravaganza which is the BFI London Film Festival. Going by the film trailers—which played to the assembled press at […]

Behind the Scenes of the Webseries Subject to Change

By Tom Ue. Subject to Change is a new series that focuses on a group of LGBTI teenagers. Its first episode aired on YouTube, where it was warmly received. In what follows, I discuss the series with Daniel Mercieca, Thomas Buxereau, and Rory Delaney. Daniel, its creator and director, has worked […]

Rare Welles No Longer Unseen: Chimes at Midnight and The Immortal Story on Criterion

By Tony Williams. Long awaited by many, following either unavailability or dubious accessibility via duped 16mm copies, unwatchable VHS copies, and bootlegged DVDS, two of Welles’s most accomplished achievements are now available, thanks to the Criterion Collection’s high standard of reproduction. I first saw Chimes at Midnight theatrically in the […]

The 35th International Sergio Amidei Award for Best Film Script

By Simonetta Menossi.  The International Sergio Amidei Award for Best Film Script is a yearly event that takes place in Gorizia, Italy. The Award is entitled in the memory of Sergio Amidei (1904-1981), one of the most famous screenwriters of Italian Neorealism. He worked with director Roberto Rossellini for whom […]

Hope in the Search of Lost Films by Phil Hall

A Book Review by Irv Slifkin. Phil Hall did a great service to film fans seeking the forgotten and obscure with his regular column “The Bootleg Files” that ran for years on the FilmThreat.com (regrettably defunct). A film programmer, publicist in indie film, author of six previous books and prolific writer, Hall […]

Once There Were Bawdy Tales: Nosrat Karimi’s Matrimonial Comedies

By Ramin S. Khanjani. Of all directors associated with the pre-1979 “Iranian New Wave,” Nosratallah Karimi probably presents one odd case for study. With the inconsistent critical reception of the films he has to his credit as an actor and director,[1] Karimi is classified as belonging to a borderline sub-group […]

The French Spirited Away to New York: Phantom Boy

By Jessica Baxter. Co-directors Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol follow up their Oscar nominated film, A Cat in Paris, with Phantom Boy, a film that is perplexingly set in New York City, though everything else about it is as French as can be including the humor and animation style. The script […]

A Film of its Time: Spies, Fritz Lang’s Enduring Espionage Thriller

By Jeremy Carr.  Fritz Lang’s Spies gets underway with a burst of kinetic energy, its first 15 minutes or so a case study in the advancement, endurance, and perhaps surprising vibrancy of late silent cinema. Released in 1928, this crime-thriller has a rapid-fire opening that drops the viewer headlong into […]