By Amir Ganjavie. One of the great entries at this year’s Berlinale, Ira Sachs’s Little Men centers on the coming-of-age story of two Brooklyn boys who test their friendship after a conflict between their parents. The challenge of this genre is to avoid the usual boy-meets-a-girl trap that often involves a routine portrayal of budding sexuality. Little […]
Liberation in Trapped: A Conversation with Ólafur Darri Ólafsson
April 25, 2016
By Paul Risker. “The great thing about being an actor from Iceland is that usually you know most of the other actors because it is just a small community,” explains Ólafur Darri Ólafsson. “And so it is an awesome playground to be a part of and to be able to be […]
Variety and Unity: Michal Kosakowski on German Angst
April 19, 2016
By Paul Risker. The question is an integral part of the interview, but equally it was a question that was the spark for Michal Kosakowski, Andreas Marschall and Jörg Buttgereit’s collaboration on the anthology film German Angst (2015). As Kosakowski explained: “Andreas told me about an idea that he’d had for […]
United 93: A Social Conscience and the Ease of Historicism (A 10th Anniversary Retrospective)
By David Ryan. Before United 93 opened ten years ago, the film’s previews were greeted with varying degrees of stress and grief. Although some theaters threatened to pull the previews to allay the pathos of its audience (the wounds still freshly felt in their hearts), only one New York theater […]
Iran at the Crossroads of Modernity and Virtuality: Mani Haghighi on A Dragon Arrives!
By Amir Ganjavie. The central questions in Western philosophy concern what is truth, reality, and right or wrong. Major sources of debate for Greek philosophers, these notions have become very problematic in our postmodern virtual world. As Jean Baudriallrd argues, it is no longer truth that shapes reality but rather reality which […]
Never Mean: Patton Oswalt’s Film Memoir, Silver Screen Fiend
April 12, 2016
A Book Review by John Duncan Talbird. Many film lovers will enjoy Patton Oswalt’s new memoir, Silver Screen Fiend, mainly because he’s one of us. He and his friends – “sprocket fiends” all – when they’re not lurking in revival houses or art house cinemas, spend their times arguing in […]
Film Scratches: Trojan Horse Malware Infecting Us All – H. by Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia
April 11, 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. H. (2014), a haunting and poetic new feature by Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia, presents motifs from the story of Helen of […]
Baskin: Blurred (Genre) Vision from Turkey
By Sotiris Petridis. Baskin (2015), the directorial feature film debut of Can Evrenol, is a modern Turkish horror film that deserves the attention of every horror aficionado, even if from a less likely country of origin. The film is based on Evrenol’s 2013 short film, which shares the same title […]
Letting Welsh Drama Breathe: Gareth Bryn on The Passing
April 11, 2016
By Paul Risker. The dark psychological drama The Passing (2016) is a moment in which the Welsh landscape is blighted by yet another brooding tale. Although just as characters of film are stalked by their dramatist creators who make them the prey of dramatic provocation, so too can the landscape be […]
Curating the 2016 Tribeca Shorts – A Conversation with Sharon Badal
April 9, 2016
By Gary M. Kramer. It’s Tribeca Film Festival time again, which means my annual conversation with Sharon Badal, curator of the festival’s shorts programs. This year’s fantastic line up offer some new programs: California Dreaming, which features stories from the other coast; Warped Speed, a first-ever Sci-Fi program (in honor […]