By Christopher Sharrett. I use the word “excavated” in my title not because the 1977 horror film The Sentinel , directed by Michael Winner, is lost to film history, but because it has been buried – with some justification – by legitimate criticism worthy of respect. I will argue in […]
The Camera as Our Imagination: Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)
March 4, 2016
By Paul Risker. Alain Resnais and Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) – two names forever locked in an embrace; the latter a defining and resounding heartbeat within the filmmaker’s cinema. Alongside Last Year in Marienbed (1961), Resnais was the creator of cinematic or narrative labyrinths that liberated filmic storytelling, and furthered attention […]
Conventional Calamity: The Wave
March 2, 2016
By Elias Savada. Disaster movies are a dime a dozen here in the United States. Catastrophes (usually) are Hollywood’s bread-and-butter…and your buttered popcorn. Now, head across the pond to Norway and you’ll — until now, never — have seen such large-scale destruction in a film, where the industry is known for […]
D.C. Independent Film Festival Celebrates Its 18th Anniversary
By Elias Savada. Over the years, lots of film festivals have been flitting about the Washington, DC, metro area, hoping to steer filmgoers’ attention away from the latest Marvel Comics blockbuster or foreign arthouse flick. Filmfest DC is 30 years old. The Spooky Movie International Film Festival (which I help program) […]
Film Scratches: Bali Descends Into Modern Capitalism in Rice for Sale (2013)
March 1, 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. In Rice for Sale, filmmakers Brendan and Jeremy Smyth have tried to use documentary footage which they shot in Bali to […]
Small Town Texas Lite: A Country Called Home
February 29, 2016
By Elias Savada. Doused with a familiar, filial melancholy, A Country Called Home is a bittersweet tale of a 25-year-old woman coming to grips with the ghosts in her estranged family’s closet. Music video helmer Anna Axster directed, co-wrote (with Jim Beggarly) and was a producer on her low budget, slow-cooking […]
Keeping it Bleak, and Feminist: Gilles Paquet-Brenner on Dark Places
February 27, 2016
By Paul Risker. Neither is the final version of a film nor the path of the filmmaker a collection of exclusive deliberate creative choices. Writer/director Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s breakthrough came with Sarah’s Key (2010), a story that follows one woman’s journey into the past that has subsequently been echoed by Dark Places […]
The Best and the Most Overrated of 2015
By Film International. The editors’ Top 10 and Overrated 10 include films that were released in the editors’ respective regions during 2015. They have been selected by Daniel Lindvall (editor-in-chief, based in Stockholm, Sweden), Jacob Mertens (review and festival editor, based in Madison, WI, USA) and Matthew Sorrento (interview and […]
Fleeting Reconciliation: Colliding Dreams
February 25, 2016
By Elias Savada. The nightmare that surrounds the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East has never been an easy one to suppress. It’s been one step forward, two steps back for too long. A peaceful solution seems distant to proponents of the competing ideologies. Or to just the plain bystander. Colliding […]
A Look Back at Edge of Seventeen
February 25, 2016
By Gary M. Kramer Edge of Seventeen is writer Todd Stephens’ seminal and semi-autobiographical 1988 coming out film. Directed by David Moreton (after Stephens stepped down), the film concerns Eric (an excellent Chris Stafford), who comes to terms with his sexual identity in 1984 Sandusky, Ohio. Eric’s best friend is […]