By Elias Savada. Mexico’s grand auteur Arturo Ripstein is in fine neorealistic form with his devilishly depressing feature Bleak Street (La calle de la amargura), tripping over the world of luchadores wrestling as street walkers cozy by. With its film noir tonal quality, it is destined for the art house market, […]
Films for the People – The 2015 Ljubljana International Film Festival
January 19, 2016
By Erica Johnson Debeljak. The 26th Ljubljanski mednarodni filmski festival (LIFFE) took place from November 11 to November 22 last year. It is the fifteenth incarnation of this festival under the catchy acronym LIFFE, which doesn’t match the initials of the name in the Slovenian language, but perfectly captures the […]
Returning to the Past: Trevor Anderson on The Little Deputy
January 15, 2016
By Tom Ue. Trevor Anderson was born in Red Deer, Alberta, and is now based in Edmonton. His short films include “Rugburn” (2005); “Rock Pockets” (2007), which received the inaugural Lindalee Tracey Award at Hot Docs; “DINX” (2008); “Carpet Diem” (2008), “Punchlines” (2009), and “The Man That Got Away” (2012), […]
The 2015 Oscars and the Curious Case of the Missing Moldovans: Anatol Durbală’s What a Wonderful World
January 15, 2016
By Brandon Konecny. As we gear up for Academy Awards, it’s important to note the countries not taking part in this all-too-American enterprise. There are the usual absentees, such as Belarus, Tajikistan, Bhutan, and Armenia; but then there are the countries we were certain would submit something. In this case, […]
The 2015 DOKU.ARTS Festival
January 15, 2016
By Yun-hua Chen. DOKU.ARTS, after its seven-year residence in Amsterdam and Brazil, returned to Berlin and has stayed here since 2012. The event focuses on documentaries exploring art and artists, some of which, such as Saving Mes Aynak and The Chinese Mayor this year, follow the project in a longitudinal […]
Gasping for Air: Moonwalkers
January 15, 2016
By Elias Savada. The other day North Korea exploded what it called a hydrogen bomb, when, in reality (we’re told), it wasn’t all that big, or as Trevor Noah of The Daily Show said, “They farted.” The flatulence is equally noticeable in the meandering, awkward conspiracy theory comedy Moonwalkers, making its […]
Rereading The Wire: police procedural, social games and the magic of blood
By Rajko Radović. Blood has been shed on the asphalt at night. We see it in close-up as thin red lines spreading in all directions into the darkness and the ghetto, and then the blood becomes what it really is in the cult American series The Wire – pulsating wires […]
From Terror to the Personal: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon on Me, Earl and the Dying Girl
January 12, 2016
By Paul Risker. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s journey into the spotlight with Me, Earl and the Dying Girl (2015) began with his directing second unit photography for master filmmaker Martin Scorsese (Casino, 1995) and working alongside contemporary star directors: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel, 2006), Kevin Macdonald (State of Play, 2009 and The […]
The Stooped Grandfather from Hell – Burroughs: The Movie
By Christopher Sharrett. William S. Burroughs is often regarded as the King of the Beats, the central figure of the Beat Generation who mentored Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, telling them what books to read. Or he is seen as the ultimate loon of American literature, shooting and killing his […]
Subtle and Formidable: Mustang
January 11, 2016
By Elias Savada. The emotional stability of five delightfully effervescent sisters is mightily tested in Mustang, a biting and anguishing indictment of conservative religious ideology set in present day northern Turkey. It’s a powerful debut feature from Deniz Gamze Ergüven, a Turkish-born cinephile educated in Paris and Johannesburg, who displays an […]