By Mina Radovic. A visionary gangland highlighting a connection to Black America and ancient Egypt.” Writer-director Yelena Popovic’s new film Moses the Black is a visionary gangland epic that turns the tables on the redemption story and highlights a connection to Black America and ancient Egypt. Feared gang leader Malik […]
She Didn’t Do It: A High School Teacher’s Thoughts on Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama
By Thomas M. Puhr. As someone with no direct experience with such atrocities, I can only imagine how painful it would be for a survivor to walk into a screening and not know what they’re in for….” I’d been teaching for five or six years when I experienced my first—and, […]
The First Movie Studio in Texas: Gaston Méliès’s Star Film Ranch – Kathryn Fuller-Seeley on Collaborating with Frank Thompson
By Gary D. Rhodes. Gaston was well aware of the rising popularity of narrative films in the US and Europe, as he’d become friendly with other prominent film producers, especially those at Vitagraph. He saw that sales of his brother’s fantasy films were falling sharply. Given a license by Edison’s […]
A Small Town with a Big Problem: Bob Odenkirk and Derek Kolstad on Normal
By Jonathan Monovich. When I think about movies that are in theaters, to a great extent…. They’re only aiming for the whole family’s satisfaction. They’re only aiming for spectacle from the beginning to the end. But, there’s something about Normal that makes you want to say, ‘Well, it’s a movie. […]
The Red Sea Phenomenon: A Genealogical Erasure of Female Pioneers
By Betty Kaklamanidou. This patriarchal structure operates like a ‘fixer,’ a sophisticated, centuries-old system that protects male supremacy by eliminating the names of women who achieved greatness, leaving behind a male-centric narrative.” This spring semester my two elective courses focus on the history of Greek cinema, specifically the work of […]
The Making of a Silent Legacy: Early Buster Keaton
A Book Review by Thomas Gladysz. A detailed, well-wrought look into the comedian’s early career(s)….” Like Charlie Chaplin, there are more than a handful of books about Buster Keaton – the stone-faced comedian who sported a pork-pie hat. And like Chaplin, Keaton remains one of the truly great performers of […]
Imperfect Storms: Berlinale 2026
By Ali Moosavi. 2026, a year of apolitical comments and walkouts, featured many standout selections.” The Berlin Film Festival, or Berlinale, started with pouring rain but a storm was brewing in the press conference hall. In response to a question about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, the International […]
“Between Algeria and France There’s Still a Wound”: François Ozon on Adapting Camus’s The Stranger
By Alex Ramon. That’s why it’s a masterpiece – it escapes one interpretation. So I decided to accept the fact that this is my interpretation of the novel and hoped that it would touch other people too. Compared to other adaptations I’ve made of more ‘minor’ or lesser known works, […]
Now a Believer: Caroline Golum’s Revelations of Divine Love
By William Blick. Made for about $200,000 through crowdfunding via way of Brooklyn, Revelations achieves the scope necessary for a fascinating, faithful telling of the spiritual and historic journey of Julian of Norwich.” Different stories of religious faith and suffering have manifested themselves in one way or another in cinema […]
Reclaiming Cinema History: Alexandra Heller-Nicholas on 1000 Women in Horror (Shudder)
By Ellie Dean. We have very clear socially constructed, stereotypical ideas of what girlhood means, what femme adolescence means, what motherhood means, etcetera, and horror works so well as a forum to explore and deconstruct these cliches because it defamiliarizes them, makes them strange, and at its best transgresses and […]