By Elias Savada. Aviva Kempner has struck again. A Jewish liberal landmark in Washington for many decades, she has forged a multi-faceted career that includes making documentaries that focus on people and events Jewish. The Washington Jewish Film Festival was started by Kempner in 1990 (she’s still on its advisory […]
Spotlight on the “Final Girl”: Akasha Villalobos and Danielle Evon Ploeger on Last Girl Standing
August 28, 2015
By Paul Risker. Billy Wilder, during his conversations with Charlotte Chandler (Billy Wilder: Nobody’s Perfect: A Personal Biography (2004)) was undecided whether The Apartment’s (1960) romantic leads Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine would remain together. The contemplation alone, however, is enough to infer that a film continues to exist beyond […]
Letting Your Freak Flag Fly: Pat Mills’ Guidance
August 24, 2015
By Elias Savada. The more you laugh at David Gold, the more you want to smack him on the side of his loopy head. He’s the central character in Guidance — the feature debut from Canadian writer-director Pat Mills (who also stars) — and the world is his Goliath. His […]
Never Let Go: Not Your Typical Horror Fare
August 24, 2015
By Cleaver Patterson. It sounds odd that the screening for a film which is not primarily horror – at least in the generally accepted sense of the word – was the first to sell out at a festival dedicated to the genre. However that’s just what happened when tickets for […]
Strength and Tenacity: Why Giving Up Isn’t an Option for Angela Dixon in Never Let Go
August 22, 2015
By Cleaver Patterson. The sensitive subject of child abduction is brought to life in the new thriller Never Let Go. On the eve of its first European screening at this year’s FILM4 FrightFest, the film’s star Angela Dixon spoke to Cleaver Patterson about the challenges she, and its director/writer Howard […]
Split the Brew and Joints: Swanberg’s Digging for Fire
August 22, 2015
By Elias Savada. Joe Swanberg apparently hasn’t stopped mumbling yet. Known for his mumblecore films — micro-budget affairs shot on video with lots of actor improvisation — Swanberg has barely inched toward making more formal movies, starting with the craft beer romance Drinking Buddies a few years back. Growing more […]
Frontiers of Nordic Noir: on the Series Jordskott
August 16, 2015
By Paul Risker. The storytelling process in film and television is made up of perspectives. There are the perspectives from in front of and behind the camera as well as the voyeuristic perspective of the audience. While often an interview will engage with a single one of these perspectives, our […]
A Frolicsome Ride: Cop Car
August 15, 2015
By Elias Savada. Somewhere out in the middle of America, amongst the Colorado cattle fields and its arrowhead-laden landscape, we find Travis (James Freedson-Jackson) and his long-haired buddy Harrison (Hay Wellford) roaming the plains. These ten-year-olds are either innocent pioneers out for a long, extended walk or have left home […]
Grim History: Robert Gliński on The Battle for Warsaw
August 15, 2015
By Paul Risker. Robert Gliński’s The Battle for Warsaw (2014), which was originally titled Stones for the Rampart before it was given a title with a more dramatic resonance, brings the director’s career full circle. His early work focused upon the Soviet occupation of Poland, while Stones for the Rampart […]
Imprisoned by the Past: Narrative Mastery in Bota
August 14, 2015
By Brandon Konecny. In his foreword to William Faulkner’s novel Absalom, Absalom! (1936), John Jeremiah Sullivan points out that “a fundamental law of storytelling is: withhold information.” By this he means that instead of front-loading a story with character information—a charge of which a substantial amount of today’s screenwriters are guilty—a […]