By Jonathan Monovich. As the most attended year yet, the year’s CCFF provides reassurance that a love for film and film criticism is very much alive and well. Just weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the closing night of the 25th Ebertfest at the Virginia Theatre in Champaign, […]
Like Magical Realism: Tomás Gómez Bustillo on Chronicles of a Wandering Saint
By M. Sellers Johnson. Here’s a way to use VFX that feels like magical realism. Like the literature that I had read that uses fantastical elements but doesn’t go into fantasy.” Tomás Gómez Bustillo Set in a rural Argentine village, Chronicles of a Wandering Saint is a darkly comic tale […]
Family Drama in “Real Life”: An Interview on Ghostlight (CCFF 2024)
By Jonathan Monovich. Being a real-life family, we didn’t need to try to create that dynamic like three unrelated actors would, so it made it easier.” To close out the 11th Chicago Critics Film Festival (CCFF), the Chicago Film Critics Association saved the best for last. Ghostlight (2024) written by […]
Collective Creation: Universal Language
By Yun-hua Chen. Universal Language mocks our limited imagination by opening up its limitless possibilities….” “Cinematic Venn diagramme between Winnipeg, Tehran and Montréal”, or “a Hawaiian pizza”, as director Matthew Rankin described his sophomore feature Universal Language (2024) himself – the film is completely unexpected, bold, free-flowingly imaginative, multi-everything and […]
Docu-mania: The Introduction to Crafting Contemporary Documentaries and Docuseries for Global Screens
By Phoebe Hart. Crafting Contemporary Documentaries and Docuseries for Global Screens delves into the processes by which the study participants, all creative practitioners, learn skills and acquire inspiration and mastery, and specific rituals and habits of practice.” Since its inception, the documentary film has steadily grown in form and reception, […]
In Love and Pain – Vampires in Silent Cinema by Gary D. Rhodes
A Book Review by Dávid Szőke. A carefully detailed account of the vampire archetype’s journey from literary and folkloric origins to the silent screen….” “Schreck’s peculiarities are like lovemaking games,” so says the fictional F.W. Murnau (John Malkovich) in E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire (2000), a vampire film […]
More Happy Accidents: Accidentally Preserved, Vol. 5
By Jeremy Carr. Ben Model and his Undercrank Productions continue to deliver eclectic fare from the annals of film history, distributing movies that shed light on their respective era, their audiences, and their creators.” Given the nature of what is discovered, handled, and ultimately distributed as part of the Accidentally […]
Sleepless Nights: Alex Andre’s Pratfall (2023)
By Thomas M. Puhr. A film about the very-human desire to be seen – really seen – by another, and the accompanying fear of what that vulnerability may bring.” “Do I look happy or satisfied?” Eli (Joshua Burge) asks an unsuspecting couple in Central Park. “I wouldn’t know. I can’t […]
The Triple Protagonist Film: Challengers, Sex, and Gender
By David Greven. Echoing classical Hollywood and classical myth, the triple protagonist film of the present breaks new ground while reinforcing longstanding myths about sexuality and gender stereotypes.” In Luca Guadagnino’s great films, such as Call Me By Your Name (2017), Bones and All (2022), and I Am Love (2009), […]
Creatively Tributing the Master – A Hint of Hitchcock: Stories Inspired by the Master of Suspense
A Book Review by Brian Greene. The original stories are well-written and compelling enough to stand on their own apart from their associations with the great auteur.” Alfred Hitchcock had a deep connection to literature. The authors whose novels and short stories served as the bases of his films include […]