By Robert Kenneth Dator. This little film makes me happy. It’s not little in subject. It’s not little in heart. As a matter of fact, everything about Whatever Makes You Happy is big but the budget, which was positively miniscule. It’s just that it’s tidy and squared away and neat […]
Interview with Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado, Tribeca Film Festival
May 3, 2013
By Gary M. Kramer. The 2013 Tribeca Film Festival presented the world premiere of Big Bad Wolves, a thriller from Israeli filmmakers Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado. The pair’s previous film, Rabies, showed at Tribeca in 2011, and this stylish film shows their maturation. Big Bad Wolves is an intense horror-comedy […]
32nd International Istanbul Film Festival Dedicated to Memory through Superb Literary Adaptations and a Sense of Nostalgia
May 2, 2013
By N. Buket Cengiz. At the 32nd International Istanbul Film Festival organized by İstanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV), which ran from March 30th to April the 14th, outstanding examples of the art of cinema from all around the world were screened yet again this year. The film What […]
Things I Don’t Understand (2012)
By Robert Kenneth Dator. The Tension Between Being and Nothingness Jean Paul Sartre wouldn’t mind my purloining Being and Nothingness, as Things I Don’t Understand is very much an existentialist treatise, conscious or otherwise. From the ontological notion of absurdity—that is to say that life is absurd because it has […]
The Disquieting Aura of Fabián Bielinsky
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. “I said no to Hollywood. There you have no freedom to create.” (Bielinsky to Federico Fahsbender) “Film audiences won’t find in [The Aura] an accessible or agreeable story. Also, the film doesn’t show a bit of sympathy or good intentions for any of the […]
The Holistic (2013)
By Robert Kenneth Dator. “I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of an afterlife.” The Holistic is a film short that stays long in one’s memory. I cannot count how many films I’ve seen devoted to life-after-death, but I can’t recall a single one that presented the idea that some […]
The Lords of Salem
By Cleaver Patterson. Having watched The Lords of Salem (2012) one really has to ask what the point behind such a film is? That’s not to say that every movie has to have some deeper meaning. Indeed some films, particularly horror, are often more entertaining if taken at face value […]
Dead Again: The Evil Dead Legacy
By Cleaver Patterson. They say if something’s not broken, don’t fix it – advice Sam Rami and Bruce Campbell might have been wise to pay more heed to. This week sees both the rerelease on Blu-ray of Evil Dead II (1987), the sequel to their cult schlocker The Evil Dead […]
“Difficult” Black Women: A Q&A with Shola Lynch
By Daniel Lindvall. Documentary filmmaker Shola Lynch’s new film, Free Angela & All Political Prisoners, tells the story of how the brilliant young intellectual Angela Davis was transformed into an international icon in the space of a few short years in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The film focuses […]
Créteil Films de Femmes Celebrates 35 years of Showcasing Women in Film
By Moira Sullivan. The 35th Créteil International Women’s Film Festival, which was held from March 22 to 31, featured several special events this year. First, tributes were given to veteran filmmakers and actresses who have attended previous festivals such as Margarethe von Trotta, Suzanne Osten, Mira Nair, Ulrike Ottinger, Agnes […]