By Christopher Sharrett. I write this comment on Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty more out of a sense of moral obligation and outrage rather than as an evaluation of a serious work. I find nothing at all to recommend this film, so impoverished is it at every political, moral, aesthetic, […]
A Royal Affair
By Cleaver Patterson. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have, during the long and varied history of their annual award ceremony, shown favour towards three things – period drama, films which focus on physically or mentally challenged characters, and a liberal sprinkling of controversial, often divisive, political intrigue. […]
Off to the Printers: Film International 61
February 22, 2013
How to Escape from Brazil? An interview with Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek and British director Sophie Fiennes ‘You know that I am still a radical leftist precisely due to my pessimism. For the true Utopia is to think that things can somehow go on as they are. No, if we […]
Film Scratches Blog #4
By Liza Palmer, Review Section Editor. The long-awaited call for reviews is finally here. Film International is actively seeking reviews for publication online or in print (at our discretion) of the following books and DVDs: Books Bollywood: Gods, Glamour and Gossip, Kush Varia (Wallflower) — TAKEN The Cinema of Michael […]
Yasujiro Ozu – The Gangster Films
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. Yasujiro Ozu is no longer a name unknown in the Western world; for a long time, this “most Japanese” of directors was overshadowed on the international scene by Akira Kurosawa, whose flashier, more action oriented style translated much more easily to 1950s American culture, and paved […]
The ABCs of Death
By Cleaver Patterson. Given the subject matter of The ABCs of Death (2012), the new compilation horror movie from producers Ant Timpson and Tim League, and directors including Srdjan Spasojevic (A Serbian Film [2010]) and Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police [2008]), it was inevitable that it would, to a greater […]
Black Biscuit (2012)
By Robert Kenneth Dator. “Featuring Enfant Terrible Street Superstars” This is not so much a title as a claim from director-producer Fabrizio Federico. Yes, there is a cast of dozens in Black Biscuit, street people all, and the disenfranchised, and those just slightly round the bend, and some who appear […]
Magpie: Interview with Marc Price
By Leo Collis. In his follow up to critically acclaimed budget-zombie movie Colin, Marc Price is set to release new project Magpie to the festival circuit. Known as the £45 film, Colin made waves when screened at Cannes in 2009 and created a huge buzz about the bright filmmakers future. […]
Call for proposals: The Lives and Deaths of the Yuppie
February 18, 2013
The Lives and Deaths of the Yuppie is the working title of a book project co-edited by Daniel Lindvall and Saër Maty Bâ. The aim of the book is to present a range of analyses of ‘the yuppie’ and ‘yuppiedom’ within late 20th and early 21st century film and television. […]
Holy Motors
By Cleaver Patterson. There is a certain type of film so caught up in a sense of its own importance, that it becomes the perfect embodiment of the very thing it claims it is trying to avoid – conformity. Many (though not all) independent films are in danger of falling […]