Book Review by Leo Collis. When the subject of French film arises, instant connotations of art cinema, avant-garde productions and typically French subject matter emerge. As argued by Tim Palmer, French cinema is constantly evolving, incredibly varied and often paradoxical, making it one of the most ambitious and culturally important […]

By Celluloid Liberation Front. They already called it the “Greek New Wave”, “Greek Weird Wave” or even “Greek Absurdism”; it more realistically is a bunch of movies coming from the Hellenic peninsula sharing certain thematic traits. It is not the intent of this article to dispute whether Ektoras Lygizos’ film […]

By Sebastian Clare. Frank has had enough. Divorced and living alone, he fantasises about killing his incessantly loud and obnoxious next-door neighbours and observes, through his television set, the increasing decadence of American culture. In the space of no time, he is fired from his job on a trumped-up harassment […]

By Celluloid Liberation Front. As part of its ‘Out of the Past’ sidebar section, the 47th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has presented a digitally restored copy of Nová Vlna milestone The Firemen’s Ball by Milos Forman. Restored classics often come with an intimidating dose of self-importance and grandeur; Milos […]

By Jacob Mertens. Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) sparked a series of inferior sequels, in no small part because the films failed to grasp what made Alien great: elegant simplicity. Alien crafted a lean build up of tension and fear, and while the narrative allowed a few twists and turns the […]

Book Review by Yvette Lim. We have all heard scathing and cruel remarks about transgendered bodies; they are often cast in tragicomic roles in films that end with these queer bodies marginalized or destroyed, restoring power and order to the heteronormative and the patriarchal. The well-known Thai movies Iron Ladies […]

By Christopher Sharrett. I have just re-screened on disc Nima Nourizadeh’s Project X (2012), which I saw in a nearby multiplex this past season. I wanted to see it again not because I feared I missed something in the plot (there is hardly any of this, nor characterization, nor any […]