By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. Undeniably clunky plotpoint aside – and it is, admittedly, a pretty major one that’s hard to miss – The Kingdom Exodus is otherwise a playful, spooky and at times genuinely moving return.” With the passing of legendary Swedish actor Ernst-Hugo Järegård in 1998, Lars von Trier said […]
Starting from Scratch: Asmae ElMoudir on The Mother of All Lies (Kadib Abyad)
By Yun-hua Chen. For the story that I wanted to tell, there were no pictures and no proofs of what happened. I just started with one picture, and I finished with 500 hours of footage. I wanted to tell the story, but how I tell this story should be different.” […]
In the World of Pre-Code: Geoffrey O’Brien on Arabian Nights of 1934
By William Blick. My novel is not so much talk about these movies as a story that inhabits their world, as if in the mind of a young spectator – an intelligent adolescent, say, old enough to have a growing awareness of the movies’ frequent unreality and still young enough […]
A Commodified Future: Sophie Barthes on The Pod Generation
By Ali Moosavi. When I wrote this film I had no idea [that the advance of AI] would happen so fast…. We have to talk about it and raise the questions; is that the world that we want?” Writer-director Sophie Barthes was born in France but grew up in South […]
Into the Universe: Filmmaker Daphné Baiwir on King on Screen
By Leo Collis. “I really wanted to give the audience the feeling that they were entering the Stephen King universe.” The chances are, whether knowingly or not, you’ve seen a Stephen King adaptation on screen. The prolific author from Portland, Maine, has written over 50 books, and he has inspired […]
Tom Mix Rides Again: Sky High (1922) and The Big Diamond Robbery (1929)
By Jeremy Carr. Although many Mix pictures are lost, these illustrative entries showcase his customary assurance, his virtue, and his penchant for showmanship.” If Hollywood’s classic Western heroes are generally given little positive thought these days, the cowboy celebrities of the silent era in particular are even less familiar. In […]
Life During Wartime: Maryna Er Gorbach’s Klondike (2022)
By Thomas Puhr. This film about the Donbas region of Ukraine that borders Russia, set in 2014, features images that are hauntingly beautiful as often as they are simply haunting.” Maryna Er Gorbach’s searing Klondike (2022) takes place in 2014 Ukraine, in the Donbas area that borders Russia. Although the […]
Recognizing Belafonte
By Robert K. Lightning. If Poitier’s films frequently situate him as an integrationist hero, successfully negotiating the rocky path to white acceptance, Belafonte’s films typically chart a very different path where acceptance is not always the goal, making him often Poitier’s cinematic antithesis.” With the announcement of Harry Belafonte’s death […]
Collective Catharsis: An Interview with Cyril Aris on Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano
By Yun-hua Chen. For me the process of making this film allowed me to digest my feelings and experience as a means of catharsis on a collective level with the film crew….” On 4th August 2020, a catastrophic explosion devastated the port of Beirut due to 2,570 tons of ammonium […]
Living Through Hell on Wheels: Yuval Adler’s Sympathy for the Devil (2023)
By Thomas M. Puhr. Cage enthusiasts might get a kick out of this film’s meager offerings (if you managed to make it through Willy’s Wonderland, then this one should be a cinch). Others may find themselves daydreaming about Collateral or The Hitcher. If you’re going to set your film almost […]