By Ali Moosavi. Without Name was probably the most oblique kind of minimalist film we’ve done and then obviously Vivarium is a quite surreal film…. With Nocebo it was quite a different challenge where we were basing the story in the real world in a domestic environment and then making […]
Jack of All Trades – Louis Malle: Interviews
A Book Review by Thomas M. Puhr. The cumulative effect of this collection, therefore, is nothing short of revelatory. All the more reason to revisit the director’s wildly unpredictable – and consistently exceptional – body of work.” Louis Malle is hard to pin down. The French director’s genre-hopping – film […]
Luca Guadagnino’s Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams at Provincetown FF 2022
By Chet Domitz. Following his dream, Ferragamo was home wherever he was and on whatever continent. He created his own world. “ The 2022 Provincetown International Film Festival was the site of the North American premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams. Guadagnino was in attendance to introduce the […]
Childhood Bumps on Memory Lane: Armageddon Time
By Elias Savada. Takes a lot of effort to make a memorable, brooding statement; the solutions offered aren’t as satisfying as you might hope. The taste may be somewhat off-putting.” Memories comes in all shapes, sizes, and flavors, although director-writer James Gray cooks them up in with intimate, nostalgic, and […]
Refuge of the Roads: Michał Chmielewski’s Roving Woman
By Alex Ramon. The mix of the gritty and the romantic here feels fresh. Ultimately, the film is tender in tone, with unexpected humorous flashes that don’t feel forced.” Premiering at Tribeca, and featured in the Polonica strand of Polish Film Festival in Gdynia and at Raindance 2022, Michał Chmielewski’s […]
Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin
By Elias Savada. Pain, grief, disorientation, and a dash of violence are soulfully plotted together by McDonagh, with his vision so wonderfully conveyed through the expressive chemistry of Farrell and Gleeson.” Martin McDonagh makes marvelous, crazy, fiercely creative movies filled with wildly inventive characters. He also writes lots of plays […]
Adaptation, and the “Elite Community” of Filmmaking: An Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro
By Ali Moosavi. As an overall trend I’m thinking the world is in a very precarious situation at the moment and why is it that the majority of films at this major film festival are about this elite community of film makers and artists and conductors and intellectuals? That did […]
One Family’s Dirty, Drunken Laundry: For I Know My Weakness
By Elias Savada. A raw journey into immersive filmmaking, asking for a wide berth when it comes to social ethics.” With over half-a-million homeless people in the United States today, most folks treat them as a plague. Some toss a few coins or dollars their way when they’re panhandling at […]
A Growing Influence – Hollywood in China: Behind the Scenes of the World’s Largest Movie Market
A Book Review Essay by Dina Iordanova. Author Ying Zhu reflects the changing fortunes of Hollywood in China and shows clearly that Chinese film culture can exist both with and without Hollywood.” In the fall of 2016 l had a two-month long stint as visiting professor at the Beijing Film […]
Victims Performing the Victimized: Houman Seyyedi’s World War Three
By Ali Moosavi. With the rather unsure state of the Iranian cinema at the moment, it remains to be seen what the future holds for WWIII and its talented director.” I have been a fan of the young Iranian filmmaker Houman Seyyedi ever since I saw his sophomore directing feature […]