By Jeremy Carr. Faust submits an unnerving introduction to a world defined by cumulative weirdness and instability, where physical transformation is a prevalent force engendering the potential for change….” From F.W. Murnau to Alexander Sokurov, adaptations of the Faust legend have been cinematically rendered by some of the medium’s supreme visionaries […]
Voter Suppression Strikes Back – All In: The Fight for Democracy
By Michael Sandlin. A crucial step-by-step guide to how the 1965 Voting Act in the United States has been gradually disempowered over the years.” Although All In at first appears to be just another by-the-numbers overly didactic documentary designed expressly for frustrated middle-class liberals, it would be grossly unfair not […]
Something for (Scaring) Everyone – The Book of Horror: The Anatomy of Fear in Film by Matt Glasby
A Book Review by Thomas Puhr. Glasby’s enthusiasm for and knowledge of the genre win out and supersede any of the shortcomings.” “Best of” lists are a tricky business. Undisputed classics are both impossible to ignore and difficult to approach from a unique angle. Conversely, unexpected additions to the canon […]
Burning the Past, and the Future: Shahram Mokri’s Careless Crime
By Ali Moosavi. Careless Crime is an unsettling and dazzling achievement, using a real-life crime at the onset of the Iranian Revolution to examine cinema and its relation to reality versus illusion.” With only four feature films under his belt, the Iranian director Shahram Mokri has established himself as a […]
“Sweetheart” Strikes Back: An Interview with Roseanne Liang on Shadow in the Cloud (TIFF 2020)
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. Even though it’s set during a world war, it’s not a ‘lest we forget movie’, it’s not a past based thing. It’s a movie that is about the now….this dehumanization is universal.” – Roseanne Liang With its world premiere at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, Chinese-New […]
The Anti Rape-Revenge Film: Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli on Violation (TIFF 2020)
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. There is something super cathartic about the idea of revenge, and what we recognised when first making the film is that really we’re making an anti revenge film. It’s like the film is designed to scare you not to seek revenge because of how it’s going to […]
TIFF 2020: Short Cuts
By Gary M. Kramer. The Short Cuts programs, a staple of the Toronto International Film Festival, showcases five programs of new work by established and up and coming filmmakers. Each program has a loose theme and offers a mix of narrative, animated, and documentary shorts. Here is a rundown of […]
The Vacant Intimacy of One Hour Outcall
By Zoe Kurland. The line is always blurry between niceties and exploitation…. Though deeper exploration of themes of class, race, sex work, or, perhaps most importantly, the personas we craft to gain power, are sidelined in favor of frenetic editing.” T. Arthur Cottam’s One Hour Outcall begins with a smattering […]
Film Scratches: September 2020
Film Scratches is a blog by David Finkelstein focusing on the world of experimental and avant-garde film, especially as practiced by individual artists. It features a mixture of reviews, interviews, and essays. Recipe for the Imagination: Frozen (2019) Frozen is an experimental short by Adonia Bouchehri, a young London-based artist. Fascinating and wise, […]
She Said, He Said, He Said – Who Cares?: Yuval Adler’s The Secrets We Keep
By Elias Savada. Rapace is out for blood here, but Chris Messina is mostly a nebbish this go-round.” But the end of its tedious 97 minutes, I felt screwed while the cozy God Bless America town at the center of The Secrets We Keep celebrated July 4th, with one family […]