Exploring Collective Fear, with a Solar-Powered Cellphone: Bruce Wemple’s The North Witch

By Andrew Montiveo. Imperfect and occasionally clunky, its slow-boil tension, isolation-driven horror, and cerebral elements make it a compelling watch….” Recently, witches have become conduits for exploring folklore and collective fear, as in The Blair Witch Project (1999), where ambiguity reigns, blurring the lines between reality and myth. These varied […]

Camp with a Heart: Vera Drew’s The People’s Joker (2022)

By Thomas M. Puhr. This is the kind of movie that begs to be experienced in a packed theater, preferably with the smell of marijuana wafting down the aisles. It may very well be this century’s answer to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Although only two years have passed since […]

Transport for Survival: Arash Rakhsha’s All the Mountains Give (DOC NYC)

By William Blick. A survivalist story and an unobtrusive, objective gaze into the bleak lives of dedicated, seemingly forgotten people….” In a time when the arts and culture are under assault from all angles, artists find a way to survive and thrive. Such is the case with Kurdish film director, […]

Meanwhile on Earth: E.T. Phone Her(e)

By Elias Savada. For Elsa, her E.T. essence in her head never offers up an origin story or a political agenda, and this ambiguousness pushes the question – is this a cosmic lifeline or an invasion?” Leave it to the French (and writer-director Jérémy Clapin) to fashion this moody, low-budget, […]