Film Scratches focuses on the world of experimental and avant-garde film, especially as practiced by individual artists. It features a mixture of reviews, interviews, and essays. A Review by David Finkelstein. H. (2014), a haunting and poetic new feature by Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia, presents motifs from the story of Helen of […]
Baskin: Blurred (Genre) Vision from Turkey
By Sotiris Petridis. Baskin (2015), the directorial feature film debut of Can Evrenol, is a modern Turkish horror film that deserves the attention of every horror aficionado, even if from a less likely country of origin. The film is based on Evrenol’s 2013 short film, which shares the same title […]
Film Scratches: Violence Tamed – Wheeler Winston Dixon’s An American Dream (2016)
April 4, 2016
Film Scratches focuses on the world of experimental and avant-garde film, especially as practiced by individual artists. It features a mixture of reviews, interviews, and essays. A Review by David Finkelstein. An American Dream, a new 34-minute found footage film by Wheeler Winston Dixon, consists of public domain footage clips, almost all of […]
Framing Law and Crime: An Interdisciplinary Anthology from Rowman & Littlefield/Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
March 21, 2016
In April, 2016, the Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and Rowman & Littlefield will release Framing Law and Crime: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, edited by Caroline Joan “Kay” Picart, Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Cecil Greek; Picart, Jacobsen and Greek also authored and co-authored individual chapters in the book. The edited collection was published as […]
D.C. Independent Film Festival Celebrates Its 18th Anniversary
By Elias Savada. Over the years, lots of film festivals have been flitting about the Washington, DC, metro area, hoping to steer filmgoers’ attention away from the latest Marvel Comics blockbuster or foreign arthouse flick. Filmfest DC is 30 years old. The Spooky Movie International Film Festival (which I help program) […]
Film Scratches: Bali Descends Into Modern Capitalism in Rice for Sale (2013)
March 1, 2016
Film Scratches focuses on the world of experimental and avant-garde film, especially as practiced by individual artists. It features a mixture of reviews, interviews, and essays. A Review by David Finkelstein. In Rice for Sale, filmmakers Brendan and Jeremy Smyth have tried to use documentary footage which they shot in Bali to […]
Shakespeare on Film – The Bard’s Big Screen Odyssey
February 9, 2016
By Cleaver Patterson. A cold and blustery January morning at London’s BFI Southbank, saw the launch of Shakespeare on Film, the BFI’s latest themed season which promises to be their biggest and most ambitious to date. Shakespeare, often referred to as England’s national poet, is one of cinema’s most filmed […]
“I Gotta Be Me”: Thoughts on Hitchcock/Truffaut
December 23, 2015
By Elias Savada. I still remember buying the paperback book Hitchcock/Truffaut. I found the English version, originally published in 1967 by Simon & Schuster, a few years after college, probably in the stacks at the Strand Book Store in New York City. It was an easy, enjoyable read with lots of […]
The Real Bad Santas: Monstrous St. Nicks from Around the Globe
By Sotiris Petridis. When we hear “Christmas films” we usually think of family-themed movies, comedies or even rom-coms, but the last thing that comes in mind is horror. Many horror films are based on holiday themes to attract audience members that are cranky about this jolly season. Black Christmas (1974 and […]
FilmInt on the Underground: Art and Sacrifice in Artworkers
FilmInt on the Underground is a blog dedicated to emerging filmmakers. By April L. Smith. Andrzej Jachimczyck’s documentary Artworkers is less than twenty minutes long, yet in that short span of time, the film manages to cover so much history through subtle layering and narration. Artworkers is an exploration of […]