Festivals Features
Calgary Underground 2024: Curtain Raiser
The Calgary Underground Film Festival (CUFF) opens its 21st edition today, and runs until April 28th. Western Canada's largest showcase of genre film, offbeat documentaries, and industry events is housed in the two-screen (stacked on top of one another) Globe Cinema in the...
(Good) Friday One Sheet: HUMANE
Curious timing on the Christian calendar for today’s column. We are not at the resurrection yet on Good Friday, only the sacrifice, and the death-heavy poster for Humane shows that. Perfect ordered body bags, in an neutral grey setting, suggest...
First Look 2024 at Museum of the Moving Image: Preview
The First Look Festival returns to the Museum of the Moving Image this month offering audiences opportunities to see exciting new films of all kinds from all over the world. There are films just out of Sundance, like Haley Elizabeth...
SXSW 2024 Preview: Genre Film Fans, Get Excited About This Dazzling Dozen
It must be spring, because in just a couple of days thousands of tastemakers will descend upon Austin, Texas, for the SXSW Film & TV Festival. Providing a home for everything from big budget Hollywood premieres like The Fall Guy...
Rotterdam 2024: What The Audiences Liked Best
Three weeks ago, Rotterdam was about to wrap up its International Film Festival, and a few days after that they published the final results of their audience rating ballots. These, to me, are always at least as interesting as the...
Rotterdam 2024 Preview: Recommendations
It's nearing the end of January, and that means the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR for short) is upon us here in the Netherlands, the largest recurring cultural event in this country. Ten days of movie mayhem, much of it...
Sundance 2024 Preview: Love, Death, Wild Times, A New Hope
There is a chill in the air and a whole year's worth of new indie films getting geared up for launch. That must mean it is Sundance time! We'll have plenty of reviews to point out all the best of...
Friday One Sheet: THE ZONE OF INTEREST
The second significant piece of key art for Jonathan Glazer's The Zone Of Interest leans into a minimalism and iconography, almost as oblique as the film itself. It reminds me of the opening shot of his previous film, Under The...
Imagine 2023: What The Audiences Liked Best
Last month saw the largest Dutch genre film festival being held: Imagine in Amsterdam. A lot of fun was had by a lot of people, and prizes were being awarded. But as always, professional juries may not have the same...
Friday One Sheet: THE TEACHERS' LOUNGE
Evoking the keenest student's homework that has had notes scribbled in the margin, the recent key art for Ilker Çatak's provocative social thriller, The Teachers’ Lounge, sure has a lot of text on display. It has been a darling on...
Friday One Sheet: OCCUPIED CITY
There are many ways to make a piece of key art. Be it a minimalist totem or icon from the film, those adventure blockbuster collages, be it photoshop or hand-painted, the surreal Dada-ist Polish style, or simply a shot of...
Friday One Sheet: THE ZONE OF INTEREST
Negative space factors quite figuratively into the execution (as it were) of Jonathan Glazer's magnificently icky, and profoundly disturbing domestic drama, The Zone Of Interest. Design studio Kellerhouse have integrated that into their key art for the film, which features the blackest...
Friday One Sheet: WHEN EVIL LURKS
No point beating around the bush on this one, California's Mocean design house goes full on distressed red sky and deep black shadows for slow burn Argentinian possession horror, When Evil Lurks. The tagline, "There is no point in praying" is...
Friday One Sheet: SITGES #56
It cannot pass without mentioning how much the design team for the Sitges Film Festival, or rather, Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya, simply aced the key art this year. On a creamy white field (the similar colour of an...
Fantastic Fest 2023 Preview: Too Many Great Flicks to Count
Leaves are falling and there's a mild chill in the air. It's Fall Fest Season and that means Fantastic Fest! It's a big year for new genre flicks and some of the best will be playing in Austin from September...
Friday One Sheet: LIMBO
The pull quotes filling the open sky here say as much about the film as they do about Australian Carnival Studio's design ethos for the film's key art. Ivan Sen's striking, monochrome new cold case, outback noir Limbo is a...
Friday One Sheet: RIDDLE OF FIRE
The "Coolest debut from Cannes," according to AnOther Magazine, the poster for American indie cult-film-to-be, Riddle Of Fire, exudes rural middleschool cool. The key art is awash in warm peachy tones and early 70s pre-Amblin 'latch-key kids' vibes. Note the mushrooms and...
Friday One Sheet: POOR THINGS
Welcome to the wonderful world of Vasilis Marmatakis, the Greek graphic designer and illustrator behind one of my favourite posters of the past decade, an earlier Yorgos Lanthimos film, The Killing of A Sacred Deer, with its immense verticality, and...
Friday One Sheet: ROTTING IN THE SUN
Sex and death. Eros and Thanatos. A corpse with an erection being consumed on a beach. The latest queer comedy from Sebastián Silva (director of the criminally underrated Magic Magic) gets this lovely hand painted poster (if you zoom in...
Friday One Sheet: CREATURA
The 'polaroid' style one-sheet is a particular favourite of mine. As you can see below for Elena Martín's Cannes fêted Creatura, it allows room for pull quotes at the top, a well-kerned title below the image, and an ample credit block that...
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