Festivals
Montreal Nouveau 2019: ADORATION, Cupid is Dangerously Blind
British author Evelyn Waugh once wrote that there is a kind of love that children have before they know its meaning, something sweet and innocent, full of kindness and joy without facade or self-awareness. As children grow into teenagers, what...
Busan 2019 Review: LIGHT FOR THE YOUTH Conveys the Desperate Struggles of South Korea's Younger Generation
The acute hardships of South Korea’s youth and the dog-eat-dog mentality of the corporate workplace are the focus of writer-director Shin Su-won’s fourth feature, Light for the Youth. With Glass Garden (2017), Madonna (2015) and Pluto (2012), Shin’s previous films...
Montreal Nouveau 2019: MONOS, Teenaged Soldiers Descent into Madness
For a long time, likely one of the few things most people knew about Colombia is that is was a country with a huge number of kidnappings. So many, in fact, that there was a radio show that ran for...
Montreal Nouveau 2019 Review: MAKE ME UP, Intense & Biting Feminist Satire
Combining archival audio footage, science fiction, cultural criticism, and reality television parody into a film, and Scottish multimedia artist Rachel Maclean's feature Make Me Up weaves a complex and at times overwhelming tapestry as a biting feminist satire. Juxtaposing bright...
Vancouver 2019 Review: STILL HUMAN Features Incredibly Moving Performances
Directed by Oliver Siu Kuen Chan, Still Human tells the story of a friendship that blossoms between a man living with a disability and his live-in Filipina caregiver. Veteran Hong Kong actor Anthony Wong plays Cheong-wing, who was paralyzed in a...
Morbido 2019: COME TO DADDY, JALLIKATTU, THE GASOLINE THIEVES Lead Twelfth Edition
It's the most wonderful time, of my year. In less than two weeks we return to CDMX and Morbido Film Fest to celebrate their twelfth year, taking to the high seas with this year's water theme, bringing local and international...
Montreal Nouveau 2019 Review: DEERSKIN, Killer Style in a Killer Jacket
Georges (Jean Dujardin) is a man on a mission. After driving across what must be the length of France (and dumping his courdoroy jacket in a gas station toilet along the way - literally the toilet), he comes to the...
Montreal Nouveau 2019 Review: BAIT, Lo-Fi Vision of Class Warefare by the Sea
One of the main things I miss about print film is the texture; there is something about how an physical object, going through a projector, conveys the layers of physicalness necessary to create it. It conveys as much for the...
Tallgrass 2019: 5 Can't Miss Picks from Wichita's Top-Tier Fest
Have you ever been to a film festival in Kansas? Chances are that part of the festival circuit may have evaded a fair few of you. But anyone who has been to Wichita's Tallgrass Film Festival can tell you it's...
Vancouver 2019 Review: PAIN AND GLORY, Restrained and Reinvigorated
Antonio Banderas does perhaps his best work to date in Pain and Glory, for which he deservedly won Best Actor at this year's Cannes Film Festival. He slips surprisingly well into Pedro Almodovar's loafers -- easier than sneakers to put...
Montreal Nouveau 2019 Review: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, Canadian History on Acid
Few Canadian historical figures are known outside of Canada (or really even within Canada). William Lyon Mackenzie King, our longest-serving Prime Minister, might be one of them (at least in English Canada), but even to us, he is something of...
Grimmfest 2019: WHY DON`T YOU JUST DIE! Big Winner at Fest
Grimmfest wrapped up its festivities the previous weekend. After much lost sleep was caught up on, the hangovers long subsided, it was time to announce this year's award winners. This year proved if you could bring the horror and the...
Busan 2019 Review: THE EDUCATION, A Life Lesson on Human Nature
In The Education, a young woman develops an unlikely relationship with a teenager when she is hired to take care of his severely disabled mother. One of three Korean features in the Busan International Film Festival’s New Currents competition section, director...
Los Cabos 2019 Interview: Ira Sachs Talks FRANKIE, Isabelle Huppert, The Influence Of Satyajit Ray And More
After world premiering at Cannes, where it competed for the Palm d’Or, writer/director Ira Sachs’ Frankie is now heading to the Los Cabos International Film Festival. Frankie centers on one day of the family of the titular character (an actress played...
Montreal Nouveau 2019 Review: THE BODY REMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD BROKE OPEN, The Struggle to Break the Cycle
When I was a teenager, walking down a street one evening with my best friend at the time, we passed a doorway with a man and a woman. The man was blocking the woman. I heard her say, "Please just...
Montreal Nouveau 2019 Review: The Finnish Heart and Soul Reflected in ANGEL OF THE NORTH
There are some works of art (be they paintings, songs, films, or books) that are said to speak the soul of a nation or culture; and even though no culture is a monolith, works such as "American Gothic" or "Mona...
Busan 2019 Review: AN OLD LADY Addresses Elderly Rape, Ageing and Mortality
Premiering in the Busan International Film Festival’s New Currents competition section, Lim Sun-ae’s An Old Lady touches on the less-commonly addressed issue of elder sexual abuse in South Korea. A 69-year-old lady accuses a nursing assistant of rape at a...
New York 2019 Review: VITALINA VARELA, A Hauntingly Beautiful Immigrant Song
As usual, the film is stunning to look at. Every frame is a work of art. Greatly aided by Leonardo Simões' cinematography and João Gazua and Hugo Leitão's sound work, the film gives the lives of its inhabitants the poeticism they deserve.
Montreal Nouveau 2019: The Trailer For GHOST OF THE GOLDEN GROVES Only Hints At The Madness Within
With its North American premiere at Montreal's Festival du nouveau cinéma just a few days away on October 16th, the filmmakers at Cutting Chai Entertainment have given us the opportunity to share the trailer for their avant-garde horror story, Ghost...
Montreal Nouveau 2019 Review: THE VAST OF NIGHT, Aliens and the Art of Listening
One of the most difficult things to render in cinema is listening, especially if the speaker isn't in the room. How do you keep the audience focused not only on the off-screen speaker and their story, but also on the...
-thumb-80x80-76775.jpg)
