Festivals
JFF Australia 2020: Film Festival Goes Free, Online And Through Time
From time travel tales to enchanting animated adventure, the Japanese Film Festival returns 4th – 13th December with JFF Plus: Online Festival, a free streamed event that features a thoughtful curated program of Japanese cinema through the years. The 2020...
Los Cabos 2020: Guide To The After Dark Section
The Los Cabos International Film Festival kicked off its 2020 edition last Wednesday, November 11th. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the prestigious Mexican festival decided to bet on an entirely virtual format, with no cost. As genre cinema aficionados, we...
Friday One Sheet: GIRL
There is a surprising amount to unpack given the simplicity of this grainy, high-contrast poster for Chad Faust's revenge mystery, Girl. The design immediate recalls brutally stark European arthouse pictures. At the same time it has a 'controversial' Disney channel...
Blood Window 2020: Official Screenings & Spotlight on International Projects Announced
Prior to the weekend Variety first announced the official selection of screenings that will take place during Blood Window at the end of the month. Under normal circumstances these films would be screened throughout the duration of the festival....
Busan 2020 Review: COALESCE Shows Cambodia as a Land Compromised by Opportunity
Three young men look to forge their own paths in the fast-developing Kingdom of Cambodia in French filmmaker Jessé Miceli’s keenly observed debut feature. Employing non-professional actors and an entirely Cambodian cast, what follows is a coherent and engaging story...
Busan 2020 Review: SPEED OF HAPPINESS Delivers Soothing Snapshot of a Unique Profession
Documentary filmmaker Park Hyuck-jee, known for the charming documentary With or Without You, is back with his latest non-fiction work, his first to be invited to Busan. Set in the mountainous Oze region of Central Japan, the pleasurable and satisfying...
Busan 2020 Review: FIGHTER, Compelling Character Study Winds Up Pulling Its Punches
After opening the festival in 2018 with Beautiful Days, director Jero Yun returned to Busan this year with his second narrative feature Fighter, which once again focuses on a North Korean defector's difficult experience adjusting in South Korea, and how...
Busan 2020 Review: In THREE, Soviet Rule Made Monsters Of Everyone
A police intern becomes the lead investigator in one of the most gruesome and notorious murder cases in modern history, in Ruslan Pak's bleak and introspective new thriller. Inspired by the true story of Kazakh serial killer and cannibal Nikolai...
Montreal Nouveau 2020 Review: SAINT NARCISSE, Walk Through the Witchy Mirror
There are always at least two things you can count on with a Bruce LaBruce film: one, that you won't be able to predict where it will go, and two, that there will be a lot of sex. Both of...
Lund Fantastic 2020 Review: JUMBO, We So Seldom Look on Love
How do we know when we love? How do we know what we love? How do we make the decision (and it is a decision) that we will love what we love, for as long as we are allowed? And...
Morelia 2020 Interview: Director Rodrigo Reyes on 499, A Docufiction About Mexico's Violent Past And Present
2021 will mark the 500th anniversary of the fall of Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec Empire. No doubt this landmark is going to be a much-discussed topic in Mexico. Director Rodrigo Reyes has ready a film that by thinking...
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like... Morbido!?!
Nothing irks a horror fan more than seeing the Yueltide season's slinking takeover of store shelves even before Halloween has come and gone. You will forgive us for bringing up something Christmas related this soon, but we do so with...
Busan 2020 Review: SELF-PORTRAIT 2020, Long yet Riveting Odyssey of a Drunk Savant
I'll admit I went into Self-Portrait 2020 with a fair amount of trepidation. Here is a nearly three-hour documentary that follows a man who has given up on life, turned to the bottle and now roams the streets of Central...
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Busan 2020 Review: STEEL RAIN 2: SUMMIT Dives into Thrilling and Surprisingly Funny Geopolitical Waters
Released three years, ago, the geopolitical action-thriller Steel Rain was a solid success on the charts but one that was completely overshadowed by two films that hit theaters within a fortnight of its release, Along with the Gods: The Two...
Busan 2020 Review: YOUNG ADULT MATTERS, An Explosive and Frequently Engrossing Runaway Teen Drama
Three years after his abrasive debut Park Hwa-young, director Lee Hwan returns to Busan with Young Adult Matters, an intense and frequently engrossing follow-up set in the same world of foul-mouthed, unpredictable and violent runaway teens. While it inherits many...
Busan 2020 Review: DELIVER US FROM EVIL, A Slick and Undemanding Action-Thriller Romp
It's hard being an assassin, especially when you take your work home with you. Even more so when that work turns out to be the psycho brother of your last target, who's chased you to a foreign country where you're...
Busan 2020 Review: SNOWBALL Gently Strikes with Familiar but Well-Told Tale
A wide variety of films find their way to the Busan Film Festival every year, but one thing you can always count on is the polished, youth-driven social indie that has become the de-facto Korean indie template, at least on...
Busan 2020 Review: LIMECRIME, Tone Deaf Hip-hop Biopic
As a self-confessed Korean hip-hop ‘stan’, Limecrime is a dismal disappointment. This is Directed by the actual former Limecrime duo LEE Seunghwan and YOO Jaewook, who moved on from performing together in the early aughts and are no longer part...
Busan 2020 Review: A LEAVE, Responsibilities Clash in Compelling Character Study
Given that it successfully ousted a president after months of mass protests, which peaked with well over two million participants, it should perhaps come as little surprise that Korea is a country where protesting is widespread. For many it's an...
Montreal Nouveau 2020 Review: THE BOOK OF VISION, Visual Beauty Hides A Flimsy Narrative
The study and treatment of ailments of the human body is certainly one of the most fascinating of histories; the way look back in shock on how illnesses were once treated (leeches, blood-letting), people of the future might one day...
