Film and Culture Writer based in the UK. Staff Writer for Film Inquiry. Interests include language, representation, women in film,. MRes in British Multilingual Cinema from University of Liverpool.
Berlinale Review: Soi Cheang’s ‘Limbo’
While Limbo may not be groundbreaking with its formulaic detective narrative, the sheer sense of place and space that Cheang creates allows for a visceral cinematic experience.
FESTIVALS: Femspectives Film Festival Announce New Guest Curators For 2021 Festival
Glasgow’s feminist film festival ‘Femspectives’ have annouced the guest curators for it’s third edition, taking place digitally from 23rd – 25th April.
Edinburgh-based interdisciplinary artist and cultural practitioner Tanatsei Gambura and Glasgow-based Ane Lopez, whose background ranges across curation, design, marketing and film production, will each programme a range of shorts for the third annual festival, which will
be themed around ‘dreaming’.
About their programme ‘Dreaming While Black...
BERLINALE ’21 – A Grieving Woman Fights Against Hypocrisy in ‘Ballad of A White Cow’
Hypocrisy, injustice and a magnificently restrained performance from the lead, Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghaddam’s examination of Iran’s strict penal system and the hypocrisies laid bare when a widowed mother demands justice in Ballad of A White Cow.
BERLINALE ’21 — Sex, Morals and Politics Come To The Fore in ‘Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Babardeală cu bucluc sau porno balamuc)’
That small sub-section of film viewers who have recently proclaimed — in a Hays Code like fit of morality — that unnecessary sex scenes in films shouldn’t exist would have a hard time with Radu Jude’s latest film in Competition at the Berlinale this year.
BERLINALE ’21 – ‘Petite Maman’ Finds Céline Sciamma On Perfect Form
No one captures the spirit of childhood in all of its complications, imperfections and gentleness quite like Céline Sciamma, and Petite Maman playing in competition at Berlinale is no exception.
BERLINALE ’21 — ‘The Scary of Sixty-First’ Stares the 21st Century Bogeyman In The Face
Dasha Nekrasova’s debut film The Scary of Sixty-First isn’t afraid of controversy in its no-holds-barred examination of the lingering after effects of Jeffrey Epstein’s death, conspiracy theories and demonic possession, all packed into an 81 minute run time and a soft-glam aesthetic.
When college friends Noelle (Madeline Quinn) and Addie (Betsey Brown) find an apartment in their price range in the middle of Manhattan, furnished with a piano and various items that belonged to a previous owner,...
BERLINALE’21 — In ‘I’m Your Man (Ich bin dein Mensch)’ Our Desire To Be Happy Is Met With A Robotic Solution
Alma (Maren Eggert), a scientist and researcher at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, is deep in a years long project on cuneiforms (an ancient script developed to write the Sumerian language) when a need for resources leads her to take part in another department’s own research project: for three weeks she must live with Tom (Dan Stevens) a humanoid robot programmed exclusively to bring her happiness and contentment.
The film opens in a bar, full of couples dancing and chatting merrily. It’s bust...
Unnamed Footage Festival 2021 Lineup Announced!
This year, Unnamed Footage Festival is taking its fourth edition into the virtual landscape in the form of a 24-hour long webathon.
Since 2018, the Unnamed Footage Festival has brought a unique and often obscure selection of found footage horror, first-person POV cinema, and faux documentary to San Francisco, but this year will be live, one-time-only, day-long marathon of weird and exclusive in-world camera features and shorts, alongside Q&As with filmmakers and industry professionals.
All pr...
In ‘The Night’, Buried Secrets and Unnerving Strangers Stalk A Marriage
The first US-produced film to receive distribution in Iran in four decades, Kourosh Ahari’s confined horror The Night is a strong and skillful directorial debut that tackles the hidden secrets that haunt the marriage of a young couple.
After an evening spent with friends, Babek (Shabab Hossein) and Neda (Niousha Jafarian) and their infant daughter are forced to stop at a hotel when Babek’s drunken driving becomes too dangerous for them to continute. Hotel Normandie—an impressively lit buildin...
Rose Dymock’s Top 10 Films of 2020!
It’s been a tough year for film: with a global pandemic, closed cinemas, shuttered productions and film festivals going online, it’s been a lot to adjust to. If you’re not plugged into the film world matrix (aka twitter), you could be forgiven for assuming that there haven’t been any new films out this year. If that is the case, hopefully this list will give you a couple of good suggestions for your holiday viewing, and renew the idea that cinema is still very much alive.
These ten films are ...
The Hyper-Regional Chippy Traditions of British and Ireland
The level I’m interested in is further down; traditions that are specific to a county, or to a city, or to a part of a city, or perhaps even to a single chip shop, regional traditions that sometimes we don’t even realise are regional traditions until we leave our homes and can’t find them, or until we live in another city and realise what we’ve been missing.
Swooning and Wholly Charming, ‘Martin Eden’ is a Gorgeous Romantic Treat
Adapted from the 1909 American novel by Jack London — about a young man whose desire to write and his class repeatedly are at odds with each other — director Pietro Marcello transports the titular novel’s original Oakland setting to 20th century Naples. While this in itself is enough of a risk, Marcello goes further by setting Martin Eden in a version of the 20th century that is never fully pinned down to a recognisable decade. This decision thankfully elevates this swooning story of ambition...
LFF ’20 — Heartfelt and Weepy ‘Supernova’ Will Tug at the Heartstrings, But is it Just More of the Same?
A film that is stirring and heartfelt in every sense of the world, Supernova is beautiful piece of the lush, if predictable, British cinema we have come to expect.
When long time partners Sam (Colin Firth) and Tusker (Stanley Tucci) begin their travels around England visiting friends and family, this quiet trip away becomes something more as the two deal with Tusker’s diagnosis of early onset dementia. Pianist Sam is due to perform at a concert — his first in a long time — towards the end of ...
LFF ’20 — ‘Wildfire’ is a Bold and Devastating Piece of Storytelling from Cathy Brady
In an unnamed town on the border between Northern and Southern Ireland, a missing sister returns home and a family scarred by the traumas of their upbringing are forced to reconcile themselves with the aftermath, in Cathy Brady’s fierce, assured debut Wildfire.
When Kelly (Nika McGuigan) hitches a ride with a lorry driver to the edges of her hometown, she asks his name. “Christopher” he says, to which she replies happily “Thanks Saint” before hopping down from the cab, the Saint Christopher p...
LFF ’20 — Polish Satire ‘Never Gonna Snow Again’ Loses its Way
Małgorzata Szumowska’s satire of the inhabitants of a wealthy, gated community is an atmospheric, yet odd film that doesn’t entirely succeed in it’s intentions but weaves a tale of an intense, intimate community with razor-like precision.
Masseur Zenia (Alec Utgoff) — born near Chenobyl seven years after the disaster — spends his days walking from one perfectly designed house to the other, treating the cast of residents for their various aches and pains. They, in turn, become convinced that t...