Film Festival Reports

IL CINEMA RITROVATO: SANGRE NEGRA (NATIVE SON) BY PIERRE CHENAL

By Tara Judah

The film wasn’t lost, exactly, just unavailable for a very long time.

Sangre Negra (Native Son, 1951) was heavily censored on release in America; just six weeks after real life events that came a little too close to some of the film’s confronting and contentious racial content. Bigger Thomas (Richard Wright), living in abject poverty with his family in the Chicago slums, is offered a job as a chauffeur for an affluent white family. His past reveals some petty tire theft but he assures his new employers that he has turned over a new leaf and won’t be causing any trouble.

2016.06.30

AL ESTE DE LIMA 2016: FRANTISEK VLÁCIL

Por David Phelps

Traducción: José Sarmiento Hinojosa*

UNO

En La Paloma Blanca, el debut de 1960 de Frantisek Vlácil, la cámara flota hacia los niños y enanos errantes, enganchada contra el correr del mar y el cielo, y la acción es puesta en escena mediante las ventanas de interiores discretos. Así es como, un film consumado de los años sesenta, maneja como tópico un ensueño cliché: contornos negros de caras y cuerpos envueltos en variaciones de blanco

2016.06.07

Diagonale

FESTIVAL OF THE AUSTRIAN FILM 2016: DIAGONALE

By Claudia Siefen*

Fade-in, fade-out. Do you remember those early cuts, that were made in the camera. This kind of editing could allow for some early special effects. In earlier movies he made at the turn of the century, Georges Méliès for example stops the camera after detonating a magic puff of smoke in front of his actor, then begins the camera again after the actor has left the stage, and has so magically vanished.

2016.04.04

Film Festival Reports

AV FESTIVAL 2016: MEANWHILE, WHAT ABOUT SOCIALISM?

By Rebecca Naughten The 7th biennial AV Festival took place between 27th March – 27th April in Newcastle upon Tyne and the surrounding area in

2016.03.28

Film Festival Reports

GIJÓN 2015: CRITICAL CONVERGENCES

By Rebecca Naughten

Following a successful 1st edition in 2014, Convergencias (Convergences) – a section consisting of films proposed by critics – returned for the 53rd Festival Internacional de Cine de Gijón, this time expanding its call for proposals to encompass critics from across Europe (which is how I came to take part).

2015.12.10

GIJÓN 2015: EXPERIMENTAL, AN OVERVIEW

By Rebecca Naughten

Across nine days in November, in the port city in north west Spain, the 53rd Festival Internacional de Cine de Gijón screened more than 250 films. I was in Gijón to participate in ‘Convergencias’, a section of the festival programme with films chosen by critics – a set of films that will be the subject of a separate report – so I based my schedule around the screenings for that section but also those films that I might not get the opportunity to see elsewhere.

2015.12.07

Film Festival Reports

NYFF 2015. THE FORBIDDEN ROOM BY GUY MADDIN

By Tanner Tafel?ski

Now is the time for excess, for mania, for Guy Maddin has made a new film, The Forbidden Room. If you were skeptical before, The Forbidden Room erases any lingering doubts: Maddin is a hauntologist of old and lost films.

2015.10.05

Film Festival Reports

NYFF 2015. RAMONA BY ANDREI CRETULESCU

By Tanner Tafelski

Ramona has a slim suggestion of a story with the relief that there’s no dialogue in the short at all. The focus is on Cre?ulescu’s controlled aesthetic. Unlike Bad Penny or Kowalski, which exclusively feature men, this film has a female protagonist, a blonde in a beige trench coat and red heels who executes methodical, calculated murders—all of whom are men—over the course of a night and a morning.

2015.09.29

Film Festival Reports

NYFF 2015. CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR BY APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL

? By Tanner Tafelski Joe shows his claws. His languid Cemetery of Splendour, his first feature since Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives,

2015.09.27

Film Festival Reports

NYFF 2015: MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART BY JIA ZHANGKE

By Tristan Teshigahara Pollack

Tao (in a career-defining performance by the director’s longtime muse Zhao Tao) and a group of young 20-somethings ring in the turn of the millennium as they cheerfully dance in synchronized form to the Pet Shop Boys’ rendition of «Go West»: a lyrical pun on China’s progress – or is it cultural disintegration?

2015.09.05

desistfilm

IL CINEMA RITROVATO: SANGRE NEGRA (NATIVE SON) BY PIERRE CHENAL

AL ESTE DE LIMA 2016: FRANTISEK VLÁCIL

FESTIVAL OF THE AUSTRIAN FILM 2016: DIAGONALE

AV FESTIVAL 2016: MEANWHILE, WHAT ABOUT SOCIALISM?

GIJÓN 2015: CRITICAL CONVERGENCES

GIJÓN 2015: EXPERIMENTAL, AN OVERVIEW

NYFF 2015. THE FORBIDDEN ROOM BY GUY MADDIN

NYFF 2015. RAMONA BY ANDREI CRETULESCU

NYFF 2015. CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR BY APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL

NYFF 2015: MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART BY JIA ZHANGKE

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