Poverty and opulence, the pastoral and the high-tech, war and peace, childhood and adulthood. Opposite ends of a variety of spectrums meet, and sometimes clash,…
In his 35mm short documentary Inang Maynila, James J. Robinson explored the textures of girlhood under the tumult of living in martial law in the…
Every threat to a sane and healthy life posed by AI is a continuation of some already existing social and political deterioration. Our societal tipping…
It’s June 1993 in rural Nigeria. Remi and his younger brother Akin (real-life brothers Chibuike Marvelous Egbo and Godwin Egbo) are bickering, eating food and…
First Light Nearly five years ago, Filipino-Australian filmmaker James J. Robinson hit the headlines after breaking into his alma mater St Kevin’s College, Melbourne’s elite…
Nearly five years ago, Filipino-Australian filmmaker James J. Robinson hit the headlines after breaking into his alma mater St Kevin’s College, Melbourne’s elite all-boys Catholic…
Inside a brightly lit Dunkin’ Donuts, Tyler, a construction worker, meets another, Widgey, who is about to hire him for a home renovation job. Tyler…
Kim Allamand and Michael Karrer’s new film First Days begins with a brief opening text, which reads in part, “in your first days after death…
Bulgarian filmmaker Stefan Kotzev had a more traditional scripted drama in mind for his first feature than what he eventually made. Working in close collaboration…
Richard Bernstein is a consummate performer. Better known as Mickey Squires to connoisseurs of gay pornography and erotic photography, fields in which he was one…
It’s low on the list of 21st century horrors, but there’s something uniquely off-putting about watching a self-recorded video of someone crying. It’s tough to…
Jonathan Rosenbaum included an anecdote on Paul Schrader when writing about the revival of Robert Bresson’s first feature, Les Affaires Publiques (1934). As always, Schrader…
Maryam Touzani’s Calle Málaga won the Audience Award at the Venice Film Festival’s new Spotlight Section, and the film is accordingly an audience-pleaser. Following her…
Chronovisor Even when Jorge Luis Borges wrote screenplays, they weren’t necessarily “Borgesian” — not, that is, distilled into the particular pleasure of following one of…
Even when Jorge Luis Borges wrote screenplays, they weren’t necessarily “Borgesian” — not, that is, distilled into the particular pleasure of following one of Borges’…
Chaos reigns in Yasuhiro Aoki’s anarchic, wildly imaginative feature directorial debut ChaO, a whirlwind exploration of the breadth of storytelling potential in animated film. Almost…
Long takes involving medium-to-wide shots of landscapes have nearly cemented themselves as festival-cinema staples, so it’s not surprising to see an IFFR Tiger competition film,…
Fuori, the latest film by Italy’s Mario Martone (Nostalgia, The King of Laughter), is curiously inert, especially when you consider that most of the film…
Reflecting on the publication of his novel Box Hill: A Story of Low Self-Esteem, Adam Mars-Jones noted that he intended his darkly humorous narrative of…
Film adaptations of video games can be a dicey proposition. Part of the issue lies in the elements getting lost in translation: the inherently immersive…