So, that was GFF24. How was it for you? I know I saw 15 movies instead of my usual 40+ but I stayed much more in my energy levels and I think I saw the ones I was most excited about. Best of the festival for me was definitely the Gestures of Memory: After the…
I think Four Little Adults is meant to be a comedy but it’s Finnish so I can’t be sure. Polyamory explored through the lens of the most boring, middle-class, middle-aged white couple you ever met. And by explore, I mean, kinda just point to the fact it exists, and use all the characters and plot…
Have you heard the one about Louis C.K.? Sorry/Not Sorry traces the fall and rise of Louis C.K. following the exposure of his history sexually harassing women. It talks to the women who spoke out, and subsequently received a slew of hate, and juxtaposes this against Louis selling out Madison Square Gardens, winning a Grammy,…
In the back of a Palestine solidarity group’s offices in Japan, the filmmaker finds a bunch of old film reels in canisters, and takes them to be digitised and preserved. This film is what he found. So, before we get into the content of the films, I wanna talk about the structure of the movie…
An absolutely fascinating film. Filmmaker Sanaz Sohrabi examines the visual archive of BP (British Petroleum, and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company as it was back in the day) as history, ethnography, propaganda, and stolen colonial artefact. In 1901 Britain bought a concession to explore for oil in Iran for the next 60 years, with Iran receiving…
The Cemetery of Cinema focuses on a young Guinean filmmaker’s search for the first film made in Guinea, and one of the first films in French-speaking Africa, Mouramani. This journey takes him on a road trip through the country, examining the reasons why film and film heritage has been allowed to be lost, despite the…
A dark fairytale from France. 19th century gothic novella The Family of the Vourdalak gets a Hammer Horror-esque adaptation in this satisfying vampire yarn. Simpering fop Marquis de blah de blah is mugged while being sent as a French court envoy across Eastern Europe. He is told he can get himself a new horse at…
90s Hong Kong anti-romance. Lai Yiu-Fai is in a toxic relationship with using waster Ho Po-Wing. The film begins with them ‘starting over’ from a previous break-up with passionate sex and a holiday to Argentina, only to instantly dissolve into yet another break-up once they arrive, while getting lost looking for a waterfall beauty spot.…
I so wanted this to be good. It’s not good. The Teacher is about a Palestinian teacher in the West Bank trying to keep a kid in his class on the straight and narrow while the Occupation impacts every single aspect of their lives. What could be a more relevant story in our current times?…
Set on the Montreal drag scene, Solo follows Simon, a young drag queen as he falls in love for the first time. Simon is surrounded by love, his sister makes his outfits, his family celebrate his performances, his friends at the club all form a tight-knit group, and his drag mother is a constant support…