“From a Western perspective, issues facing India only seem to make it on the radar if situations have gotten dire … and so Writing with Fire adopts an easily digestible style that brings to the fore the lesser-known, less digestible news stories that don’t typically reach us.
Read More“Any Given Day ultimately becomes about laying yourself bare, and both Margaret and her subjects should be commended for their strength and perseverance in sharing an especially tumultuous and taxing five-year period of their lives.”
Read More“Come Back Anytime is about savouring the time that we have, and about the community that savours with you when the time you have made for yourself is a product of passion, love, and play.”
Read More“Archipelago (Archipel) is a spellbinding experiment with words, animated images, and occasional snippets of archival footage, combined to often transfixing effect as the island clusters of the director’s native Quebec are surveyed across time and channelled psychically.”
Read More“Dobrovoda’s film is a difficult watch, but it is a vital part of the process of holding Western countries accountable for their atrocities and confronting issues that persist today in places like museums.”
Read More“When Malcolm X sees his reflection, it is in the hotel room’s windows; he isn't looking at himself so much as he is peering through or past himself to the external threats that conspire against him — the bigger picture. This is telling, because through this simple device we see that it is Malcolm who is most cognizant of the ripple effect this night will have outside the hotel walls.”
Read More“It is a film that strikes with punchy dialogue and colourfully coiffured characters, but under-utilized plot threads dull its sharpness in the end.”
Read More“There is a spirit in craft beer the world over that is very specific to California, and Brewmance is at its best when it is charting this spirit through the history of the region and into its modern embodiments of Ten Mile and Liberation.”
Read More“The Letter Room is, in its essence, a light, dramatic character study, but it leans heavily on Isaac’s charm and star-power to make it a study of any nuance.”
Read MoreQuick-takes on 13 of the films that competed in this year’s SXSW Narrative Shorts Competition.
Read More“Hauru skips dexterously between cinema verité-style footage, iPhone captures, and traditionally cinematic looking dream sequences in ways that give her film both momentum and a feeling like it operates on its own disobedient accord.”
Read More“A film like this isn’t trying to stir the pot or nudge its characters towards heightened emotions or drastic decisions; Hill is much more content in establishing a scenario and characters that feel authentic and lived-in, and letting these characters fold and pour over each other in ways that feel natural.”
Read More“Swan Song is a tender and straightforward story, but there are undercurrents of simmering emotion that lace every patch collected on this quilt of Americana.”
Read More“Ninjababy is spirited and brimming with charm, and comes equipped with appeal for audiences young and old, despite its brief ‘R-rated’ moments.”
Read More“[T]here is some wicked tension building done along the way with clever sound design and editing choices, and moments of macabre weirdness punctuate the story throughout.”
Read More“[W]hat this documentary is most sorely missing ... are the inspired, passionate accounts from Basinski’s everyday fans – the people who might be able to tell us with zealousness what the music really means to them and their existential predicaments.”
Read More“It is clear that Walker has put a lot of thought and care into her characters and that, in pitting them against each other, she only aims to create a space in which mutual respect and understanding can be cultivated in the most recognizably human of ways.”
Read More“Everything sort of bleeds into the next, and it does so in a very gradual manner so as to lull you into a dreamlike state of foggy half-remembrance.”
Read More“The structure of When Worlds Collide reveals itself like so many portraits of steadfast artists before it, but that’s because it has to go about depicting an unfamiliar name in a familiar light.”
Read More“No scenes are elaborated on beyond what they need to convey, and contemplative editing keeps each shot stoic and deliberate.”
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