Iceland’s Submission to Academy Awards ‘Agnes Joy’ Official Trailer

Iceland’s Submission to Academy Awards ‘Agnes Joy’ Official Trailer

“You must remember to nourish yourself.” Vintage Pictures has released an official trailer for the Icelandic film Agnes Joy, which originally premiered last year and also opened in Iceland last year. After playing at a few other film festivals this year, Iceland has submitted Silja Hauksdóttir’s Agnes Joy as their selection for the Best International…

New Trailer for Wacky ‘PG: Psycho Goreman’ Alien Overlord Comedy

New Trailer for Wacky ‘PG: Psycho Goreman’ Alien Overlord Comedy

“The kind of genre cinema we dream of.” RLJE Films has debuted a new official trailer for the upcoming VOD release of a wacky horror sci-fi comedy titled Psycho Goreman. We featured a teaser trailer earlier in the year before the film’s originally planned premiere at SXSW (before the fest was cancelled). This is the…

TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH: Clash of Cultures in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Latest

TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH: Clash of Cultures in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Latest

If there’s a unifying dynamic to be found in Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa‘s last two major films, it’s an intense focus on characters who are totally out of their element. In 2017’s Before We Vanish, the director presented a science fiction spin on the fish-out-of-water narrative, following a group of aliens masquerading as humans in…

IDFA Part 1: THE GROCER’S SON…, WHITE NOISE, SILENT VOICE, BULLETPROOF

IDFA Part 1: THE GROCER’S SON…, WHITE NOISE, SILENT VOICE, BULLETPROOF

2020’s International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam (known as IDFA) had one of the richest programmes I’ve seen for a virtual festival. There were over 170 films screened across feature, mid-length and short film categories. Many filmmakers got the opportunity to premiere their latest work for the first time and the festival team ensured there…

Glenn Stark Park in Kingman, Kansas

Glenn Stark Park in Kingman, Kansas

On the side of the road in the small town of Kingman, Kansas, two giraffes stand in a park they share with a dinosaur snacking on a human leg, a cowboy riding parallel to train tracks, and a full cast of characters. All these statues are from the collection of Glenn Stark, a sculptor whose yard became…

Shanghai Film Park in Songjiang Qu, China

Shanghai Film Park in Songjiang Qu, China

The Shanghai Film Park is a working film and television studio based around a full-scale replica of Nanjing Road, Shanghai’s famous shopping area circa the 1930s. The set recreates iconic buildings from central Shanghai such as the five-story Sincere Company department store.  Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe streetscape was constructed for…

‘Saved by a Whale’s Tail’ in Spijkenisse, Netherlands

‘Saved by a Whale’s Tail’ in Spijkenisse, Netherlands

At the De Akkers metro station in Rotterdam’s suburb of Spijkenisse on November 2nd, 2020, a metro train breached the station’s end barriers and nearly plummeted over 30 feet from the elevated rails. All that saved the train and its operator was the fact the front carriage was caught and held aloft by one of…

Interview with Director Marco Porsia featuring Rodney Ascher

Interview with Director Marco Porsia featuring Rodney Ascher

Over the last five years, director Marco Porsia had been accumulating a mass amount of footage from recording the concerts of venerated alt-rock group Swans. While gathering this treasure trove of material and getting to know frontman Michael Gira, Porsia set about to create a documentary on the revered music of Swans with the 2019…

Promenade des Petits Ponts in Chevreuse, France

Promenade des Petits Ponts in Chevreuse, France

Through the village of Chevreuse runs a tiny offshoot of the Yvette river, gently traversing timeworn cottages, ancient wash-houses, and a medieval tannery. There are 22 “petits ponts,” “little bridges,” that span the river, crossing various pathways.  Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonA popular walk for locals and visitors, this promenade is hidden…

The Miss Jean Brodie Steps in Edinburgh, Scotland

The Miss Jean Brodie Steps in Edinburgh, Scotland

As Edinburgh Castle rests on the remains of an extinct volcano, it’s prominently featured from several visual vantage points. A visitor is by no means cut short on photographic opportunities of this majestic sight. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonAnywhere along the tree line boulevard of Princes Street allows for a more…

Michael Crichton’s SPHERE And The Messy Allegory Of Pandemic

Michael Crichton’s SPHERE And The Messy Allegory Of Pandemic

Film journalism spaces this year have been living in the past. That’s not a bad thing — just a fact. Few new releases and the malaise of coronavirus lockdown have inspired or outright forced many critics to revisit old favorites or to seek out films they hadn’t yet seen. Many smaller publications — including this…

Bastion film review

Bastion film review

★★ Directed by ,#LouisHannan, ,#DominicHodge Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWritten by ,#GaiusBrown. ,#LouisHannan, ,#DominicHodge, ,#ElliotHughes, ,#RyanJones, ,#AndreReid Starring ,#LeoTaylor-Jannati,,#VictoriaSlinger, ,#KeithFlood Read moreRobert Stack Finally Solves a Mystery in ‘The Strange and Deadly Occurrence’,,Film Review by ,,Lawrence Bennie What if the Cold War never ended? Suppose a coalition was formed by the…

SMALL AXE: ALEX WHEATLE: Growing Up, Rising Up

SMALL AXE: ALEX WHEATLE: Growing Up, Rising Up

Four films into the five-film Small Axe anthology co-written and directed by Steve McQueen, I’m convinced that this cycle should be celebrated as the cinematic event of the year. In turning his masterful talents as a filmmaker to the telling of five stories about London’s West Indian community in the mid-twentieth century, McQueen has created a…

Cultural Heritage Is Caught Up in the Conflict Over Nagorno-Karabakh

Cultural Heritage Is Caught Up in the Conflict Over Nagorno-Karabakh

After being photographed with a cross in one hand and an automatic rifle in the other, Father Hovhannes became a viral sensation in Armenia. He says he never intended to become a symbol of defiance during the recent war over Nagorno-Karabakh, the region within Azerbaijan that has attempted to break away and declare itself the…

How Did Madagascar Become the World’s Biggest Producer of Vanilla?

How Did Madagascar Become the World’s Biggest Producer of Vanilla?

It’s pretty likely that there is exactly one product from Madagascar in your home right now—no more, no less. That product is vanilla, and Madagascar is at the moment the world’s leading producer of this ubiquitous natural flavor—despite the fact that Madagascar is a very strange country to be the world’s leading producer of vanilla….

MOSUL: In Iraq, Heroes Don’t Wear Spandex

MOSUL: In Iraq, Heroes Don’t Wear Spandex

The problematic (and mercurial) relationship between Iraq and the United States reached its boiling point when the latter invaded the former in 2003, under the pretense of bringing democracy to the country. During the invasion and under U.S. occupation, Iraq suffered numerous cases of abuse, murder (including the Nissour square massacre by the Blackwater mercenaries)…

Ečka Kula in Ečka, Serbia

Ečka Kula in Ečka, Serbia

The village of Ečka is best known for its Kaštel (Castle), which is now a hotel, and its Art Colony. But just a short walk away from the Kaštel—one of the best preserved and most popular castles in Serbia, famous for the composer Franz Liszt playing piano there as a nine-year-old boy—are the ruins of an old water tower…