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Batman Vs. Bureaucracy: The Illusion of an "Alternative" and Independent Cinema

Batman Vs. Bureaucracy: The Illusion of an “Alternative” and Independent Cinema

There’s been lots of chatter about there being too many superhero movies. I tend to agree that the production chain type of behind-the-scene works that defined the vast majority of the far-too-many movies about people in costumes from other planets is excessive and distances people from real life in an unprecedented grotesque wave of cinematic escapism.

I’m also not fond of the childlike…

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Cairo International Film Festival. Can You See What Is There?

Cairo International Film Festival. Can You See What Is There?

Cairo is perhaps the most chaotic city I’ve ever been to.

Chaos is good, chaos is constructive.

I dislike people from elsewhere who think they know a place after they’ve been there for a few days. I was there for ten days; I don’t know Cairo. But a friend of mine I met there told me over a drink:

“The first time I came to Cairo, it was a shock. I couldn’t look beyond the dirt on the ground. And…

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Bernardo Bertolucci. Fine (part 1).

Bernardo Bertolucci. Fine (part 1).

This is not Matt. This is a ghostwriter. I am not where Matt is. I think he’s in Cairo. I never leave the house. My rooms have no windows.

He rang me in the middle of the night. I shouldn’t have given him my number. He said he couldn’t sleep, he was troubled. Bernardo Bertolucci had died. He wanted to talk, to write something. A few days ago he saw the pyramids and cried for an hour in his hotel…

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Netflix, or How to Disturb the Symmetry of a Perfect Filmmography

Netflix, or How to Disturb the Symmetry of a Perfect Filmmography

In a world where we are so anxious about dying and having people look through our browsing history, Netflix has no qualms about disturbing the balance one of cinema’s most symmetrical filmographies: that of Orson Welles.

Naturally, I, like most film fans, rejoiced at the news of Netflix’s restoration and release of the long-lost The Other Side of the Wind. But when I saw it at its premiere in…

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5 Films You Need to Know About: 40th Cairo International Film Festival

5 Films You Need to Know About: 40th Cairo International Film Festival

The 40th Cairo International Film Festival takes place in Cairo, Egypt, on November 20-29, 2018. For those who are planning to attend, here are five films that will be screening there that you need to know about.

  The White Crow, Ralph Fiennes (UK, France)

The White Crowis the story of acclaimed ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev’s youth and dramatic defection to the west in June 1961. The film marks…

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Random Film Monday: MEETIN' WA (Jean-Luc Godard, 1986)

Random Film Monday: MEETIN’ WA (Jean-Luc Godard, 1986)

By 1986, Woody Allen was still going strong, while Godard had comfortably started to share his faux hatred of cinema. Why would the latter direct a 25-minute interview with former? Meetin’ WA was made in place of a Woody Allen press conference that was to follow his Cannes premiere of Hannah and Her Sistersthat year. It is a curious anomaly, but neither a short film nor an interview. It is…

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The Death of FilmStruck Is Nothing to Cry About

The Death of FilmStruck Is Nothing to Cry About

It’s easy for cinephiles to live in a bubble…

Most of us were aware of FilmStruck – the Turner Classic Movies streaming platform that offered access to a vast library of rare, classic, foreign, arthouse and independent films. Many of us praised it for its quality and passion, and had FilmStruck accounts even before it became available in the countries we reside in.

Yet, cinephiles make up a tiny…

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5 Films You Need to Know About: IDFA 2018

5 Films You Need to Know About: IDFA 2018

The 31st International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA) takes place on November 14-25. If you are planning to go, here is a list of 5 films that you need know will be screening there. From the story of a legendary American jazz label to the unearthing of a little known dark chapter of Chinese history, here are 5 films screening at IDFA 2018 you need to know about (plus, five honorable…

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The German Film Institute (Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum) pays tribute to acclaimed costume designer Barbara Baum via an exhibition that opened on October 23 and will run through March 10, 2019.

The exhibition is titled “Close-Up: The Film Costumes of Barbara Baum.” It is described via an official press release as a “one-of-a-kind interactive show, spread across a space of 460 square meters … with more than 50 original costumes from international studios on display, complemented by production documentation from more than 50 years of collaboration with directors like Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Volker Schlondorff, and even Stanley Kubrick.”

Watch the trailer for the exhibition via the player below:

“A considerable number of textile samples, tactile touching stations and audio and video installations invite guests to gain a deep appreciation for the originating process and astonishing visual power of Baum’s creations using their eyes, ears and hands.”

Over the course of her career, Baum has lent her artistic gifts to more than 70 film productions. She has created costumes for such international screen legends as Jeanne Moreau, Burt Lancaster, Meryl Streep and Catherine Zeta Jones. Her credits include Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978) and Querelle (1982), Bille August’s The House of the Spirits (1993) and many more.

To accompany the special exhibition, the German Film Institute is publishing a new German edition of Filmstoffe – Kostume Barbara Baum. The catalog, which features a host of contributions by renowned contemporaries and colleagues of Baum, will also be appearing for the first time in English.

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  Barbara Baum Exhibition at the German Film Institute The German Film Institute (Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum) pays tribute to acclaimed costume designer Barbara Baum via an exhibition that opened on October 23 and will run through March 10, 2019.

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"Green Book" To Open 40th Cairo International Film Festival

“Green Book” To Open 40th Cairo International Film Festival

The Cairo International Film Festival (November 20-29) has announced the opening film of its 40th edition will be the Middle East Premiere of Green Book starring award-winning actors Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali. The film is directed by Peter Farrelly- best known for such works as Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary, which he co-directed with his brother, Bobby Farrelly.

Watch…

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Thoughts on Laura Mulvey, Killer of the Male Gaze

Thoughts on Laura Mulvey, Killer of the Male Gaze

Laura Mulvey is celebrated as one of the most important film thinkers of all time.

She believes that cinema offers a number of possible pleasures, one of them being scopophilia, “in which looking itself is a source of pleasure,” and in cinema’s ability to develop scopophilia “in its narcissistic aspect” by constructing an ideal image of male ego in which “the spectator [is in] direct scopophilic…

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Women and "Women's Films"

Women and “Women’s Films”

What is a film movement? What is a film genre? Janey Place writes that a film movement occurs “in specific historical periods of national stress and focus of energy,” whereas genre “[exists] through time.”

For example, Place identified film noir as a film movement. Melodrama, on the other hand, is far more problematic.

I have yet to find a better definition for melodrama than Thomas Elsaesser’s.…

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The Femme Fatale: A Woman Which Man Fears

The Femme Fatale: A Woman Which Man Fears

My theories and interests in film revolve around two things: my goal of increasing people’s interest in cinema and the idea that cinema is both representation and expression.

Like André Bazin, I believe “the aesthetic qualities of the photography are to be sought in its power to lay bare … reality,” and that this power is enhanced by cinema’s ability to reproduce movement.

However, I also…

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2018 Venice Film Festival: Five Films That Made Me Think

2018 Venice Film Festival: Five Films That Made Me Think

I recently attended the Venice Film Festival, where I interviewed many guests for FRED Film Radio.

I am currently on a “traditional film review” hiatus, but my desire to write about my film experiences is constantly strong; so, rather than write a review for each of the many films I watched or even compile a list of the “best films” from the festival (whatever the definition for “best film” may…

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Find your mentors in books, films and music

Find your mentors in books, films and music

In life, I’m sure, you have encountered/encounter/will encounter people who will tell you that books, films and music are not important. I suggest you ignore those people.

Knowledge is pretty much the most important thing you can acquire. There is very little evidence that not reading books, watching movies and listening to music will not lead you anywhere in life. On the other hand, many of the…

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About film interviews...

About film interviews…

Interviews are exercises in role-playing; but what of interviews that look down upon their readers, listeners, or viewers? I have been interviewing people at international film festivals for over five years. Interviewing is not only journalism; it’s downright roleplaying. The moment I press that record button on my device, we slip into the predefined roles of interviewer/interviewee. This…

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Jan Zabeil: "True needs come to play in extreme situations."

My interview with Jan Zabeil, director of "Three Peaks," presented at last year's Locarno Film Festival.

My interview with Jan Zabeil, director of Three Peaks, presented at last year’s Locarno Film Festival. Jan Zabeil premiered his latest film, Three Peaks, at the Locarno Film Festival last year. It was there I interviewed him, along with his actor, Jan Spechenbach. The film could be described as a family melodrama where the tensions between the three characters, a couple and their child, become…