Film Festival Archives - Backseat Mafia

Film Review: ‘The Best Summer’ is a bittersweet time capsule of alternative music’s golden age

There is something almost unbelievable about The Best Summer. What began as footage shot casually by filmmaker Tamra Davis while accompanying the Summersault festival around Australia in 1995 and 1996 has…

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Sundance Review: Iron Butterflies

As we approach the first anniversary of the full Russian invasion of Ukraine, it’s easy to forget that this war didn’t start in 2022. Indeed, the (recent) troubles with Russia…

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Sundance Review: Slow

Cinema reflects the age, society and country it’s made in. For example, 1950s Hollywood portrayed romance as straightforward love between a man and a woman. They meet, get to know…

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Sundance Review: When It Melts

Trauma is a terrible thing. It’s not something you can outrun or escape from. It doesn’t matter how many years you bottle it up inside, it will suddenly resurface when…

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IDFA Review: Racist Trees

While America will claim that it’s a multicultural country which treats all its citizens the same, it has a really troubling history with race. While slavery was officially abolished in…

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IDFA Review: Much Ado About Dying

As a society, we are both living longer than ever before and also much more likely to have chosen to live somewhere far away from home. This creates a number…

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IDFA Review: Look What You Made Me Do

One in three women has experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner, such as pushing, shoving and slapping. A quarter have suffered this in a more extreme…

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IDFA Review: The Lost Souls of Syria

One of the biggest issues in holding despots and authoritarian regimes to account is how to prosecute offenders for their crimes. There is the International Criminal Court, but not all…

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IDFA Review: A Compassionate Spy

Over the past few years, there has been a renewed interest in the Manhattan Project. While the result of countless hours of research would provide a blunt and terrible end…

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IDFA Review: Geographies of Solitude

Since the birth of Homo sapiens, we’ve been moving inexorably towards population centres. While early man lived alone or in family groups, more and more banded together for safety in…

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