Film Festival
Fantasia Review: Kratt
In the same way that animated films are not just for children, horror movies aren’t necessarily the sole purview of adults. Like thousands, if not millions, of other teenagers, I grew up secretly watching the likes of The Evil Dead, Hellraiser and Cujo. Until the former got stuck in the video player anyway. However, there …
Fantasia Review: Alien On Stage
I suspect no one in the audience to see a new science fiction film on 22 June 1979 will ever forget that night. Alien tore up the rule book and completely redefined what the genre could be. Ridley Scott’s film remains on of the greatest journeys into space and still inspires writers, filmmakers and artists …
Fantasia Review: Strawberry Mansion
While filmmakers may be constrained by finances or restricted by the availably of technology, the limits of the human imagination are almost boundless. Genre cinema provides a perfect safe space for experimentation and innovation. It’s unique in that way because by the very nature of science fiction, anything and everything is possible. This is most …
Fantasia International Film Festival 2021 Preview
Now in its 25th year, Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival continues to push boundaries by showcasing the best in new international genre cinema since its inception. It’s a festival which just goes from strength to strength. With a commitment to diversity and screening challenging ground-breaking cinema from Canada and around the world, it’s one of …
Tribeca Review: Ultrasound
Whilst on the face of it the science fiction film genre should be relatively narrow in terms of definition, when you think about it there’s actually a surprising number of elements and areas which fall within its parameters. It’s easy just to dismiss it as simply time and space, but it encompasses literally anything outside …
Sheffield Doc/Fest Review – 9/11: One Day in America
I’d argue that we can define modern history as the period before and after September 11th 2001. Anyone waking up on that Tuesday morning would never have believed the events which were about to transpire. The attack on the World Trade Centre was the deadliest on US soil, killing just under 3000 people and injuring …
Sheffield Doc/Fest Review: My Childhood, My Country – 20 Years in Afghanistan
The first rule of documentary filmmaking is to never get involved. To observe your subject objectively and not interfere with the events taking place on screen. This often throws up a Pandora’s Box of moral and ethical questions. However, the moment you intervene not only do you change the focus of your film but you …
Sheffield Doc/Fest Review: The Story of Looking
To say Mark Cousins loves film would be an understatement, to say the least. The former host of Moviedrome went on to create the definitive history of film in The Story of Film: An Odyssey, along with several other documentaries focusing on cinema. The Northern Irish filmmaker is also highly curious and inquisitive. Many of …
Sheffield Doc/Fest Review: Gorbachev. Heaven
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a name and a face which will be well known to anyone of a certain age. His role in the dismantling of the Iron Curtain is possibly the most important event in the history of post-war Europe. In the West and former Eastern Bloc states his lauded as a hero for …
Sheffield Doc/Fest Review: Sing, Freetown
In many ways the more recent history of Sierra Leonne is not so different to that of its neighbours. Its climate and habitat shielded it from conquest until the European colonisers arrived by sea. Perched on the west coast of Africa, several nations established trading posts until eventually the British created the settlement of the …