Film Festival
Sundance Review: Tantura
As the saying goes, history is always written by the victors. Especially when it involves war or fighting, where the emphasis is placed on the heroic triumph and little is mentioned about exactly how it was achieved or what happened in the aftermath. War crimes happen more often than you’d think, but they are almost …
Sundance 2022 Preview
Every January in Park City, Utah, the Sundance Film Festival comes to town. It’s the largest independent film festival in America and prides itself on screening a diverse range of world premieres from around the globe and promoting new filmmaking voices. This year’s line-up is the usual high-quality mix of US and World narrative and …
Tallinn Black Nights Review: Other People
At the beginning of the twentieth century, musical theatre became increasingly popular with audiences who demanded light relief from the socio-political issues leading up to, and during, World War I. With the advent of ‘talkies’ in the 1920s, musicals made the logical transition onto the big screen. This move opened the medium up to a …
Tallinn Black Nights Review: On Our Way
Making the transition from in front to behind the camera can be a tough journey. The abilities needed to act have little in common with those to direct, so in order to gain the skills and knowledge necessary you have to invest a lot of extra time and effort. Traditionally, this move happens after someone …
IDFA Review: Children of the Mist
In the developed world, we live in extremely privileged and (relatively) stable times. Despite the events of the last couple of years, we’re still experiencing the best standards of living mankind has ever seen. One of the major benefits of this has been the sanctity of childhood. While many may decry the impact of online …
IDFA Review: The One Who Runs Away Is the Ghost
It’s remarkable how young minds work. Whilst adults spend their time concentrating on the important business of daily life, moving from one mundane, yet important, task to another, the imagination of children knows no bounds. In the modern West, children are exposed to myriad electronic stimuli, but in poorer regions they often (still) have to …
Tallinn Black Night Review: A PLace Called Dignity
After the end of World War II, many Nazis fled to safe havens abroad, often ending up in South America where they (generally) received a warm welcome. It’s estimated that almost 10,000 Nazi officers and collaborators forged a new life in Argentina, Brazil or Chile. The latter played host to Colonia Dignidad, an isolated commune …
IDFA Review: Set!
There’s nothing that gets the blood flowing quite like competitive sports, and it’s often the competition that is more important than the sport itself. As a species, there’s something in our nature which thrives off a challenge. Going head-to-head with someone else and coming out victorious. Winning is a great feeling. However, when this mindset …
IDFA Review: A Thousand Fires
The climate crisis is front-page news at the moment with many of the conversations swirling around COP26 centring on curbing carbon emissions. While countries make commitments on dates to become net-zero and phase out their reliance of fossil fuels, in favour of renewables, in practice it’s not that simple. Although the focus is on polluting …
IDFA Review: Intensive Life Unit
In the ‘developed world’, life expectancy usually increases year on year. This is largely thanks to consistent advances in medical treatments, technology and healthcare services. While, on the face of it, this is a great human success, there are also consequences. Although we may live to greater and greater ages, that doesn’t mean that our …