IDFA
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 …
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 …
IDFA Review: The Banality of Grief
How do you deal with grief? Everyone reacts in their own way, anywhere on the cycle from denial, anger, bargaining, depression to acceptance, at any given moment in time. There are no right or wrong answers. Whether someone withdraws into themselves or faces their loss head-on, it’s a difficult and traumatic journey. One which, despite …
IDFA Review: Eskape
The Khmer Rouge, also known as the Communist Party of Kampuchea, ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. While their period in charge was brief, the impact they had on Cambodians can still be felt today. Led by Pol Pot, they carried out a systematic campaign to eradicate anyone with connections to the former regime, professionals …
IDFA Review: F@ck This Job
While Russia might claim to be a democracy, not even the most gullible person could seriously believe that there are fair and open elections in the country. Indeed, since he came to power in 2000, Vladimir Putin has gradually and systematically eroded freedoms of speech and protest. There is next to no official opposition in …
IDFA Review: Four Journeys
Towards the end of the 1970s, the Chinese authorities had a major problem. The population of the country was threatening to spiral out of control and while the birth rate had been in relative decline for decades life expectancy was shooting up. The measures they put in place failed to halt this seemingly inexorable rise, …
IDFA Review: 1970
The Cold War threw up many challenges but one of the strangest, in hindsight, was the lack of information about the daily lives of people living behind the Iron Curtain. While we got inundated with propaganda, there was very little fact. Indeed, even now, our knowledge about this period largely comes courtesy of film and …