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‘Titanic Ocean’ Film Review: The Visually Intriguing Debut by Konstantina Kotzamani

The Greek director Konstantina Kotzamani has a massive short film haul in her career, most of which have played at the world’s central events. Washingtonia premiered at the Berlinale. Yellow Fieber and What Mary Didn’t Know were at Locarno. Electric Swam was at the Venice Film Festival, and Limbo was …

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‘Barbara Forever’ Documentary Review: The Eternal Work of Barbara Hammer

When discussing pioneers in cinema, Barbara Hammer’s name is quintessential for any discussion. The avant-garde filmmaker is essential for the feminist cinema alongside names like Chantal Akerman, Lizzie Borden, Barbara Loden, and Sally Porter. In a sense, all of those directors provided different multitudes for the feminine representation on the …

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‘The Misconceived’ Film Review: A Mumblecore Animated Experiment

As the discussions surrounding Artificial Intelligence sparked the daily conversations of society, mostly of the aesthetically different artistry might be appointed as GenAI by the untrained eye. Our difficulty in absorbing the artistic content of unconventional art leads us to confuse the various artistic styles with a new, harmful tool …

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‘The Story of Documentary Film: 1970s’ Documentary Review: A Joyful Look at the Past of Non-Fiction

The prolific filmmaker and theorist Mark Cousins returns to the festival circuit with his 16-part project, The Story of Documentary Film. Recently, he presented the segment 1970s at the Cannes Film Festival. The film is a two-halves project that narrates the production of non-fiction in the decade. Firstly, in the …

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‘9 Temples to Heaven’ Film Review: An Overlong Debut by Sompot Chidgasornpongse

Two decades after his extensive and impactful work with Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Chidgasornpongse presents his debut feature, 9 Temples to Heaven (9 วัด สู่สวรรค์). The film is a selection of the Quinzaine des Cineastes of the Cannes Film Festival. The film follows a huge family of 9, who take their dying …

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‘La Perra’ Film Review: Dominga Sotomayor’s Atmospheric Work

Dominga Sotomayor is one of the biggest names of the new generation of the Chilean cinema. Alongside Pablo Larraín and Sebastian Lelio, her films achieved the international recognition and received attention for their boldness. Her debut feature, De Jueves a Domingo, premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.  Her most …

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‘Forever Your Maternal Animal’ Film Review: The Compelling Sophomore Effort by Valentina Maurel

In 2022, the debut feature film Tengo Sueños Eléctricos (I Have Electric Dreams) by the Costa Rican filmmaker Valentina Maurel made a potent appearance at that year’s Locarno Film Festival. It won the directing, actor (Reinaldo Amien Gutiérrez), and actress (Daniela Marín Navarro) awards in the main competition. Later, the …

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‘The Gymnast’ Film Review: A Conventional, but Well-Done Sports Drama

Sports dramas are a sub-genre that allows filmmakers to take multiple different approaches. They can narrate the Cinderella story of an underdog team, the individual evolution of its players, or the downside of being an athlete. In her debut feature, Charlotte Glynn takes the latter approach. The Gymnast is a …

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‘Blaise’ Review: A Satirical Look at a Dysfunctional Family (Cannes Film Festival)

At Cannes, L’ACID presents a range of indie films, including the 2D animation Blaise by Jean-Paul Guigue and Dimitri Planchon.  The film is the sophomore effort by Guigue, following his 2024 The Darwinners (Silex and the City, le film), which also premiered at the same festival previously. The director’s latest work, …

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‘Yugo Goes to America’ Documentary Review: The Road Trip of a Failed Car

For almost fifty years, the country of Yugoslavia was important in global geopolitics. Zastava, a company founded in the 1850s as a weapons manufacturer, pivoted and began producing vehicles a century later. Fiat, the Italian manufacturer from Turin, licensed its designs to the Yugoslav industry. Zastava would sell models of …

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‘Daughters of the Forest’ Documentary Review: The Importance of Indigenous Knowledge

Before the spread of the academia as a central form of producing and teaching knowledge, the indigenous communities already understand crucial learnings about the world. Historically, civilizations such as the Mayans and Aztecs produced immense amounts of information on mathematics and engineering. Human being tends to seek understanding of their …

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‘Phenomena’ Documentary Review: The Fascinating Experimentations with Colors and Shapes

In the inception of filmmaking, cinema was similar to magic. It is the illusionism of the images that impressed dozens of people gathered in a room watching a machine that projects photos. In that first showing in Paris, filmmaking was a new form of witchcraft, the combination of chemical processes …

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