The Dahomey kingdom was in the West African region from 1600 to 1904. It is now the Republic of Benin, which borders Nigeria and Togo. During the second Franco-Dahomean war in 1892, the French colonizers stole dozens of artifacts, which were decades later placed in museums in France. In the …
In her, An Incomplete List of What the Cameraperson Enables, Kirsten Johnson proposes several actions and connections that portraying a subject in camera allows. One is the chance to be closer or farther (through the lens) than is physically possible. Leila Amini uses her cameras to capture the experiences of …
In China, when there is suspicion of an affair, people hire a private investigator to terminate the relationship. It is a growing profession called Mistress Dispeller. When facing the infidelity of her husband, Mrs. Li decides to tell her brother, who connects her with Wang Zhenxi, a professional mistress dispeller. …
During the pandemic, actor Will Ferrell got an email while shooting Spirited by Sean Anders. It was an announcement from an old friend he made when he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 1995. He joined the cast as a performer and the friend as a sketch writer. …
Documentary filmmaking allows authors to connect with audiences through their memories. Docu-essays and diaries transport memories to the screen in a proposition of developing and expanding the feelings of the past. As we watch the first minutes of Tata, the film by Radu Ciornciuc and Lina Vdovîi, we travel back …
The documentary genre is well acquainted with the strangest facets of the human experience, but *smiles and kisses you* – the sophomore documentary feature from director Brian Carberry – broaches an unorthodox relationship with an almost reckless candor. The film follows Chris, a 36-year-old gas station cashier in rural North …
The Sherpa community is a Nepalese and Tibetan ethnic group living near Everest Mountain. Regarded as excellent mountaineers, they live off the land, having their organization and lifestyle. Besides the traditions of not allowing women to study or have autonomy, Lhakpa Sherpa defied the paradigms. She would walk her brother …
Movies like Risky Business and Pretty Woman view sex work through the lens of romance and comedy, portraying the world’s oldest profession in a manner that feels upbeat and optimistic. Unfortunately, the reality is often much more dire. Sweetheart Deal strips away cinematic cliches for an unflinchingly real examination of …
Mark Cousins is an Irish author and filmmaker. He is well-known for his literary work on film. His book The Story of Film is an introductory book in cinema history that is taught in many film courses. Besides serving as the premise to a 930-minute documentary in 2011, The Story …
There is a milestone in every cinephile’s journey that turns the table from a hobby to an obsession. A specific film ignites a fire within the individual, leading to an almost unexplainable passion. One of the world’s biggest cinephiles, the legendary director Martin Scorsese, not only invested in restorations but …
In the first seconds of the first episode, Daddy’s Dyin’, Who’s Got the Will? – the public sees an older man wearing a crown on a throne. This king is George Coulam, the founder and owner of the Texas Renaissance Festival (TRF), the biggest fair of its kind. Roughly five …
Ethiopia is considered one of the biggest economies in Africa. It has the sixth-largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It also has a population of approximately one hundred million people, and it has an increasing population density. These factors make the country attractive to international investors. Xinyan Yu & Max Duncan. …
In 2022, CNN and HBO came together to tell us the story about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Navalny. His story, complete with poison, jail, and more, shocked the world and informed us about what was happening in Russia. But Navalny was just a story about one man, and …
In February 2024, a wildfire in Chile was initiated by a firefighter and a forestry worker in the Valparaíso region, around seventy-five miles (a hundred and twenty-two kilometers) from Santiago, the country’s capital. It went on to kill around a hundred and thirty-seven people, and it is one of the …
Inside the entertainment business, industries switch. When we look back at the phonographic market, it is changing. For example, independent artists, a small percentage of the pool then, could live throughout their CD sales and concerts at small gigs. It is a reality that changed completely. Today, streamers’ royalties do …
Comedy is one of the great cultural forces. It is, in many ways, the great equalizer. In the hands of a talented performer, comedy speaks truth to power, whether that means mocking our leaders or finding commonality in the human experience. It’s the latter of these that filmmaker Neil Berkeley’s …
There is a reason you’ve probably never heard the name Linda Perry. The singer/songwriter has spent her life hiding from the spotlight, hiding from shame and her perfectionism, but mostly hiding from herself. She is best known for being behind the vocals of 4 Non Blondes and their 1992 mega-hit …
In the mid-1980s, Andrew McCarthy starred in a number of highly successful teen films. You’ve probably heard of at least two of them: St. Elmo’s Fire and Pretty in Pink. He and several other young actors were positioned at exactly the right time and place to create a cultural moment. …
In the first minutes of They’re Here, we meet Cookie, a sympathetic old lady from New York who enthusiastically talks about her past experiences with Unknown Flying Objects (UFOs). She answers the directors, Daniel Claridge and Pacho Velez, saying she was taken fourteen times, only in her current home. Cookie …
Wide shots of roads with purplish skies over them. We see that mainly during the sunsets, as Nesa Azimi’s cameras portray. She takes us on a journey throughout the United States railroads and gas stations alongside the female truckers in business. In the first minute of DRIVER, the director introduces …