Tag: Film Review

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Tribeca Fest 24

The Hollywood Strikes hit the entertainment industry in 2023.  Work stoppages caused disruptions along the chain from Hollywood to independent cinema.  The film festival circuit did escape the five-month long actors and writer’s dispute.   As I cover the Tribeca Film Festival there is a marked difference in the level of entrants. A number of foreign filmmakers along with titles from female directors made the cut this year.  The New York City film event unveiled 114 narrative and documentary titles. 

In Sexual Demand

Hot masculine top, athletic body, how hard would it be for a guy with this description on his profile to hook-up on Grindr?   Nicolas Finegan’s Some Kind of Paradise short film handles the challenges of a Gay Life based on isolation, fast food sex and the ins and outs of emotional intimacy.  John Brodsky makes a subtle impression of a sexually in demand man boxed in, suddenly tapping into awakening feelings.

Black Table
Black Table

Since the fall of Jim Crow, African Americans have made inroads to higher education, however not without challenges. Recent headlines of the US Supreme Court tossing College Admission Affirmative Action Programs are the latest struggles. For People of Color, navigating certain spaces can be tricky, a balancing act of fitting in, yet trying to retain identity.  Black Table, is the story not just about race but of social economic class attending Yale University in the 1990’s. The film is a soft chronicle of unconscious prejudices faced at an Ivy League Institution with the always hanging question, “Do You Belong Here?” Co-Directors John Antonio James and Bill Mack offer an honourable perspective about New Haven. 

Survival

Recently, I noticed more filmmakers focusing on the plight of women in the Middle East. Once upon Beirut was called The Paris of the Middle East.  A once prosperous city with a freewheeling spirit population made up of diverse groups.  Now, the Mediterranean capital struggles with corruption, simmering conflict and citizens looking for an escape hatch.  All if these elements come together in Mira Shaib’s first film Arze describes itself as a comedy drama of titular character Aze trying to stay afloat with a teenage son and an emotional challenged sister while dreaming of a way to earn more money by buying a scooter. The irony of making life easier turns into a nightmare when the moped is stolen.  What follows is a tale of urban frustration rooted in survival.

Arze at Tribeca Film Festival
Arze

How do you make a touching film short about hair lice? Hindu director Vindhya Gupta’s eloquently shot Lice shows the answer.  The story of a blossoming friendship coming to life under ticklish circumstances. 

Lice

All films were reviewed online. The Tribeca Film Festival runs until June 16th.

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Cinema entertainment news Feature

Personal Favs From The Berlinale

Berlinale

After the announcements of the main awards of this year’s Berlinale, other films also deserve recognition. In the Encounters section, The Klezmer Project was directed by Leandro Koch and Paloma Schachmann. Although it did not win (Here, by Bas Devos, took the prize), The duo’s work deserves stand-alone appraisal. Leandro, a frustrated Jewish wedding cameraman in Argentina meets and falls in love with a clarinetist. To spend time with her he contrives a documentary project commission for television. This project will take him across the remotest parts of Eastern Europe.

The Klezmer Project is original in that it adds a linear fictional narrative onto what is otherwise a documentary. It also manages to do this very seamlessly to provide double interest and entertainment. The quest to find the lost klezmer melodies that have been safeguarded by the Romani people both educates and fascinates. The film was recognized by winning the GWFF society Best First Feature Award. The prize of 50,000 € guarantees the safeguarding of Film and TV rights. A Special Mention from the GWFF was also given to The Bride, directed by Myriam U. Birara and in the Forum Competition section.

Berlinale
The Klezmer Project-From Encounters Section

Tótem, directed by Lila Aviles, played in the Competition section failed to win any of the main awards. However, this Spanish take on melodrama both charmed and delighted. A family celebrates the birthday of a young father, also a painter. Sadly, he is also facing his impending mortality. The child protagonist, played by newcomer Naíma Senties, could easily have won the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance. The award went to another child protagonist Sofía Otero for 20,000 Species of Bees. Tótem, however, won the prize of the Ecumenical Jury. The well received work finished ahead of Golden Bear winner On the Adamant, awarded Special Mention at the festival.

One film in the Competition which surprisingly failed to win a prize was Limbo, directed by Ivan Sen. A detective called Travis Hurley arrives in a small Australian outback town. Staying at the Hotel Limbo, he has come to investigate a 20-year-old unsolved homicide of an Aboriginal woman. The only evidence he has is a number of tape recordings. Meanwhile, the victim’s family is reluctant to give much information, particularly to a white cop.

Berlinale
Limbo-From Competition Section

With patience, Travis will uncover some unpleasant truths, highlighting the injustice faced by Aboriginal Australians. Indigenous Australian film director Ivan Sen had previously won the Premiere First Movie Award at the Berlinale in 2002 for his first film Beneath Clouds. In Limbo he has created a hypnotic “desert noir” that makes excellent use of the landscapes. The choice of black and white further enhances the backdrop and static progress of narrative resolution.

A personal nod also goes to the following films: Blackberry, The Shadowless Tower (Main Competition); Boom! Boom! The World vs. Boris Becker, Kiss the Future (Berlinale Special – Out of Competition); Calls from Moscow, Notes from Eremocene, Cidade Rabat (Forum Section).

By Steve Yates

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Cinema podcast

Femme moves to 2023

Femme The Short

I interviewed filmmakers Sam Freeman and Ng Ping for a Chat Cinema podcast last year. The BAFTA nominees had completed their short film noir FEMME. Fast forward to this week, the duo unrolled their feature debut FEMME at the Berlinale. A continuation on the sexual repression theme from the duo’s first work, the longer version stars Charles MacKay and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett in a cat a mouse game of revenge. The reviews have ranged from mixed to positive.

Femme 2023
Femme 2023

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Cinema podcast

A Childhood Lost.

Talavision

This episode of Chat Cinema talks to award-winning director Murad Abu Eisheh about his work, TALAVISION. A short film centered on lost childhood innocence during the Syrian conflict.

  • Talavision Crew
    Murad (left) Aisha Balase and Ziad Bakri

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Cinema

Is This Indie Flick Worth The Trip?

Pooling for Paradise

Pooling to Paradise

Indie Road Flick Pooling to Paradise is an engaging and often fun critique on contemporary living. Married mum and step-mother Jenny (Lynn Chen) plans to travel to Las Vegas for a professional Blogger conference. Involuntarily she chooses the Car Pool option on her app. This means she will subsequently miss her flight. Joining her in the car are Kara (Dreama Walker), Sean (Jonathan Lipnicki), and driver Marc (Jordan Carlos).

Such an inclined space demands our attention. It’s also interesting to see how characters play off one another. Here are four strangers at different stages in their lives. We have already learned that Jenny is a highly-strung mother. The younger Kara is a struggling and deluded actor. The even younger Sean wants to kill himself after breaking up with his girlfriend, Dawn (Taryn Manning). Meanwhile, driver Marc is a casualty of activist parents. He now drifts through life with the help of numerous narcotics.

During the trip they inevitably get to know each other better. At one point Sean pulls out a gun. However, he reassures everyone it’s to kill himself, despite not being loaded. Kara tries to convince everyone she’s on her way to stardom. Jenny constantly talks domesticity like everyone would somehow be interested. Marc, having undoubtedly been in this situation before, goes with the flow. 

An increasingly distraught Sean offers to pay Marc to drive him to Dawn’s home in Paradise, Nevada. With Paradise being near Vegas, and that she’s already missed her flight, Jenny agrees to Sean’s plan. Kara, with nothing better to do, also agrees to this to help Sean. 

Pooling to Paradise is worthwhile but does not contain an abundance of laughs. It is more of a light drama with funny moments that continually raises the bar. The fun is in getting to know these characters better. There are also regular respites as they leave the car at different points in the journey.

The denouement has Jenny speaking at a conference. This somewhat feel-good sentimental ending is out of synch with the tone of the film. However, this minor flaw aside, it’s worth staying along for the ride. Writer Caytha Jentis shows good pacing and sympathetic characterization, while the dialogue rarely feels scripted.

~ By Steven Yates

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Cinema

Belarus on the VERGE

Director Aliases Paluyan

Reading the headline about the Ryanair flight intercepted to Belarus, a story straight from a Cold War novel, suddenly the world was back in an East versus West game of high stakes chest. President Alexander Lukashenko has been in power for almost 3 decades with no signs of exiting the stage. After the the 2020 election demonstrators took to the street demanding accountability and change. 

While interviewing Director Aliaksei Paluyan about his film COURAGE,a documentary on thethe current Belarus political sitaution, he said something that hit me, “Minsk is equal flying distance from Berlin as Paris.”

The exclusive interview with Aliaksei.

After the Roman Protasevich hijacking, do you feel safe? 

It would be a lie If I said I feel safe, There is a feeling of fear by all of Lukashenko’s critics. I think more about safety.

I’ve not lost control, but I have held to my goal of telling the truth.

A Lost Moment

Were you expecting a “Ceausecu Moment” during the demonstrations? 

Yes. No one wanted violence. If there is a civil war, the protesters don’t have guns. This is a movement of moral choice. Our choices were taken away from us. The country does not want to be a geopolitical chess piece between the east and the west. Belarus’s destiny must be decided by us not in foreign capitals.

There is a wrenching scene, standing outside the prison, is this a tradition in Belarus? 

There are 350.000 detainees in the country. Not a tradition! A tragedy! This was the hardest scene to shoot. How to understand the emotion? Women reading a list of the disappeared. The nightmare of waiting for loved ones outside a prison, while inside, people are tortured. The crowd applauses when detainees are released.

You can see sense of loss in the guard’s eyes, especially the young ones. People on both sides are broken.

When Dzianis speaks about being abused in prison in the 90’s. It left me in doubt concerning hope. Oppression has been handed down, is this right?

It was important to bring this fact to the audience. Lukashenko has been power since 1994. I used archival footage to show how long this has been going on. He is not a dictator, he is a tyrant abusing his own country, declaring war on his people. Many turned a blind’s eye what was happening.

Political

Are you political?

Director Aliaksei Paluyan

I can’t say I’m political. It is impossible not say anything cause the of critical situation. The trauma is huge.

The wife, Maryna, was the most pragmatic of the characters. She says, “What’s Next?”

She’s a mother.

What about the play and the actors, what happened? 

All the performers were detained for a while. They knew the possible consequences. That is the courage. Keep fighting, overcoming the fear and hopeless.

Pavel left for Kiev. The Director of Photography is still in Belarus. After the Ryanair event, Myrna left on the last flight out. Denis was blackballed. He can not work anywhere.

Courage was screened in May with English subtitles 

Running Time: 90 minutes 

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Cinema

Tribeca-The Fury

When I saw this film on the Tribeca Film Festival Schedule. I put it on my list. Bitchin:The Sound and Fury of Rick James tells the story of a Funk Master Rick James from the highs and lows.

Stay Tuned for the review.

Music Artist Rick James
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Cinema

Lady Boss

I just screened Lady Boss-The Jackie Collins Story from the digital Tribeca film Festival.

A story of a woman driven to success by insecurities. Was Ms. Collins a feminist?

Stay Tuned for the full review.

Jackie Collins
7/27/95.Beverly Hills,California.Jackie Collins At Jackies New Home In Beverlyhills She Designed Herself (Photo By Paul Harris/Getty Images)
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Cinema

Tribeca Day 1 Impressions

My first day at the virtual Tribeca Film Festival. My first impression of the overall films: technically superb, polished, broadcast quality, indeed ready for a streaming service. These are filmmakers with an end goal concerning their work. 

While I have not seen broad risk taking, after viewing a few features, the message here is: I am here ready to work in the business.

Stay tuned for coverage. 

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Cinema

3 Tales of Chances

What happens when three by chance meetings turn into moments of self realisation? Japanese director and writer Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy provides clues, but no answers. 

The triptych film centres on emotions lost and rediscovered over the years bringing along with it consequences of past decisions. Life is based on decisions.

The second story, Door Wide Open, in my opinion the strongest of the three, concerns a plot of revenge and humans abilities to injure ourselves actively and passively. Actor Kiyohiko Shibukawa’s melancholic performance as an acclaimed university professor stands out. His character’s incapability of escaping from an emotional box was memorable.

Magic, the first story, concerns intertwined relationships and outcomes.

The last of the trio, Once Again, is about reconnecting, longing, then rationalisation.  

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy runs for 121 minutes.

4 Stars out of 5.

Neopa Inc and Fictive LLC.