When Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette wrote her debut novel under her libertine husband’s name Willy, she had no idea that the book ‘Claudine at School’ would be the first step towards her liberation, freedom and an ‘escape’ from the traditional heteronormative social values of the early 20th century Paris. Raised in the south of France, Colette (Keira…
Category: London Film Festival
62nd BFI London Film Festival: Birds of Passage Review
Guajira peninsula, northern Colombia. It’s the late 60’s; while the western world is amidst its social and cultural revolutions, a young woman, dressed in a bright red ceremonial robe, is engaged in a frenetic courtship dance with her soon-to-be husband. Set at the backdrop of a wide and windy desert, this visually striking scene introduces…
62nd BFI London Film Festival: United Skates Review
“If this world don’t change its ways, we’ll all perish”. Roller-skating rinks in the U.S were once a booming hub of hip-hop and disco culture, a form of cathartic expression and freedom for many African-Americans. However, due to increased land taxes and gentrification forcing many rinks to close, they are now a rare find. Dyana…
62nd BFI London Film Festival: The Spy Gone North Review
The historical drama is a tale that is constantly over-shadowed by its real-life counterpart’s undoing. No matter which way the film may elude to direct itself, the foreboding presence of certain real-life individuals makes clear to an audience which way the film will steer. This is especially the case when dealing with the infamous Kim…
62nd BFI London Film Festival: Arctic Review
The bleak mid-winter in the frozen wilderness; a man clears the snow and stones away, the camera moves back, slowly revealing a huge SOS sign, dug into the snow. Without using any words and only with the sounds of nature, Joe Penna perfectly depicts the situation of the protagonist, Overgård (Mads Mikkelsen: Hannibal, Doctor Strange), in…
62nd BFI London Film Festival: Styx Review
Ascension Island is an isolated volcanic atoll, located 7°56′ south of the Equator in the Atlantic Ocean. Charles Darwin visited this lonely archipelago in 1836 aboard HMS Beagle as a part of his second survey expedition of the world, during which he gathered data that aided him in the development of the theory of evolution…
20th Udine Far East Film Festival: Be With You Review
The novels of Takuji Ichikawa are well known to numerous book lovers. His bestselling works have been adapted for the Japanese silver screen a couple of times; Be With You in 2004 by Nobuhiro Doi, and Heavenly Forest in 2006 by Takehiko Shinjo. The film adaptation of Be With You became a huge commercial success with its imaginative, beautiful and emotional love story…
The 61st BFI London Film Festival: In Conversation with Hugh Welchman, Director of ‘Loving Vincent’
Hugh Welchman, an Oxford University graduate in Philosophy, Politics and Economy, has always had his eyes on film-making. Subsequently, he worked hard by doing almost everything, from teaching history to selling fish, just to support himself while working on film corporates in London. After a few calamitous encounters, Hugh came to a decision that training at…
The 60th BFI London Film Festival: Creepy Review
Kiyoshi Kurosawa – a Japanese horror maestro – attracted critics’ attention with his 1997 Cure, a horror film in the purest sense of the word, with an ability to unsettle the audience that was a second to none; Cure also got recognition from various international film festivals and has become one of the most haunting Japanese motion…
The 59th London Film Festival: In Conversation with Choi Dong-hoon, director of ‘Assassination’
Choi Dong-hoon, a South Korean director, began his voyage into filmmaking in 2004 when he released The Big Swing, a crime thriller, which brought him instantaneous praise from domestic and foreign critics. A couple of years later, Choi Dong-hoon repeated his previous success with another interesting production, Tazza: The High Rollers, an adaptation of Huh Young-man and…
The 59th London Film Festival: Assassination
A genius storyteller for his spectacular ability to develop elaborate stories, someone once said about Choi Dong-hoon, one of the most successful South Korean film directors in modern Korean cinema. All his five productions, The Big Swindle (2004), Tazza: The High Roller (2006), Jeon Woo-chi: The Taoist Wizard (2009), The Thieves (2012) and his latest hit Assassination…
The 59th London Film Festival: In Conversation with Jerzy Skolimowski
Jerzy Skolimowski, born in 1938, is a Polish film director, screenwriter and actor, who is also a painter and a poet. He spent his childhood and teenage years in Prague, where he befriended future filmmaker Milos Forman and Vaclav Havel, a writer, philosopher and politician. He returned to Poland to study Polish Literature and…
The 59th BFI London Film Festival: 11 Minutes
After a 5 year hiatus, Jerzy Skolimowski has finally released his new film entitled 11 Minutes. The apocalyptic thriller has already received positive reviews at this year’s Venice International Film Festival, where it was nominated to Golden Lion in the main competition section. It was also screened in the Masters section of the 2015 Toronto…
The 59th BFI London Film Festival: He Named Me Malala
He Named Me Malala is a documentary directed by Davis Guggenheim, an American filmmaker whose films, An Inconvenient Truth, It Might Get Loud and Waiting for ‘Superman’, have been in the top 100 highest-grossing documentaries since 2009. Guggenheim’s film tells the story of Malala Yousafazai, a young Pakistani girl who advocates for girls’ education and human rights….
