On Friday, 21st April 2017, the Far East Film Festival (FEFF) opened the doors of Italy’s Teatro Nuovo Giovanni da Udine for the 19th time; the selected opening film was Shinobu Yaguchi’s The Survival Family that promptly announced one of the “red threads” of this year’s edition: we were up for 10 days of excellent…
Tag: film festival
The 11th London Korean Film Festival: Breathing Underwater
On the gorgeous Korean islands of Jeju and Udo (and the surrounding islets of Jeju province), almost every day, over 4000 women risk their lives to challenge the sea in order to bring out its treasures – sea urchin, conch, algae, octopus, and the highly treasured abalone. They are called haenyo – sea women – and…
The 11th London Korean Film Festival: Inside Men
In the current global political climate, dirty politicians seem to be abound; some even appear to have strong underground connections, so it comes as no surprise that these topics wound themselves into films – in Korean cinema, it appears to be the filmmaker’s favourite topic of the year, along with Japanese occupation era films. Much…
The 21st Busan International Film Festival: Afterimage (Powidoki)
The good Lord gave the director two eyes – one to look into the camera, the other to be alert to everything that is going on around him.- Andrzej Wajda 1926- 2016 Busan, South Korea. I was sitting in the Busan International Film Festival press office when I heard that one of my favourite Polish directors,…
The 24th Raindance Film Festival: Five Days on Lesvos
“The world is facing an unprecedented displacement crisis,” European Commission has said. The EU has been discussing the aforementioned issue for months; however, their help is inadequate to deal with the rising numbers of dislodged people who are predominantly refugees from war-torn countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Many people arrive in the EU after…
The 24th Raindance Film Festival: Running Eagle
In 2014, Gwen Florio – an American writer and journalist – wrote Dakota, a novel which tells the story of the former foreign correspondent Lola Wicks, who investigates the disappearance of one of the Blackfeet Tribe’s girls, Judith Calf Looking. The novel is a fascinating yet distressing tale about the tribe’s living conditions, as well as…
23rd Raindance Film Festival: Fires on the Plain and In Conversation with Shinya Tsukamoto
Japan’s involvement in the World War II began on December 7 1941, when it attacked the American base in Hawaii, Pearl Harbor. On the same day, Japanese airplanes raided airports in the Philippines, and two days later, the Imperial Army landed in the country and started its carnage. After a few turbulent months of fighting,…
In Conversation with James Bradley on the London Lift-Off Film Festival
Look beyond the gloss, put talent before technology – that is the motto for the upcoming London Lift-Off Film Festival, which aims to expose audiences to the beauty of independent cinema. In the four years since its creation, The Lift-Off Film Festival has grown from a local event into a global exhibition of independent films…
