by Steven Yates | May 13, 2023 | Film and DVD Review
At the opening gala of the 8th Greek Film Festival in Berlin, a warm welcome was given to the participants who were present and, not least, the audience. The venue was Berlin’s excellently preserved and centrally located Babylon Mitte main cinema hall. Along... »
by Steven Yates | Jul 9, 2022 | Film and DVD Review
Tribeca Enterprises was founded in New York by Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro in 2001. Its accompanying Tribeca Film Festival, which started in 2002, has since been promoting emerging talent in cinema. In 2022 the festival took place between June 8th-19th and its... »
by Daniel Ross Goodman | Feb 26, 2022 | Film and DVD Review
A gunshot. A dog barks. Another gunshot. Another round is loaded into the gun. Frantic footsteps. A woman screams in horror. A third gunshot. The dog barks again. But this time the woman’s screams are not heard. All of this takes place completely in the dark. This... »
by Sarah Manvel | Oct 31, 2021 | Film and DVD Review
A newly restored print of the little-seen Angolan movie Sambizanga screened in the treasures section of the 2021 London Film Festival, and the excitement in the room was palpable. Director Sarah Maldoror passed away from Covid in April 2020, so it was left to her... »
by Michelle Le Blanc and Colin Odell | Jun 28, 2021 | Film and DVD Review
To celebrate the 90th year of the birth of mangaka Osamu Tezuka a live action adaptation of Barbara (1973) by his son, film director Macoto Tezka, has been released. A very adult fantasy about strange love, romance and spiritual witchcraft, this contemporary and... »
by Michelle Le Blanc and Colin Odell | May 28, 2021 | Film and DVD Review
Sometimes the dead don’t die. Sometimes they don’t even stay at home. And so modern one-take budget wonder One Cut of the Dead sees a sequel to its gore drenched comedy success. Cut Of The Dead: In Hollywood sees the zombie horror move from Japan to… Hollywood.... »
by Anna Mitchell | May 8, 2021 | Film and DVD Review
“If you find this world bad you should see some of the others.” Philip K. Dick Have you ever wondered whether you are living in reality, watching reality or simply imagining reality? These philosophical questions of identity are perhaps most pertinent in the digital... »
by Douglas Keesey | Mar 14, 2021 | Film and DVD Review
Recently released on blu-ray, the Mexican-British co-production Tintorera is ripe for re-evaluation.(1) With the tagline “Where Hot Summer Nights Turn Into Cold Terror”, Tintorera is a most peculiar combination of shark-attack movie and summer-love film – think Jules... »
by Michelle Le Blanc and Colin Odell | Jan 23, 2021 | Film and DVD Review
Strange, deranged and unlike anything you’ve seen before, the blu-ray release of Violence Voyager and The Burning Buddha Man is helpfully titled The Weird and Wonderful World of Ujicha. Director Ujicha creates his marvellous distinctive works using Gekimation... »
by Leo White | Nov 2, 2020 | Film and DVD Review
A welcome release for Tsukamoto Shinya’s Gemini because it’s high time that it received a reappraisal, especially in context of the other recent releases from the director covering films from across his career, including the recent triple bill Killing / Haze /... »
by Sarah Manvel | Oct 12, 2020 | Film and DVD Review
An Australian movie directed by a woman in 1930? About a jewel thief who falls in love with her wealthy boyfriend while wearing a pannier? HELL YES. The Cheaters has a lot of other stuff to recommend it – not just the surprising fact that it was made by a trio of... »
by Sarah Manvel | Oct 10, 2020 | Film and DVD Review
It’s like something out of a movie. After Chess of the Wind showed at the Tehran International Festival in 1976, it was banned by the Iranian government in 1979. Its negatives were thought to be lost and the film only survived on imperfect, pirated tapes. Then in 2015... »
by Michelle Le Blanc and Colin Odell | Oct 4, 2020 | Film and DVD Review
Katsuhito Ishii’s delightfully odd tale of family life in a countryside house is at times hilarious and at times surreal in its exploration of relationships and growing up. Charming and strange and unlike anything you’ve seen before this is reality turned... »
by Michelle Le Blanc and Colin Odell | Sep 11, 2020 | Film and DVD Review
The end of the world is nigh! No, really. Earth faces imminent destruction as an approaching meteor about to collide with it. The only opportunity to save the world could lie with punk rock, as told in the strange and tight multi-decade history Fish Story, which is... »
by Michelle Le Blanc and Colin Odell | Sep 5, 2020 | Film and DVD Review
An unexpected blend of crime, drama, romance and humour can be found in the delicately paced character driven black-comedy marking the debut of writer/director Seiji Tanaka. Having graduated from Tokyo University and therefore expected to achieve in life, particularly... »
by Michelle Le Blanc and Colin Odell | Aug 30, 2020 | Film and DVD Review
Nicolas Roeg’s stunningly shot journey through the Australian outback has been remastered to enhance the cinematography that embraces the environment and the creatures who dominate it over the humans that traverse its wide expanses. A journey for both the camera... »
by Michelle Le Blanc and Colin Odell | Apr 25, 2020 | Film and DVD Review
Three films from the inventive mind of Shinya Tsukamoto are released on blu-ray and each showcase his distinctive style and imagination (often with a fair amount of viscera) in a variety of contexts. Killing (2018) marks the director’s first foray into Jidaigeki... »
by Michelle Le Blanc and Colin Odell | Feb 16, 2020 | Film and DVD Review
After 35 years the hugely enjoyable Japanese comedy musical, The Legend Of The Stardust Brothers, is now available again for your viewing pleasure. With songs, costumes and choreography that scream ‘cult classic’ at you, it’s a welcome re-release for a film that... »
by Steven Yates | Feb 12, 2020 | Film and DVD Review
This year’s Dokuarts 12 symposium took place in Berlin on October 11th and looked at the current relevance of nuances, with presentations and panel discussions focused on the significance of developing intuition and sensibility in the realms of documentary filmmaking.... »
by Michelle Le Blanc and Colin Odell | Feb 2, 2020 | Film and DVD Review
Themes that combine the horrors of war with supernatural forces are central to Babak Anvari’s wonderfully chilling drama as a mother and daughter face multiple adversaries that are physical, psychological and social. Under the Shadow is not just full of scares... »
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