Film Festival
LFF Review: Under the Fig Trees
In many ways, workplaces seem to have their own ecosystems. Their unique hierarchies and relationship dynamics. There are the obvious power structures within any organisation, from the top down, which guide the direction of work, but there are also informal ones. Those interactions between workers which, over time, create an environment which is either conducive …
LFF Review: Hidden Letters
While we hardly live in an egalitarian utopia in the West, women’s rights are a lot more secure than in many places across the globe. However, we need to remain vigilant in defending these freedoms as there are those who want to take them away. Although the last century has seen much progress in the …
LFF Review: Coma
The COVID pandemic and the various lockdowns in different countries around the world created a problem for filmmakers. They couldn’t work in their usual way. Do they ride out the restrictions and then carry on as if nothing had happened or do they embrace these new circumstances? Using them as inspiration. Not a man to …
VIFF Review: A Piece of Sky
Relationships are hard. You can meet someone, be swept off your feet, have a whirlwind romance and then look forward to the rest of your lives together. No one gets married expecting it not to work, but divorce is common. Sometimes people simply grow apart. Change and develop in different directions. An event can act …
Fantastic Fest Review: The Antares Paradox
Is there anybody out there? It’s a question which has tasked human minds for millennia. While we have looked to the stars for thousands of years, the need for something or someone to believe in has resulted in a procession of old and new gods. However, it goes without saying that there is extra-terrestrial life …
GFF Review: No Looking Back
As the arguments over nurture versus nature rumble on, the likely ‘correct’ answer seems to be somewhere in the middle. We inherit the genes of our parents which influence many elements of our development and lives. However, we also make individual decisions and whilst they are heavily influenced by the people around us, our choices …
GFF Review: The Execution
There’s something intrinsically fascinating about serial killers which drives people to fixate on them, read magazines and books about their killing sprees and become obsessed with getting inside their heads. It’s not so much the fact they’re inherently evil or corrupted, but more their ability to get away with it for so long that seems …
Fantastic Fest Review: Unidentified Objects
There’s something inherently American about a road movie. It probably has something to do with the distance between cities and a national obsession with the automobile. The same can be said for the ‘buddy movie’. Throwing two disparate souls together within the parameters of a joint quest. Trapped within a hulk of metal with only …
Fantastic Fest Review: Lynch/Oz
It may not have seemed likely at the time, but when The Wizard of Oz was introduced to the world in 1939 it would go on to form one of the cornerstones of American cinema. While Victor Fleming’s film may have had a troubled production, it went on to inspire countless other filmmakers. However, although …
Fantastic Fest Review: Attachment
When we talk about mythology, it’s usually around the ancient Greeks or Romans. However, while much of it might have disappeared from modern religions, the major ones have a much greater connection with the supernatural than you’d expect. Judaism is a prime example of where a belief system has changed and yet many in the …