Different Strokes: Illustrious Corpses
Hannah Clarkson and Steve Williams offer opposing views on Rosi’s ILLUSTRIOUS CORPSES. Is the truth always revolutionary? There’s only one way to find out! Read on, and then let us know what you think.
Visions from Estonia: Mari Kallas
ANOTHER DIMENSION compares the lives of a superstitious old fisherwoman and a business orientated Christian pop band. We spoke to producer Mari Kallas about Estonian cinema.
Salvatore Giuliano
Black marketeer, bandit, separatist hero and murderer of innocents – the story of SALVATORE GIULIANO kicks off the Francesco Rosi season today at the Arts Picturehouse.
All Divided Selves
RD Laing is a radical, a leading figure of the counter-culture of the 60s. A guru to some – cruel alcoholic to others. Steve Williams looks at the troubled subject of Luke Fowler’s ALL DIVIDED SELVES.
Francesco Rosi: Poet of Civic Courage
Subject of a strand at this year’s Cambridge Film Festival, Steve Williams looks at Francesco Rosi – poet of civic courage, conscience of Italian cinema.
The attraction of the abyss
Slicing across the twin histories of cinema and surrealism, two significant forms of artistic expression in the modern age, is the figure of Salvador Dali’s chum, Luis Bunuel.
Unfair World (Adikos Kosmos)
Fillipos Tsitos’ UNFAIR WORLD reflects a world of relationships where trust has broken down. Steve Williams reviews at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
The Ambassador
With THE AMBASSADOR, Mads Bruegger spoils us with a shocking, eye-opening, mischievous and hilarious film. Steve Williams reviews.
Isn’t Anyone Alive? (Ikiterumono wa inainoka)
The characters of ISN’T ANYONE ALIVE represent a sort of Japanese version of “The Only Way Is Essex”. But whereas TOWIE merely heralds the approaching Armageddon, here the apocalypse actually arrives.
Midnight Sun/Insomnia
The Midnight Sun reception which preceded the screening of Erik Skjoldbjærg’s INSOMNIA(1997) drew connections between Nordic and Tartan Noir crime fiction, via contributions from crime writer Lin Anderson.
Edinburgh International Film Festival 2012
Steve Williams reports back from the 66th Edinburgh film festival, which opened with a wipe-the-floor-with-’em red-carpet opening gala for William Friedkin’s new film KILLER JOE and its assembled firmament of stars.
Aesthetica Short Film Festival York
This month saw Aesthetica magazine’s first short film festival take place in some of York’s historic venues. Steve Williams reviews NOAH’S ARK and WELCOME TO ROMFORD, two of his favourite films from the programme.
The Paper Will Be Blue (Hârtia va fi albastră)
This 2006 film by Radu Muntean focuses on the night of between the 22nd and the 23rd of December 1989, when in Bucharest the Revolution was in full swing. Steve Williams reviews.
Stuff and Dough (Marfa Si Banii)
Opportunity and opportunism form the central themes in Christi Puiu’s tense, simple Romanian road movie. Ovidiu (Alexandra Papadopol) plays the young man who undergoes the transformative odyssey, delivering some “medical supplies” for a local gangster in his home town, to an address in Bucharest.
The Oak (Balanţa)
Romanian master Lucian Pintilie constructs a “Theatre of the Absurd” darker and more acerbic than any from Eugene Ionesco’s imagination.