Sundance Film Festival

After proving a formidable plot point in last year’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 – however secondary it may have been – the killing of Black Panther chairman Fred Hampton in 1969, at the age of only 21 years, is given the right, timely treatment in Shaka King‘s equally impactful (perhaps even more so)…

The Blazing World is the type of film where the ideas of logic, plot or conventional storytelling need not apply; and that is absolutely fine with the story it is telling. Expanded from a short film of the same name, it is the feature-length directorial debut from established actress turned writer/director Carlson Young. The short…

Starting on a personal note, when I heard about the documentary Try Harder and its premise, I had traumatic flashbacks to my own time as a student. The relentless studying, the overbearing parenting, the exaggerated expectations, the regrettably embarrassing actions; it all came flooding back. That is when I knew that I had to watch…

After introducing itself as a film that promises there’ll be no sugarcoating its subject matter – the first thing we hear are the audible moans and verbal berating from a pornographic film, and the first thing we see is the extremely graphic imagery of a young girl’s privates in the shower – Ninja Thyberg‘s confronting…

With Nomadland currently doing the rounds and collecting its share of awards in the lead-up to a presumed heft of Oscar nominations, a film like Land being release is curious timing.  It’ll inevitably be compared to Chloe Zhao’s inward masterpiece and, in its own way, it’s something of a more digestible, audience friendly take on…

The notion of a biological clock and its exclusivity to women is a road travelled many a time over the course of cinematic history.  Such an idea pertaining to men however is another story entirely, and one that has seldom been explored.  Enter, Together Together. Written and directed by Nicole Beckwith (returning to Sundance 6…

Do you know how it feels to describe a dream? A moment where you are not really sure what you just witnessed and yet you remember seeing certain things and oddly enough, you remember feeling everything about it? That is basically how it feels like watching Mayday, the feature-length directorial debut by writer/director Karen Cinorre….

Knocking follows the story of Molly (Cecilia Milocco), a woman who is returning to the outside world after being discharged from a psychiatric hospital after she was admitted due to her involvement in a past traumatic event. She moves into an apartment complex and is starting to experience things that she has not come into…

It doesn’t take much for director James Ashcroft to create the most horrific of situations from the simplest of ingredients laid bare in the early stages of the eerie Coming Home in the Dark.  A loving family, an idyllic New Zealand locale, and a duo of passing strangers provide all that is needed for Ashcroft’s…

An agonising drama if ever there was one, Mass details the type of conversation that instantly makes you feel sickeningly uncomfortable.  And then to watch it unfold in a suffocating location for 110 minutes is a test of endurance that audiences may be unprepared for. The tragedy at the centre of the conversation is one…

In How It Ends, the joint-directorial effort from Daryl Wein (Lola Versus) and Zoe Lister-Jones (The Craft: Legacy), the question is proposed of what would you do if you knew the world was coming to an end?.  It’s a question that has familiarity to it, but Wein and Lister-Jones have the smarts and wit to…

When a filmmaker decides to venture into the topic of filmmaking as a narrative, their efforts can be fascinating in terms of storytelling. When the horror film Censor had been announced as an entry for Midnight Madness at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, it was particularly intriguing for a few reasons. Firstly, the topic of…

There really is no way for yours personally to say this in a pithy fashion so it is best to just say it straight. One of my most anticipated films this critic wanted to see was In the Same Breath by director Nanfu Wang, a talented documentary filmmaker whose work in indicting the government workings…

There’s a series of odd interludes dispersed throughout Pascual Sisto‘s unnerving thriller John and the Hole that suggest the story at hand has been passed down over time as something of a fable, one that impressionable young children may construe as a challenge on how they view their own relationship with their supposed elders.  It’s…

Travelling for arts festivals is one of the most enriching experiences an intrepid adventurer can have. Not only are you able to explore a destination as you normally would, and take in the many sights, sounds and experiences on offer, you also have access to a curated program brimming with creativity. Whether that means you’ve…

Perhaps best known internationally as the ski resort that houses America’s largest independent film festival, Sundance, held annually in the dead of winter, Park City is a year round attraction in the heart of Utah. Located about thirty five minutes from Salt Lake City airport, entering Park City and its historic Main Street feels like…

Returning in its second year, The Irish Film Festival will be running a variety of films, providing film enthusiasts an opportunity to gorge on movies from the Irish culture. The festival will be running at the Chauvel Cinema, Paddington and will be presenting eight feature films including three shorts. The event will start on  Thursday…

The team behind the Sundance film, The Witch have made the decision of telling the story of the Russian “mad monk” Rasputin in an extended series. Company Media Rights Capital (Ted and The Dark Tower) have appointed The Witch‘s writer-director Robert Eggers to write and direct six to eight episodes covering the origins of Rasputin…