For a woman, surely, there can't be many life experiences as dreadful as rape. Even so- called "consensual" sex can be hard to bear when, for work-related or other reasons a woman has to give in to a man in whom she has no interest, in the best of cases, or by whom she is repulsed, in the worse. Think creepy, porcine Weinstein. But rape, sexual harassment, abuse, pay inequality, when pay there ... more >
ARCHIVES
#THEMTOO: the case of Hedy Lamarr, bombshell scientist, in the age of the #metoo movement
Where does a woman's intellectual competency begin, and her attractiveness end?
LETTER FROM INDIA – “The Power of Melodrama”
We own our movies now, they don't own us
Growing up, one remembers longing for our cinema to become more realistic, or at the very least a little less ridiculous. At one stage, virtually every film made was a lost-and-found potboiler that featured more or less the same dialogues. We have got our wish to a certain extent. The films of today try harder to tell a single story, populate them with characters that go beyond Kishan and Bishan, ... more >
Documentary “Off Country” Lets Survivors and Opponents of Nuclear Testing Do the Talking
Documentary film as digital archive
Taylor Dunne and Eric Stewart’s forthcoming documentary “Off country” examines the devastating, still-lingering effects of atomic bomb testing on the communities around the White Sands missile range in New Mexico, the Nevada Test Site and the Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado, where plutonium triggers were manufactured until its 1992 shutdown (the latter facility was studied in the galling 1982 ... more >
RESET | Talking with Benjamin Millepied
"Reset" was screened in the SPOTLIGHT section at this year's Tribeca Festival
The Opéra national de Paris co-produced the film
Co-directed by Thierry Demaizière and Alban Teurlai
To most people Benjamin Millepied is both the choreographer for Darren Aronofsky’s Oscar-nominated film "Black Swan" and the husband of Oscar-winner Natalie Portman, for the same film. In the world of ballet, however, Benjamin Millepied has been a trailblazer for young dancers as the Director of the Paris Opera Ballet during a span of two years starting in 2014. Millepied was at the Tribeca ... more >
“Elvis and Nixon,” TRIBECA FESTIVAL
One of the best films this year
Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey
Directed by Liza Johnson
Michael Shannon doesn’t really look like Elvis Presley. For one thing, his face is shaped all wrong, his cheeks are too long and deeply creased. If it weren’t for the crazy haircut, the suits, and the sunglasses one would never think that Shannon was supposed to be The King. But then, neither does Kevin Spacey look like Present Richard Nixon. And yet through the sheer strength of their ... more >
“The Human thing,” Tribeca Film Festival
Film was shown in VIEWPOINTS program
Héctor Medina, Enrique Molina and Carlos Enrique Almirante
Directed by Gerardo Chijona
Director Gerardo Chijona liberally name-drops a plethora of Hollywood films in “The Human Thing”: “3:10 to Yuma” (1957), “The Godfather Part 2” (1974), “Terminator 2” (1991), and even 'The Sopranos.' One would expect that with such a macho pedigree of visceral violence “The Human Thing” would be some kind of high-octane thriller or cinematic homage. But it’s neither. The film is one of words and ... more >
Tribeca Film Festival: “Always Shine” and “AWOL”
Two films that should've best been kept out of Tribeca
Sophia Takal’s “Always Shine” and Deb Shoval’s “AWOL” have many things in common. For starters, both are films about a duo of women by female directors—the former a jagged psychological thriller about two actresses, the latter a bittersweet lesbian romance. Both female duos find themselves pushed to the edge by a domineering patriarchy, the former by the demanding and objectifying world of fashion ... more >