DUST AND ASHES (South Korea 2019) *** Directed by: Park Hee-kwon
Nothing much appears to be happening in this extremely slow burn of a movie, likely the slowest film to be screened at Reel Asian this year.But careful concentration reveals that there is more than meets the eye.As the camera follows a young woman (Ahn So-yo i) over 3 days (dividing the film into 3 chapters) on the course of her daily routine of work at the factory by day and at a restaurant kitchen at night, the audience learns that she is scamming (which the audience can assume, but never 100% sure) the insurance company with the help of her reluctant brother of the life insurance money from the death of their recently deceased mother.Again, nothing is said whether the mother had died from natural causes or at the hands of her children.The camera often shows the protagonist’s back, reminiscent of the Dardennes films.DUST AND ASHES premiered at the Tallinn Film Festival and is an ok watch that demands lots of patience in its short running time of 83 minutes.
Nau is returning to his home country Vietnam from the United States with his boyfriend Van in tow.They are to spend some time with Nau’s family.Nau has not revealed Van to be his partner and the family pressures him to get settled with a wife and children.The matriarch of the family is also suffering from angina and diabetes.This all sounds too familiar a plot, and this story has been told countless times in gutless films.But the American boyfriend is not white but Vietnamese.The Vietnamese setting is new.Director Trinh also has great sympathy for his character making each one of them very endearing and ones that the audience will care for.The actors playing Van and Nau are also super cute.An altogether endearing film that ends up showing what true love (the airport scene where the two sit together waiting fro their flight back to the U.S.) between a male couple.
Zed is a British-Pakistani rapper who is based in New York, given the chance of a lifetime, to open for a well known band in Europe. Before his world tour begins, he gets an autoimmune disease.He returns to see his Pakistani family in London.MOGUL MOWGLI is a fierce film made even more intense from the angry rap songs performed by famous about to be more famous British rapper Zed, played by Riz Ahmed (JASON BOURNE, THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST), who also lent his hand in writing the film’s script.This is evidently his movie, he giving the most to it, as can be seen performance-wise.The most moving line is still an effective one though used in many films of this genre : “Why is this (sickness)happening to me?” The title takes from the main character in Rudyard Kipling’s THE JUNGLE BOOK.The film’s best segment is the one where the father tells the son who in sitting in his wheelchair about to try walking without aid.“Show the doctors that you do not need their medicine.” the father tells the son after having his son treated on Pakistani cupping procedure.Zed gets up takes up two small steps and remains standing before sliding back in the wheelchair.The camera focuses on the face on Zed.It is booth a sad and funny scene, a combination that is rarely captured together on film. The film covers issues likerap, illness, family religions and life in general.
THE HORSE THIEVES.ROADS OF TIME (Japan/Kazakhstan 2019) ****
Directors: Yerlan Nurmukhambetov and Lisa Takeba
A western set in the vast Central Asian plains with bad men and horse herding.The hero of the piece is a stranger who suddenly appears to a family akin to the man with no name in the Sergio Leone westerns of perhaps akin to the classic SHANE by George Stevens.The father of a family with mother and three children is killed by horse thieves when the stranger appears to help the mother and family as they move from their village to live with a relative.The setting is spectacular with scenes seen that are uncommon to western audiences courtesy of cinematographer Aziz Zhambakiev.The horse herding segments are grand to observe as in the way of life of these people. Don’t let the slow pace fool you.The film comes with suspense and exciting action scenes.All the events are seen from the point of view of the 10-year old son, Olzhas who tells the stranger that he recognizes the watch with the cracked glass worn by his father’s killer at a tavern.
The Festival du nouveau cinéma or FNC (meaning Festival of New Cinema) is an annual independent film festival held in Montreal and features independent films from around the world.Over 160,000 people attend the festival each year, this year being the exception because of Covid-19.It is one of the oldest film festivals in Canada.This year the films can be accessed through purchase from their website:
The festival runs from Wednesday October the 7th till the 17th in theatres but this has been changed because of Covid-19 second wave closings. Below, please ind capsule reviews of self films screened at the festival.Capsule reviews will be added daily till the festival ends. But the majority of films can be rented for streaming beginning the 7th till the 31st of the month.
CAPSULE REVIEWS OF SELECT FILMS:
APPLES (Greece 2020) **
Directed by Christos Nikou
Director Nikou worked as the assistant director on Yorgos Lanthimos’s absurdist surreal comedy DOGTOOTH in 2009.His debut film, APPLES direct from the Venice Film Festival,obviously draws many similarities to Lanthimos’s style of direction.APPLES, however is a drama rather than a comedy making it a much harder and slower watch.The film opens with the main character played by Aris Servetalis being awoken on a bus, not remembering anything including who he is.He is brought to a hospital for examination.Apparently there is an epidemic going around where many are suffering amnesia out of the blue and for no reason.The character eats an apple and is seen eating apples which is the reason the film is so called.Nothing really happens except that the film visualizes the pain and suffering due to the unexplained illness.The character is offered a new identity by the hospital to survive as his memory is not improving at all, as evident in the tests (very slow ones) conducted.The film might be more current due to the Pandemic Covid-19 virus, but Nikou's film requires patience and goes nowhere.An OK watch if you like this sort of Kafka-ish thing, otherwise this exercise will be totally boring.
ATLANTIS (Ukraine 2020) ***1/2 Directed by Valentyn Vasyanovych
The film setting is a dystopian society in the future of the year 202., a year after the war ended.It is not a pretty sight to be living there but a marvellous sight, cinematography wise. Director Vasyanovych’s film contains stark and stunning images.The film is made up of vignettes that last around 10 - 15 minute each, where characters walk into the scene and move in and out the stationary frame. The vignettes are connected, creating a narrative that involves an ex-soldier by the name of Sergiy (Andriy Rymaruk).His mate jumps into the fire in factory in the beginning segment leaving Sergiy to run some errand involving travel into ‘the zone' where he meets a girl in the business of locating, identifying and properly burying soldiers and other war casualties found in unmarked, often mass graves.A strange but remarkable film that won the top price in the Horizons Section at the Venice Film Festival 2020.
DROWSY CITY (Vietnam 2019) *** Directed by Dong Long Dinh
The film’s setting is a crowded city called DROWSY CITY in the country of Vietnam.The lead charter is Tao, whose sole occupation is to slaughter chickens and the occasional duck for a living.So, expect a lot of fowl abuse - such as the pouring of hot water from a kettle to kill the poor animals.If this is not enough, there is is feather plucking off live chickens and the poisoning of adorable little chicks.Tao’s quiet and uneventful life is rudely interrupted by three squatters, 3 gangsters who move in next door together with a prostitute who Tao gets involved with.The film shows what happens when a quiet man is pushed far past his limit of endurance.Tao turns nasty and exacts a cruel revenge.Director Dong is fond of overhead shots which often depict both the poverty and hustle and bustle of the city. One might wait patiently for some message in this film but there is none.
CAUGHT IN THE NET (Czech 2019) *** Directed by Barbora Chalupova and Vít Klusák
Three adult actresses pose as 12-year-old girls with three fake bedrooms, three cameras, three chat boxes with fake profiles.A social experiment on the sexual abuse of young people online conducted live on camera is captured in this Czech doc. The aim is to catch the child predators caught in the act (net).It is scary to see how far the majority of these predators go - jerking off; blackmailing the girls; enticing them with money.Only one on the net, a 20-year old is decent warningone girl of the dangers of chatting.The film went on to be number one at the Czechoslovakian box-office and is Grand Prize winner (Czech competition) at One World International Human Rights Film Festival.But as the doc unfolds, it appears aimless as to what the filmmakers want to do with all the information received - besides shocking the world on the information.The faces of the predators and blurred, except for the decent 20-year old who turns out to be good-looking.Still, one of the film crew recognizes one of the predators as one working with kids int he city.
Trailer:
KILL IT AND LEAVE THIS TOWN (Poland 2020) *** Directed by Mariusz Wilczynski
The difficult to follow story, if there is one is described by this line: Fleeing from despair after losing those dearest to him, the hero hides in a safe land of memories, where time stands still and all those dear to him are alive.This animated feature from Poland is reported to have taken 6 yers in the making - a film about memories.The animation is often squiggly and difficult to figure out, but the drawings are often grotesque and dreary,often changing from one form to another.Insects seem particularly the favourite of director Wilczynski, though spiders and others get squished along the way.Other strange things like fish head bobbling up and down appear repetitively in the film. An animated feature that is not for everyone, but an intriguing one, nevertheless with one trying to figure out what is in the mind of Wilczynski when he was making the film.
This dreamy mainly black and white meditation is composed of scratchy archive footage retrieved from the Royal Belgian Film Archive. The hour or so long film offers an interpretation to old images as it ponders memory and existence.This is a disturbing and mesmerizing exercise that is definitely thought provoking.The premise is a mysterious virus that causes amnesia in its victims that is on the loose in a dystopian Kafka looking society.The people call it “night” because it infects the brain, eating away at memories and leaving nothing but darkness.To protect its citizens, the State steps in with a program to harvest and archive their memories. But all this appears to be actually happening today all over the world.Virus or not, old age, dementiaor Alzheimer’s cause human beings to lose their memory and if memories are lost we have nothing.As the voiceover goes:“We live to forget everything to be forgotten very quietly.”
OASIS (OAZA)(Serbia/France 2020) **** Directed by Ivan Ikic
This deserving winner of the Best European Film at this year’s2020 Venice Film Festival is a slow burn but an amazing look at mentally challenged teens.The film opens with the note that in the past, children that are backward were often drowned in the river.Maria and Dragana fall in love over Robert, all three in an institution in Serbia.The manipulative Dragana ends up slitting her wrists while Maria ends up pregnant.The authorities separate Robert and Maria while aborting the baby.What starts as a love triangle ends up a social study of what it means to be challenged.The challenged have feelings too and are as much human as anyone else and should be allowed to make decisions on their own, lest allowed to fall in love as well.Director Ikic works his wonders with his winning grey looking feature making his audience eventually care about his characters.The three are played by non-professional actor and they are either very good actors or act their part.The heartbreaking drama is one of the best films I have seen at the festival so far!
(Way Up the Mountain) (France/Belgium 2019) ***1/2
Directed by Benjamin Botello and Arnaud Demuynck
This absolutely charming and hilarious 37 minute animation follows 4 cows way up high in the mountain stuck in ice and snow.The 4 cows Clarisse, Maggie, Aglaé and Rosine venture on the journey after accepting the invite from JB, a ram to discover the snowy peaks.But when they learn from the sheep that JB has disappeared after leaving looking for edelweiss, the four heroines decide to go looking for him and save him from the terrifying bélébélé (bellybelly). They meet however, an ibex who reluctantly helps them in their quest.There is much to enjoy including the yodelling soundtrack, the imaginative animation, the goofy bovine antics and the laugh-out loud humour.A total delight!In French.
As weird as films go during this festival, this weird one is rather ingenious in the way it mixes fiction and reality for the purpose of absurdity.THALASSO refers to saltwater therapy and it is in such a saltwater therapy spa that audiences of this film find actor Gerard Depardieu and arguably the most important French literalist living today, Michel Houellebecq meet.Michel is now recuperating after a kidnapping, supposedly orchestrated by ex-President Lalonde to prevent Michel for running for office.Michel survives the kidnapping but will he survive the strict rules of the spa like no wine, no smokes and no more than 2 allowed in a room?Depardieu helps him with smokes and bottles of wine which he sneaks in.Things get weirder when Sylvester Stallone is rumoured to be frolicking naked on the nearby beach.Stallone played by look-alike/impersonator Jade Roberts appear at the end of the film with a machine gun, RAMBO-style.This film needs to be seen to be believed.And, there is a hilarious segment of the discussion of pussy transplant rejection.
The Blood in the Snow Film Festival is a unique and imaginative showcase of contemporary Canadian horror, genre and underground cinema that exists to challenge social boundaries, explore artistic taboos and support and exhibit independent Canadian genre media artists.BITS takes place in Toronto near the end of October, and brings together audiences, media coverage, community partnerships and the filmmaking industry to exhibit and celebrate Canadian genre film. BITS began in 2012 and was registered as a not-for-profit in 2015.
A good chance to see blood in the snow and horror films made in Canada.
Below are casual reviews of select films, a few of them well worth a viewing.
CAPSULE REVIEWS (of select feature films):
ANYTHING FOR JACKSON (Canada 2020) ***1/2
Directed by Justin G. Dyck
Premiering at Montreal’s FANTASIA film festival, ANYTHING FOR JACKSON refers to whatever it takes for a bereaved elderly couple to bring back to life their grandson who had been killed in an accident.The couple, Audrey (Sheila McCarthy) and Henry (Julian Richings) are Satanists who have devised a very detailed and somewhat foolproof plan to kidnap a pregnant woman and have the spirit of the grandson inhabit the new yet to be born baby.Audrey and Henry are no spirit conjuring experts and they end up summoning more than they bargained for. Writer Keith Cooper and director Dyck realizes the potential of the premise including the possibility of injecting some scary humour into the proceedings.McCarthy best remembered as the organizationally impaired secretary in Patricia Rozema’s I’VE HEARD THE MERMAIDS SINGING is back in top form here.Totally entertaining and totally watchable, ANYTHING FOR JACKSON, scary, funny and exciting was a hit at Fantasia and should do well at BIT and when it finally opens.The film comes with the clever caption: “Fear your Elders”.
Trailer: (unavailable)
BLEED WITH ME (Canada 2020) ***1/2
Directed by Amelia Moses
A 90 minute slow burn psychological thriller/horror in which not much happens in the first half, which is a good thing as director Moses builds up her audience’s anticipation in which not much can be guessed regarding the horror that will occur.Rowan (Lee Marshall), a shy and awkward young woman, struggles to integrate herself on a weekend getaway with her best friend, Emily (Lauren Beatty) and her boyfriend, Brendan (Aris Tyros).Feeling like a lamp post, she drinks to calm her nerves, pushing her body and mind deep into a hazy trance, where she begins to witness nightmarish late-night visions that make her feel increasingly unwelcome, unsure and unstable. Moses drops little hints of the horror that islet to come like a revelation that Emily has just recovered from some breakdown or the scene where Emily sucks the blood from the Rowan’s cut finger.The best scene is when Emily serves Rowan tea that Rowan knows has been drugged and Emily says to her: “Don’t you trust me?”A good old-fashioned satisfactory thriller that makes good use of suspense tactics that is worthy of Hitchcock.
Trailer:
BLOODTHIRSTY (Canada 2020) *** Directed by Amelia Moses
Grey (Lauren Beatty) is an indie singer who has just had a successful first album out.She is worried that her second album may be a flop.Grey suffers from hallucinations and has to take pills for it.She sees herself as a wolf eating human flesh.She decides to work with a notorious music producer Vaughn Daniels (Greg Nryk).Vaughn had been tried for murder of his wife but had been acquitted.Vaughn invites her and her girlfriend, Charlie (Katherine King So) to his studio cottage in the woods to write the songs for second album .Charlie is weary of Vaughn and the two clearly do not get along.Vaughn is weird pushing Grey a lot in order to create superior songs for the second album.Grey accepts it as she is desperate to succeed.The things Vaughn says to push Grey are kind of odd: like asking her to run at top speed in the snow with him coming across like a weird asshole.Charlie wants Grey and herself to leave.But they stay.At half point of the movie, the audience is yet to know where everything is leading.Which is a good thing.All the weird happenings are explained in the second half as director Moses turns her film into a horror story, with the horror convincing though not entirely logical.
Trailer: (unavailable)
HALL (Canada 2020) **
Directed by Francesco Giannini
When a debilitating sickness spreads across a long hotel hallway (the HALL of the film title), a few scattered victims fight for survival, and try to escape from the dark narrow stretch of isolated carnage.The horror in this film comes from a Covid-19 like virus that affects human being.The virus causes repository problems visible by ugly veins that pop up on the neck.Apparently the villain of the film is Julian (Julian Richings), the man who spreads the virus believing he is creating a better world.The story narrows down two two protagonists, two females, Val (Carolina Bartczak) and Naomi (Yumiko Shaku).Naomi is a pregnant mother who gets infected.In the same hotel is the other female, who is trying to escape with her daughter from her husband (Mark Gibson) who she does not get along with.The husband becomes infected.Too much moaning and groaning in this otherwise silly movie that took 3 writers to pen.
Trailer:
THE RETURN (Canada 2020) *** Directed by BJ Verot
After the death of his father, a brilliant college student, Rodger (Richard Harmon) returns to his family home with his girl friend, Beth (Sara Thompson) and best friend Jordan (Echo Andersson).His mother and younger sister have died and Rodger is determined to solve the mystery of the deaths.The three encounter a scary ghost.Rodger learns that the horrors from his childhood aren't as dead and gone as he once thought and that he is somewhat responsible.This is the typical ghost coming through a portal and it must be destroyed.The film delves deeper into the characters spinning a web of puzzles that only Rodger can reveal.THE RETURN is an ok horror flick with sufficient scares (thongs that go bump int he dark) and with more character development than usually accompanies horror films. Jordan, Rodger’s best friend confesses she loves him.The film runs into trouble when it tries to give a logical explanation to the proceedings, when the film gets a bit confusing and tedious.In the end the ghost has to be destroyed with the film turning into GHOSTBUSTERS without the comedy.
Because of Covid-19, INSIDE OUT the LGBT film festival 2020 will take place largely vitally.Most of the films can be streamed to ones PC remotely for the price of an admission ticket.Most festivals including TIFF is done this way.A few firms can be seen in phyla theatres or in Drive-ins.
Go to the Inside Out website for full details as to how to access the films this year.
Capsule Reviews of Selected Inside Out Feature Films:
DRY WIND (VENTO SECO) (Brazil 2020) ** Directed by Daniel Nolasco
The dry wind of the title comes from the climate of the area around Catalan in Brazil's state of Goiás which is dry, very dry. The climate is reflected in the life of the film’s protagonist, a beard gay who works in the local fertilizer plant.Sandro’s life here is somewhat monotonous. He divides his days between the city club, work, soccer with friends and city parties.He has a purely sexual relationship with his colleague Ricardo.He always seems to be a bit of an outsider, not comfortable in his own skin, not really belonging. When Maicon, a man straight out of a Tom of Finland illustration, shows up in their small town and flirts with Ricardo, his burgeoning feelings of jealousy set a change in motion.DRY WIND is a pretty nasty movie, so if you do not have the stomach for very, very explicit sex scenes it is best to void this film that plays like a soft porn film.Nothing makes much sense in the story and it really does not matter.The sex scenes are erotic enough even if you do not like bears.
JUMP, DARLING (Canada 2020) ** Directed by Philip J. Connell
Nothing really new or insightful in the Inside Out opening movie JUMP, DARLING that moves like a limp.A rookie drag queen, reeling from a break-up, escapes to the country, where he finds his grandmother in steep decline yet desperate to avoid the local nursing home.The drag queen, Russell is played by Thomas Duplessie who was hired for the role for his two drag performances on video that that he had sent to the casting director.Acting-wise he delivers an ok performance, especially in the company of Hollywood legend and Oscar Winner Cloris Leachman (now at the age of 94) as the grandmother.The film contains two of Fishy Falters (Russells’’s drag name) performances which are not bad, but the lightning is pretty dim for what is supposed to be a breakout performances.The predictable story goes on as expected and the humour could have been better.
Trailer: (unavailable)
SHIVA BABY (USA/Canada 2020) ** Directed by Emma Seligman
Writer/director Seligman’s comedy of discomfort takes place during a shiva.A shiva is the time of mourning practiced by Jews following the funeral of a loved one, where comfort is brought to the grieving.Those below the age of 30 need not be involved in a shiva so it is rather strange that the protagonist focuses on twentysomething Danielle (Rachel Sennott) who attends the shiva.Danielle is a perennial student who’s been lying to her supportive but overbearing parents about her faltering academic career.Then again, she has a lot of secrets she’s keeping, including her relationship with an older man, Max (Danny Deferrari), who also gives her money.At the shiva, everything goes wrong for her, including losing her cell phone, the appearance of Max and his family at the shiva and the appearance also of her lesbian fling at the prom.The film is not that funny and discomfort comedies cause audiences to feel uneasy.The result is a discomforting film that generates few laughs or satisfaction despite the fact that the actors try quite hard to make it all work.
SPIRAL, an atmospheric horror film set in 1995 is a well-made original - a gay horror movie.And one in which of the gay couple, the black and not the white is the protagonist.It is ten years after a traumatic incident in which Malik is still haunted by his past.To start afresh, he and Aaron, with Aaron’s daughter Kayla, move to a small town. Initially, they are warmly greeted by the town’s residents, but soon Malik senses that something is wrong.His discomfort escalates when his new house is vandalized, and he begins having visions of hooded figures that are lurking in the dark. Director Harder ties in the gay element into the horror story.Malik initially thinks the problem was that the town was not ready for a gay couple, but the trouble lies deeper.SPIRAL is a bit of a slow burn, but the suspense is well built up.At its best, it feels like Roman Polanski’s ROSEMARY’S BABY, and its premise is totally believable, thanks to Harder’s meticulous handling of the material.
CINEFRANCO 2025
28th edition of Cinéfranco – More vibrant than ever!
The Grand Public Festival will be held from November 7 to 16, 2025, at the Carlton...
