Speaking to Athina Rachel Tsangari—Winner of the Best Feature award at the 2015 BFI London Film Festival
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Tag: london film festival
Shame (2011) Review
First published on Spike Magazine (16th January 2012) //
Steve McQueen’s second feature is a visually arresting, thematically dense piece of cinema, that may, and probably will, prove to be an important film in years to come. That is, if enough people get to see it. Having been cursed with a NC-17 rating in the US and a limited release in the UK, it seems those it may have been intended for will be largely unaware of its arrival.
Azazel Jacobs Interview (in full)
First published on The Rumpus (21st November 2011) //
A New York transplant working in LA, and son of the legendary experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs, Azazel has journeyed steadily through the independent film scene since his debut in 2003 with Nobody Needs to Know.
He arrived this year with Terri, his biggest feature yet, a droll and unsentimental portrait of a pyjama-wearing teenager, played by newcomer Jacob Wysocki. Carer for his ageing uncle (an impressive by Creed Bratton), Terri must also deal with high school, the assistant principal (John C. Reilly) and generally growing up. A well-documented fan of The Clash (he appears unofficially in the Strummer biography, The Future Is Unwritten), Jacobs once said that he wished all of his interviews were about the band. We sat down for a chat about both.
Abel (2010) Review
First published on Snipe for London Film Festival 2010 //
Here’s one: a heartfelt directorial debut from Mexican actor Diego Luna, about a young boy who has this mental condition where he thinks he’s his dad, so he comes home from the hospital and orders his family about, checks their homework, meets their boyfriends for approval and such like. Sounds funny? It’s all right.
Conviction (2010) Review
First published on Snipe for London Film Festival 2010 //
Conviction is a sickly and cynical bit of force-fed fluff, masquerading as serious drama as it squeezes all life out of its once-dignified story, dragging it through the shit heap of Hollywood to exploit its working-class subjects with predictable execution. Not the first, and not the last time this will happen.
Blue Valentine (2010) Review
First published on Snipe for London Film Festival 2010 //
If you’ve happened upon any of the interviews with director and co-writer Derek Cianfrance talking about his 12-year project, Blue Valentine, you’ll notice there’s a through-line to all of them. As wearied as his two main characters become of each other, Cianfrance, in his routine exchanges with the press, generally refers to his film as a ‘duet’. Probably because that’s the perfect way to describe it.
127 Hours (2010) Review
First published on Snipe for London Film Festival 2010 //
… in which Danny Boyle gussies up the true story of Aron Ralston, adrenalin fiend and extreme sports enthusiast, who got himself stuck under a rock for 5 and a bit days.
Never Let Me Go (2010) Review
First published on Snipe for London Film Festival 2010 //
Director Mark Romanek
Country UK
In 1952, the breakthrough came. All disease and illness were cured, all disability wiped out. By the 1960s, age expectancy reached over 100 years.
This is the opener for Never Let Me Go, a love-triangular pseudo-sci-fi-drama in which mankind undergoes the dystopian treatment in an alternative history, where science and technology have made the simultaneous leap to put an end to all (physical) human suffering. This, we are shown, is achieved through harvesting body parts and vital organs, taken from mild-mannered clones, to transplant into and onto the broken bodies of the higher strata of society. By now you could be tempted to think Brave New World or possibly Gattaca, and ponder that we might already be well-acquainted with this plot.
The American (2010) Review
First published on Snipe for London Film Festival 2010 //
Taking his cues equally from both classic European literature and Continental cinema, Anton Corbijn delivers his latest, The American, a film certain to divide audiences down the middle.
Self Made (2010) Review
First published on Snipe for London Film Festival 2010 //
Director Gillian Wearing
Country UK
Gillian Wearing has a history of getting people on camera and making them open up. In the 1990s she did it with a series of videos asking people to “Confess all on video”, people who responded to an advert she placed in Time Out. Now she is doing it with a group of people, the focus still on individuals and their pasts, but in feature length documentary form. The result is an anaemic piece of work, simultaneously annoying and manipulative.
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