Browsing: CinéEqual

Over the course of the month of February, the Bundy Museum of History and Art will be hosting a social justice film series, sponsored by the Broome-Tioga Green Party at the Bundy Museum Annex. The films being shown are “Requiem for the American Dream” on Feb. 7, “Frederick Douglass and the White Negro” on Feb. 14, “Sorry to Bother You” on Feb. 20 and “Trudell” on Feb. 28. The Broome-Tioga Green Party is a chapter of the Green Party of New York. The Green Party, largely a left-wing group, selects films that provoke questions relevant to their causes such as…

Oscar Live Action Short nominee, SKIN starts in a small supermarket in a blue-collar town, a black man smiles at a 10-year-old white boy across the checkout aisle. This innocuous moment sends two gangs into a ruthless war that ends with a shocking backlash. Guy Nattiv, director of SKIN is an acclaimed filmmaker from Israel. His first American feature film, entitled “SKIN“, stars Jamie Bell and Vera Farmiga and premiered at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival where it won the Fipresci Critic’s Prize. It will make its European premiere in 2019 at The Berlin International Film Festival and was…

The 69th Berlin International Film Festival is set to begin this week, on February 7, 2019, and will last for ten days until February 17. The Berlinale is one of the major events of the year in European cinema, along with Cannes and Venice. The festival hosts the European Film Market, which is the world’s second-largest film market. This year the Berlinale sets itself apart from other festivals, and, in fact, award ceremonies, as it will showcase a good proportion of films directed by women.  While the Academy Awards decided to nominate no women in the categories of Best Film…

A look at the docs competing in the World Cinema selection at Sundance 2019, with topics including the impeachment of former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, and a family fleeing the Taliban. Advocate (Isr-Can-Switz) Dirs. Rachel Leah Jones, Philippe Bellaiche Advocate profiles veteran Israeli human-rights lawyer Lea Tsemel as she defends a minor accused of attempted murder, and reflects on a past case in which she defended her activist husband from a charge of treason against the state. Co-director Jones previously played in Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary competition with her 2012 film Gypsy Davy, on which Bellaiche — here making his…

Two women of different generations are involved in a traditional ceremony, preparing the younger woman for something. This is how Birds of Passage (Pájaros de verano) starts—Colombia’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film in Oscar that has made it to the shortlist. Soon, we find out that the young woman (Zaida) has officially become a woman and her mother (Úrsula) is making her ready for the announcement and taking a man. Rapayet, from another family, asks for her hand, but two issues work as barriers for him: one, his family, that is considered lower than Zaida’s, and second, money, to…

The Bafta-nominated composer of If Beale Street Could Talk said the growing diversity in Hollywood “is one of the most powerful and exciting things that’s happening in film today”. Nicholas Britell wrote the score for Barry Jenkins’s drama, which tells the story of a young African American mother-to-be desperately trying to clear her partner’s name after he is wrongly charged. On Tuesday, Britell was nominated for a Bafta for best original music for his work on the film, in a category also containing Spike Lee’s white supremacist tale BlacKkKlansman. If Beale Street Could Talk director Barry Jenkins has been nominated for…

This year, the UCLA Institute of American Cultures and its four ethnic studies centers — American Indian Studies Center, Asian American Studies Center, Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, and Chicano Studies Research Center — are celebrating five decades of increasing understanding of the changing social and cultural realities in America. The yearlong celebration will open with a film festival on Feb. 1, featuring thought-provoking and entertaining films made by UCLA alumni that tackle cultural and social justice issues from unique perspectives. Q&A sessions with the films’ writers, directors and producers will follow, and participants are welcome to enjoy ethnic food, entertainment…

It was the most politicized movie year since World War II. Hollywood confused propaganda with entertainment, and film goers were offered little choice between indoctrination and discovery. The only great films were the re-releases of Visconti’s 1973 Ludwig and Cocteau’s 1949 Les Parents Terribles, beacons from a more stable past. The Visconti was visually lavish and psychologically penetrating, an empathic look at the Bavarian King whose personal aspirations contrasted the political dictates of his social position — a surprisingly timely epic about private ethics. The Cocteau, an ingenious domestic farce, traced the young generation’s foundering to the selfish folly of its immediate forebears…

In A MOMENT IN THE REEDS, having moved to Paris for university, Leevi returns to his native Finland for the summer to help his estranged father renovate the family lake house so it can be sold. Tareq, a recent asylum seeker from Syria, has been hired to help with the work, and when Leevi’s father must return to town on business, the two young men fall in love and spend a few days discovering one another during the Finnish midsummer. The following is Cinema Without Borders interview with Mikko Makela, director of A MOMENT IN THE REEDS. Mikko Makela is…

ICEBOX, a HBO film, written and directed by Daniel Sawka will be aired on Friday December 7th at HBO. ICEBOX tells the story of Óscar, played by Anthony Gonzalez (“Coco”), a 12-year-old Honduran boy who is forced to flee his home and seek asylum in the United States, only to find himself trapped in the U.S. immigration system. At Cinema Without Borders, we had the opportunity of interviewing Daniel Sawka on camera about making of the ICEBOX. https://vimeo.com/304885244 “I have seldom seen a movie so of the moment – it’s almost reportage,” said Amato. “ICEBOX gives viewers not only an opportunity…