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Features
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Q&A with Andrea Brusa and Marco Scotuzzi, directors of Le Voci Sole (Lonely Voices)
18 April 2022, by Mydylarama team
Following a spate of successful shorts - the excellent Magic Alps caught our attention at Clermont-Ferrand - Italian filmmaking duo Andrea Brusa and Marco Scotuzzi, and regular collaborator producer Andrea Italia, are back, this time with their first feature film, which is currently touring festivals.
We talk to Andrea Brusa about Le Voci Sole (Lonely Voices):
One family’s life goes haywire at the start of the pandemic as the matriarch-now without her steady housekeeper (...)
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THE CHARM OF THE SWARM - WORLD WIDE WIKIPEDIA
13 March 2022, by Louis Christie
The internet giant Wikipedia just turned 20. We take a look at its background and the future of the online encyclopaedia. Louis Christie reviews Maria Teresa Curzio 2021’s documentary.
Now in its third decade, Wikipedia faces some complex questions. What role can robots play in writing and regulating articles? Can automated translation help save indigenous languages? What are the implications for an online encyclopaedia when nine in ten contributors are men? In a world where data is the (...)
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Nomadland take 2: A reconfiguration of a terribly dysfunctional society.
3 April 2021, by George Crosthwait
In 2011 the USG mine in Empire Nevada closed, effectively creating a ghost town. Caught in the wake of this collapse, Fern (Frances McDormand) has lost her job, her home and is reeling from her husband’s recent passing. Fern becomes part of the disparate and transient “nomad” community. The nomads are usually older, often solitary, Americans living on the road in cars, vans, and mobile homes, following seasonal work and forming short term convoys.
“What the nomads are doing is not that (...)
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Nomadland: A Romanticisation Of Misery?
21 March 2021, by Kaveh Abbasian
In Chloé Zhao’s 2020 docu-fiction, Frances McDormand plays a woman in her sixties whose financial circumstances force her out of her home and into a life on the road, roaming the country in a camper van in search of temporary work.
Nomadland (2020) is a romanticisation of misery. And for that reason, it is going to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. In an era where hopelessness is the norm and anxiety about our bleak future is prevalent among most of us, cultural productions such as (...)
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Pick of IFFR: Sexual Drive, directed by Yoshida Kota
19 February 2021, by Tommy Hodgson
International Film Festival Rotterdam had some dazzling pieces in its programme this year, but Sexual Drive seriously stands out in its ambition and creative execution. Japanese director Yoshida Kota’s odd but undeniably endearing film is triumphant in illustrating the intimate link between food and sex, at the sweaty intersection of lust and repressed desires. Sexual Drive is a striking piece in that the plot is three separate vignettes, all involving a seemingly sudden and dramatic (...)
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The Viewing Booth - Ra’anan Alexandrowicz’s thought experiment
28 January 2021, by Abla Kandalaft
In a lab-like location, Maia Levy, a young Jewish American woman, watches videos portraying life in the occupied West Bank, while verbalizing her thoughts and feelings in real time.
Director Alexandrowicz once again explores and denounces the injustices faced by Palestinians living under occupation this time in a clever experimental process whereby he aims to capture the viewer’s emotional and verbal responses to a series of videos - many of them shot by Jerusalem-based human rights NGO (...)
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Mank: David Fincher’s Xanadu
17 December 2020, by George Crosthwait
Something is troubling David Fincher. Despite his multiple Oscar nominations, the consistent box office returns that keep the studios purring, and the cult fandom generated by his dark and twisty thrillers, something is gnawing at him. He hasn’t done his “Hollywood” picture. And really, how do you expect to be taken seriously as a white male American auteur without a handsome and lightly satirical peek behind the soundstage. Look around you. Scorsese has made Aviator, Tarantino has Once (...)
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Caveat - A strong horror debut by Damian McCarthy
23 November 2020, by Abla Kandalaft
A lone drifter suffering from partial memory loss accepts a job to look after a psychologically troubled woman in an abandoned house on an isolated island.
I took a punt on this offering whilst browsing this year’s [Leeds International Film Festival->https://www.leedsfilm.com/whats-on/caveat output. As usual, the programming was first-class but I usually make it my priority to hone in on entries that come under "horror". It’s no mean feat for a film to surprise and scare me given how (...)
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Eternal Beauty : A Bold Representation of Mental Illness That Goes Beyond Dark Comedy
9 October 2020, by Benjamin Hollis
Craig Roberts’ « Eternal Beauty » is a bold representation of mental illness that breaks with cinematic tradition, adding a rare level of nuance and compassion to an often misrepresented topic. Sally Hawkins stars as Jane, an isolated woman struggling with depression, schizophrenia and an at times toxic environment - 80s English suburbia. A chance encounter and whirlwind relationship with fellow patient Mike (David Thewlis) appears to grant her a new lifeline but instead serves only to (...)
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Guest pick of the week: Suburra - Blood Of Rome
18 May 2020, by Radhika Aggarwal Bassignani
Recently, I have become addicted to the Italian Netflix series Suburra: Blood on Rome.
As a fan of Gomorrah, I met this series with trepidation, wondering if this Roman ’gangster show’ would be a shadow to its Neopolitan counterpart. How wrong I was! It is a compelling exploration of Roman society, and the real-life events of the Mafia Capitale investigation which culminated in 2014.
On the surface, Suburra navigates the intertwining interests of the various factions competing for (...)