Our Picks + Waves

This week we are joined by Matt Howsam, a production coordinator in the VFX industry and a film critic.

We mention the hilarious and highly original One Cut Of The Dead by Shin’ichirô Ueda, a Japanese Zombie comedy in the style of some of the best mockumentaries out there and a homage to low budget filmmaking. Depending on where you are you can watch it on Shudder or buy the DVD (it’s from 2017). Abla also highlights the Netflix series Unwell, which looks at the dark side of the wellness industry and some of the products and concepts currently being flogged on the market through - yet again - more MLM initiatives. 

For our festival picks, this week we recommend Visionmaker’s Indigenous Filmmakers Festival, which runs from 31 August to 5 October, the Encounters Short Film Festival, one of the world’s best short ff, which runs from 18 September to 11 October and is offering a £10 pass! A few films to highlight are Mahdi Fleifel’s 3 Logical Exits, Clermont-Ferrand Grand Prize winner Anthony Nti’s Da Yie and Morad Mostapha’s Henet Ward.

Matt recommends Women Make Films, a 14-hour doc series, and the Japanese cinema season, both on BFI Player. 

Matt chose to discuss Trey Edward Shults’s Waves, a dizzying and theatrical film about a family dealing with the aftermath of a tragedy. We discuss the highly cinematic and aesthetic qualities of the film, the impact that has on the emotional punch of the story and the portrayal of the characters, and the somewhat problematic or baffling portrayal of family dynamics that are very personal to the (white) director through the prism of a black family.