The Future Tense – DIFF Part 2

Review by James Mahon The Future Tense ( Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, 2022) should not work cinematically. As a video essay format it seems more suited to a YouTube or Podcast platform in the tradition of Joe Rogan et al. Yet definitely unlike a Joe Rogan podcast, The Future Tense not only works, butContinue reading “The Future Tense – DIFF Part 2”

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom

Review by Chiara Gregor Writer and director Pawo Choyning Dorji’s debut feature-film Lunana – a Yak in the Classroom (2019) was submitted to the Oscars for Best International Feature not once but twice; so it must have surprised both the Bhutanese as well as the international audiences when it was included in the nominations theContinue reading “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom”

New Normal – DIFF Part 1

Review by Ines Murray Gomez New Normal (Jung Bum-shik, 2022) is a collection of interconnected short films that take place within the span of a few days in Seoul. They all contain some degree of social commentary on a variety of topics, primarily the naive over-reliance on technology of South Korean culture and primarily youngContinue reading “New Normal – DIFF Part 1”

Bus Girl

Review by Cat Earley Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022, Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert) broke the critical mile across multiple modes when it first premiered at South by Southwest last year; open themes of depression that engage, rather than clash, with an equally open silliness that permeates the narrative and makes its message moreContinue reading “Bus Girl”

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Review by Leah Kelly Announced in 2008, Guillermo Del Toro’s passion project Pinocchio (2022) was certainly worth the wait. Based on Carlo Collidini’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, it reimagines the classic story set to the backdrop of Mussolini’s Italy. Del Toro was struck by the similarities between Pinocchio and Frankenstein – someone is created andContinue reading “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”

All The Beauty and The Bloodshed

Review by Inés Murray Gómez The Sacklers are the billionaire family behind Purdue Pharma, which has come under fire in the last few decades for their historically predatory marketing of the opioid OxyContin. Activists and experts alike consider that their campaigns led to overprescription which significantly contributed to the opioid crisis that has ruined theContinue reading “All The Beauty and The Bloodshed”

Decision to Leave

Review by James Mahon Bong Joon Ho’s Oscar winning film Parasite (2019) was a landmark event for both South Korean and international cinema in general, disabusing audiences entirely of – as Joon Ho rightly put it – “the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles.” Less than three years later, and once again emerging from the endless poolContinue reading “Decision to Leave”