REVIEWS
Post-film thoughts.
Memories of a Forest: Family Trees
Literalized through the titular forest, Memories of a Forest is a story of roots and generations—the stories we know of the people who came before us, cycles of trauma and societal expectation, the precarious choice between tradition and forging your own path. Inspired by real experiences, and filmed with an almost documentary-like sensibility, using real forests and some non-actors, Katharina Rabl takes a relatively simple story and injects it with surprising complexity.
Vintage Violence: Doing it for the Views
Seemingly fascinated with the intersection of performance and reality, Vintage Violence is one of the few entries in recent years that feels truly entrenched in online culture. Kotlyarenko approaches the subject not with an intention of warning, but an understanding that the online world is part of our reality just as anything else. Every detail, down to the individual users in Carter’s livestream chat, feel deeply human and all too real.
Rehearsals for a Revolution: For the Hope of it All
Using video and audio recordings, newspapers, photographs and archive footage, Ahangarani reconstructs moments where her country experienced significant turning points. This grand narrative is told through the eyes and words of a child, then a young girl, and finally, a woman who is forced to “watch” her homeland from afar while living in another country.
Furies: Taking it Back
Unlike other heist films, where the thief’s motive is one of vengeance, greed, or ego, the motives of the thieves in Furies are rooted in justice and reclamation. It is not the desperation of having nothing that drives these characters to rob the bank, but the knowledge that their own property is being kept from them.
River: Terror Downstream
The story of the film itself is nothing to write home about, but really, who is watching a slasher for a hero’s journey? We’re all here for the thrills, and River delivers.
La Gradiva: Always Forever
Versions of these teenagers existed centuries before they were ever born, they exist now as they are, and they will continue to be reincarnated as the centuries go by, worrying about the same things, stressed about school, trying to fit in with their peers, wondering who they are or where they come from.
Love is the Monster: Abuela in Action
The tug-of-war between Abuela and her daughter is one of the biggest ways Love is the Monster drives the narrative forward. García and Regidor portray this friction intensely and authentically. Some days, they are civil. Others, they quarrel over how to best take care of the grandchild. The heat to their performance is felt beyond the screen.
Stuffed: Still Life
Melling and Comer prove themselves as all-rounders in both their acting and singing abilities, the film almost entirely a two-person show, while Rhys establishes his filmmaking talent. The journey he takes the viewer on is one of accepting both life and death. Stuffed is about love as preservation. It is looking at preserving not only the body, but the human spirit as well.
Fjord: The Forgiving Cold
The film follows Lisbet and Mihai’s struggle to prove their innocence and maintain their traditional, conservative values when faced with a system that they feel is out to get them. It asks the audience to sympathize with a family we may disagree with, and forces us to confront our own biases and beliefs—but not always in the film’s favour.
Where the River Begins: The Jungle Decides
Juan Andrés Arango’s third feature film captures an incredibly personal and honest story led by amazing non-professional actors, making the raw emotion that much more impressive. Each scene feels naturalistic and quietly beautiful, letting the viewer immerse themselves in the lives of the characters and, as a result, root for Yajaira and María from the get-go.