ISSN 1717-9559
Keyword Category : Cinema(s) of Canada
Atom Egoyan Buster Keaton Canadian Cinema Cinematheque Quebecois David Cronenberg Denys Arcand Documentary Donigan Cumming Fantasia Festival New Media Francois Miron Guy Maddin Karim Hussain Larry Kent Leslie Nielsen Michael Crochetierre Michael Snow Mitch Davis Mockumentary NFB Paul Tana Peter Mettler Phil Hoffman Quebec Cinema Region Centrale Robin Schlaht Roshell Bissett Roy Cross Wavelength Wetfish World Film Festival
1.
A thematic and formal analysis of the environmental thread across a group of mainly low budget, independent horror films that showed at Fantasia 2007.
2.
An essay on the Soviet Science Fiction films which played at the 2007 Fantasia International Film Festival.
3.
An interview with Doug Harris, writer/director of the Canadian film Remembering Mel.
4.
An brief look back at the capital cost allowance period in Canadian cinema, which acts as an introduction to the interview with Doug Harris.
5.
An interview with Philippe Spurrell, director of the Canadian supernatural mystery, The Descendant (2007).
6.
Coverage of the 8th installment of the Calgary International Film Festival.
7.
An earnest, DIY account of a sighted creature in the New Orleans, Louisiana area.
8.
All too often film criticism takes itself too seriously. What if film criticism tried to be as entertaining as its product? Offscreen introduces 'Bran Stakhage's' new concept in film criticism: 'post-it' styled criticism which you could print out and stick on your kitchen fridge.
9.
In this essay, Brett Kashmere examines Ryan Tebo’s recent documentary Whoever Fights Monsters, a film which examines the nature of improvisational jazz through a unique approach to the filmmaking process itself.
11.
A review of the NFB's much anticipated DVD box set of Pierre Perrault's seminal Île-aux-Coudres trilogy.
12.
In-depth review of the Fantasia International Film Festival's first DVD release, a compilation of outstanding shorts shown at the festival over the past several years.
13.
An overview of Richard Kerr's multimedia installation, Industrie/Industry.
14.
The recent video work series of four 50-minute filmic essays by Québécois giant Jean Pierre Lefebvre is analyzed for its cultural and aesthetic depth.
15.
An introspective analysis of what happens when aesthetization meets the politically volatile subject of global capitalism.
16.
An interview with young filmmaker Julia Loktev on her controversial film about a female suicide bomber, Day Night Day Night.
17.
A report on the 2006 edition of the Festival of New Cinema in Montreal, with a preamble on the etiquette of big theatre experience in the era of the multiplex experience.
18.
An essay on Hakan Sahin's first two features, Mirror and Snow, studies on the psychological effects of living in geographical isolation.
19.
An interview with director, cast and select production people of the refreshingly original indie horror film, Shallow Ground.
20.
A look at how two recent documentaries on the slasher/stalker film signals a paradigm shift in the horror genre.
21.
A report on Fantasia Film Festival 2006, discussing issues related to form-content, style for style's sake, and short films featuring man eating cats.
22.
An interview with the director of Strange Circus and The Suicide Club, Sion Sono.
23.
A report on the 10th Year Anniversary of Fantasia, focusing on films featuring particularly nasty male pyschos.
24.
A review of François Miron's revisionist, Sapphic film noir, which imagines a world where women act like Humphrey Bogart and men are nervous, jittery and timid.
25.
An in-depth analysis of the representation of women in contemporary Iranian cinema.
26.
A somewhat irreverent, insightful analysis of two recent female-centered Iranian documentaries, The Ladies Room and Iranian Journey.
27.
An analysis of two recent documentaries exposing the social injustices of archaic law and custom in Israel and Central India: Sentenced to Marriage and Highway Courtesans.
28.
Review essay of Guy Maddin's The Saddest Music in the World which concentrates on issues of National and cultural identity.
29.
A review essay of Maddin's most recent docu-short on Roberto Rossellini.
31.
A cultural analysis of the Canadian comic phenomena of the Trailer Park Boys.
32.
A report on the 46th International Film Festival of Thessaloniki, Greece (TIFF, 18 – 27 November 2005).
33.
An overview of all the best of Canadian, American, and International cinema screened in Montreal during 2005.
34.
An in-depth interview with co-writer and co-director of the Canadian noirish horror film Eternal.
35.
An inside look at one of the more intriguing film festivals in North America, the Telluride Film Festival.
36.
An analysis of Werner Herzog's mockumentary Incident at Loch Ness
38.
An in-depth report on the Fantasia International film festival, with a focus on the Thai films, the shorts, and some impressive US films.
39.
Writer Randolph Jordan weaves through a thematic pattern of pregnancy/death/rebirth which left its mark on FanTasia 2005.
40.
Montreal's animator/filmmaker Rick Trembles interviews the living legend of fantastic cinema, stop-motion animator extraordinaire, Ray Harryhausen.
41.
An interview with the director of the indie reality-based melodrama (in the good sense) Firecracker.
42.
An interview with director Tomoko Matsunashi on her film The Way of the Director.
44.
An in-depth interview with Brazil's horror master Jose Mojica Marins.
45.
An in-depth essay on the 10th anniversary of Robert Lepage's impressive debut feature Le Confessional
46.
Revisiting a classic of Quebec cinema, La Petite Aurore, L’enfant Martyre.
47.
On the occasion of the launch of the NFB's DVD box set L’oeuvre documentaire intégrale de Denys Arcand 1962-1981, Isabelle Morissette meets with Denys Arcand on the subject of On est au coton and the influence that the documentary has had on his creative process.
48.
Interview with makers of the poetic science-fiction parable The City without Windows (La Dernière Voix).
49.
The evolution of Québécois popular hero IXE-13 from serial novel to film.
50.
Mondo film, ethnographic film, Mondo Cane, Russ Meyers
51.
An analysis of two classic Cuban shorts, one pre (??El Megano??) and one post-Revolution (??La primena oaroa al machete??).
53.
These three documentaries, which adopt a “biographical” approach with their singular characters, present images of people who are at once ordinary and extraordinary, who through their tenacity and resilience are elevated to the status of myth.
54.
“Twist” makes an interesting companion piece to another recent Canadian film by director Tim Southam, “The Bay of Love and Sorrow” (2002). Unlike Tierney, for whom “Twist” represents his first feature film, Southam comes to “The Bay” with a more varied and experienced background.
55.
Fortunately in Aotearoa, we have the New Zealand International Film Festival not only to break up the slate of gray scheduled every year from June through August, but also to give us some food for thought about what kind of future we’re setting ourselves up for in the next few hundred years.
56.
Masterclass! short film workshops with UK writer/director/actor/educator Simon van der Borgh and US short film guru Kim Adelman.
57.
As I said in my most recent Fantasia International Film festival report, the director of “Bottled Fool”, Hiroki Yamaguchi, is a good bet to become the next big thing out of Japan. After making a prize winning short in 1999 at the age of 21 (“Shinya Zoki”/“Midnight Viscera”) he soon completed his first feature film in the same year, “Hateshinai tameiki” (1999).
58.
On the occasion of Fuon (The Crying Wind, Japan, 2004, 106 mins.) showing in competition at the 2004 Festival des Films du Monde (World Film Festival), in Montreal, the director of the film, Higashi Yoichi, along with principal actor, Uema Muneo, and Yamagami Tetsujiro, the film’s producer were interviewed by Peter Rist for Offscreen.
59.
Review of Maddin's latest film within the broader context of recent Canadian cinema and its reception in the United States.
60.
Along with Totaro's essay, this forms an in-depth introduction to the films of Guy Maddin.
61.
An analytical peek into the twisted world of Guy Maddin.
62.
Michael Vesia's report on the debut of Montreal's Italian Film Festival.
64.
An in-depth analysis of the representation of men and race across several varied recent films.
65.
I was fortunate to catch this low budget chiller at a late night screening at Montreal’s Cinema du Parc theatre on April 23, 2004. It had been a long time since I had seen this film, but for reasons soon apparent, it has remained finely etched in my memory.
66.
This interview, following the recent completion of his first film, will give us an insider view into the American independent cinema and a chance to better grasp the concept of ‘indie’ cinema.
67.
Part-two of Fantasia Festival report.
68.
Fantasia is back after a one year hiatus, stonger than ever.
69.
An impromptu three-way discussion on one of the most talked about documentary films ever.
70.
A Mäori proverb says you spend your life walking backwards because you can see the past but not the future—that’s why we trip.
71.
Hundreds of directors, producers, distributors, commissioners and others from all corners of the documentary industry from all corners of the world descended on Fremantle Western Australia for this year’s Australian International Documentary Conference (26-28 February). Sándor Lau dives into the belly of the beast in search of its soul.
72.
Analysis of Canadian filmmaker Phil Hoffman's poetic treatment of autobiography and aesthetics in Passing Through/Torn Formations.
74.
In this essay Garrett asks of himself: “What is a minor work of art, and what a major one? How do the perceptions about the social value of characters in film translate into one’s estimation of a film’s importance?” These are questions that occur when Garrett views two films focusing on Native Americans, Randy Redroad’s Haircuts Hurt and Norma Bailey’s Cowboys and Indians: The J.J. Harper Story, and then sees Denys Arcand’s The Barbarian Invasions.
75.
A report on the 4th Calgary International Film Festival.
76.
Writer Rist concentrates on the Asian offerings at the 27th edition of the WFF.
77.
Randolph Jordan stretches his writer's arms in his two-part Fantasia 2003 report, using part one to reflect on cult cinema spectatorship.
78.
Jordan uses part two of his report as an extended mediation on Fantasia (and Jordan) favorite Takashi Miike.
80.
The long wait is over. After a one year hiatus for economic and logistical reasons, the FanTasia International Film Festival is back (July 17-August 10, 2003).
81.
By Brett Kashmere and Astria Suparak following the Stan Brakhage Benefit Concert featuring Sonic Youth, Anthology Film Archives, NYC April 12, 2003.
83.
