ISSN 1717-9559
Keyword Category : Non-Fiction Cinema
Annabel Chong Avant Garde Bill Morrison Brothers Quay Canadian Cinema Cuban Cinema Denys Arcand Documentary Donigan Cumming Experimental Feminism Festival New Media Found Footage Cinema Francois Miron Guido Hendericks Jonas Mekas Kenneth Anger Kurt Kren Mara Mattuschka Maya Deren Michael Moore Michael Snow Mockumentary Music Mutek Nelson Henricks NFB Okuzaki Kenzo Peter Jackson Peter Kubelka Peter Mettler Peter Tscherkassky Phil Hoffman Region Centrale Robert Frank Stan Brakhage Su Friedrich Valerie Export Wavelength
1.
An interview with Doug Harris, writer/director of the Canadian film Remembering Mel.
2.
An brief look back at the capital cost allowance period in Canadian cinema, which acts as an introduction to the interview with Doug Harris.
3.
An interview with Philippe Spurrell, director of the Canadian supernatural mystery, The Descendant (2007).
4.
Coverage of the 8th installment of the Calgary International Film Festival.
6.
An earnest, DIY account of a sighted creature in the New Orleans, Louisiana area.
7.
An interview with the indie masters of camp aesthetics and underground trash (in the best term), the Kuchar bros.
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 the first essay of this issue to eschew considerations specific to audiovisual relationships, Jonathan Sterne nevertheless continues with the more general theme of blurred boundaries by considering the hybridization of media technologies and musical instruments that we have become so used to in today’s world of basement recording studios and stadium DJ concerts.
10.
This essay serves as the point of transition between the two general sections of this edition of Offscreen: Sound in the Cinema and Beyond.
11.
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.
12.
This piece centers upon a discussion with Hildegard Westerkamp about the use of her soundscape compositions in the films of Gus Van Sant.
15.
In this survey some of Offscreen's regular contributors speak their mind on cinema of the last ten years. Offscreen would like to thank the valuable contribution of its many writers. To note the obvious, Offscreen would not be where it is today if not for them.
16.
Author Krystle Doromal compares the on/off-screen personas of two Asian American actresses from different eras, Ann May Wong and Lucy Lui. Doromal argues that, while being typecast, these two actresses have also challenged the sterotypical images of Asian Americans in their own different ways.
17.
A review of the NFB's much anticipated DVD box set of Pierre Perrault's seminal Île-aux-Coudres trilogy.
18.
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.
19.
In-depth review of the three short film DVDs from Cinema 16, with volumes dedicated to British, American and European cinema. Includes early short films by Ridley Scott, Asif Kapadia, Lynne Ramsey, Christopher Nolan, DA Pennebaker, Tim Burton, Todd Solondz, Jean-Luc Godard, Tom Tykwer, and Lars von Trier.
20.
An historical contextualisation of Santiago Álvarez' bold political/experimental short films.
21.
An overview of Richard Kerr's multimedia installation, Industrie/Industry.
22.
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.
23.
An introspective analysis of what happens when aesthetization meets the politically volatile subject of global capitalism.
24.
An interview with young filmmaker Julia Loktev on her controversial film about a female suicide bomber, Day Night Day Night.
25.
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.
26.
An essay on Hakan Sahin's first two features, Mirror and Snow, studies on the psychological effects of living in geographical isolation.
27.
A look at how two recent documentaries on the slasher/stalker film signals a paradigm shift in the horror genre.
28.
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.
29.
A philosophical analysis of Catherine Breillat's controversial Anatomy of Hell.
30.
An in-depth analysis of the representation of women in contemporary Iranian cinema.
31.
A somewhat irreverent, insightful analysis of two recent female-centered Iranian documentaries, The Ladies Room and Iranian Journey.
32.
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.
33.
A tribute to the great Italian actresses Alida Valli, who passed away April 22, 2006.
34.
An analysis of how Jane Campion negotiates the conventions of the sex-noir thriller with more auteurist designs exploring female sexual desire and 'art film' aesthetics.
35.
An idiosyncratic look at contemporary thought filtered through popular art, literature, film, and philosophy.
36.
Part 2 of Peter Rist's look at classic Cuban cinema. A formal and cultural analysis of the short and medium length films of Cuban director Humberto Solas.
37.
An idiosyncratic look at contemporary thought filtered through popular art, literature, film, and philosophy.
38.
Review essay of Guy Maddin's The Saddest Music in the World which concentrates on issues of National and cultural identity.
39.
A review essay of Maddin's most recent docu-short on Roberto Rossellini.
41.
A cultural analysis of the Canadian comic phenomena of the Trailer Park Boys.
42.
A review of Austrian experimental/avant-garde films on a DVD collection produced by Index.
43.
An review essay of the compilation DVD from Index, Sonic Fiction: Synaesthetic Videos from Austria.
44.
An interview with the seminal figure in structural cinema, Peter Kubelka.
45.
An analysis of the recent Index DVD compilation of Austrian experimental director Peter Tscherkassky.
46.
A review of Austrian experimental/avant-garde films on a DVD collection produced by Index.
47.
An in-depth interview with co-writer and co-director of the Canadian noirish horror film Eternal.
48.
An inside look at one of the more intriguing film festivals in North America, the Telluride Film Festival.
49.
An analysis of Werner Herzog's mockumentary Incident at Loch Ness
52.
An in-depth essay on the 10th anniversary of Robert Lepage's impressive debut feature Le Confessional
53.
Revisiting a classic of Quebec cinema, La Petite Aurore, L’enfant Martyre.
54.
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.
55.
Interview with makers of the poetic science-fiction parable The City without Windows (La Dernière Voix).
56.
The evolution of Québécois popular hero IXE-13 from serial novel to film.
57.
Mondo film, ethnographic film, Mondo Cane, Russ Meyers
58.
An analysis of two classic Cuban shorts, one pre (??El Megano??) and one post-Revolution (??La primena oaroa al machete??).
61.
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.
62.
“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.
63.
Recent films of New York filmmaker Bill Morrison have been concerned with the particular struggle between film and its material medium. There is a conflict between the image and matter which ruins the narrative of the original, twisted by the gnawing power of time, but which at the same time produces a paradoxical tale of ruins, born out of this double resistance of the filmic image and its material.
64.
The fact that Decasia (USA, Bill Morrison, 2002) has had many screenings at an equal amount of very diverse feature and documentary film festivals is testament to its slippery nature.
65.
This essay is a response to having seen a two programme retrospective of Bill Morrison’s work on April 28 and April 29, 2004 at La Cinémathèque Québécoise.
66.
It is during the retrospective of his work that was held in Montreal, on April 28-29 2004, at the Cinémathèque québécoise, that New York filmmaker Bill Morrison gave us this long interview, in which he discusses his background, his career, and certain essential features of his artistic and intellectual process, dwelling on issues concerning new technologies, the memory of the film material and the historicity of the filmic medium.
67.
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.
68.
Masterclass! short film workshops with UK writer/director/actor/educator Simon van der Borgh and US short film guru Kim Adelman.
69.
A Bleak Heroism of Images: “Woman, Thou Art Loosed” by Michael Schultz and “Moolaade” by Ousmane Sembene.
70.
Review of Maddin's latest film within the broader context of recent Canadian cinema and its reception in the United States.
71.
Along with Totaro's essay, this forms an in-depth introduction to the films of Guy Maddin.
72.
An analytical peek into the twisted world of Guy Maddin.
73.
Michael Vesia's report on the debut of Montreal's Italian Film Festival.
75.
An in-depth analysis of the representation of men and race across several varied recent films.
76.
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.
77.
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.
78.
An impromptu three-way discussion on one of the most talked about documentary films ever.
79.
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.
80.
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.
81.
Analysis of Canadian filmmaker Phil Hoffman