A program of shorts and features organized by Beth B for the International Film Festival Rotterdam examines issues of conformity among women, challenges gender stereotypes, and advocates for female agency.
Forrest Cardamenis
Forrest Cardamenis is a critic and film programmer living in Queens, New York. He received an M.A. in Film Studies from New York University, and has written for MUBI Notebook, The Brooklyn Rail, and The Village Voice, among others. Find him on Twitter.
Posted inFilm
Rotterdam’s International Film Festival Highlights Communism, Unionism, and Environmentalism
The documentaries at this year’s edition tell stories of World War II spies, activists fighting deforestation, Czech political corruption, and more.
Posted inFilm
Shining the Spotlight on a Broader Swath of Korean Cinema
“Korean Cinema” often refers primarily to celebrated auteurs like Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho. A new series at Film at Lincoln Center offers a 21-film corrective, illuminating the wide range of contemporaneous production in South Korea.
Posted inFilm
Healing a Father-Daughter Bond Against the Backdrop of the Troubles
In Trouble, after learning that parts of a BBC documentary about her father were faked, Mariah Garnett sets out not to correct the record, but to play with it.
Posted inFilm
How One Family’s Story Shapes Our Understanding of 20th-Century Germany
With Heimat Is a Space in Time, Thomas Heise explores how personal experience shapes the “objective” past.
Posted inFilm
When Stranger Fictions Reveal More Prescient Truths
In eschewing claims to an unmediated reality, Synonyms reveals truths about French society often masked by reality itself, while Young Ahmed obscures crucial systemic injustices in Belgium under the guise of realism.
Posted inFilm
The Horrors of Coming of Age
In his latest film, Zombi Child, Bertrand Bonello complements his usual emphasis on aesthetics with an insightful critique of colonialism and the contradictions of liberalism.
Posted inFilm
A Sly Noir Film Offers a Critique of Chinese Capitalism
The Wild Goose Lake is the latest Chinese crime film to smuggle a critique of the country’s inequality, surveillance, and the police state under the guise of genre.
Posted inArt
What the “Can You Pet the Dog?” Test Reveals About Modern Video Games
Across social media, various players love to test game realism. What do the limits of this realism say about the future of the medium?
Posted inFilm
Julia Reichert’s 50 Years of Challenging the Status Quo
A retrospective series at the Museum of Modern Art is putting a spotlight on the veteran documentarian.
