Sewing a Nightmare - Review
“Sometimes when you're scared to take a look
at the corner of the room
You've sensed that something's watching you....”
These verses of a famous song by Iron Maiden definitely resume the atmosphere of Sewing a Nightmare, a film directed by Louise Mason that puts the viewer in front of a noir thriller where a young tailor suffers the cumbersome presence of an entity that begins to persecute her day and night.
Moving blankets, strange phone calls, the feeling of being watched or followed.
Tension is constant, as much as anxiety and apprehension.
Editing and sound work perfectly well and increase the suspense that hovers in every internal or external scene. Louise Mason, also protagonist of the film, demonstrates a naturalness and naivety that undoubtedly amplify the sense of mystery and terror that make the film a pleasant surprise.
Our Ladies - Review
The ways of the Lord can be extremely surprising...
Our Ladies, written, directed and produced by Valdemir Milani, is a delightful comedy that with grace and simplicity demonstrates how friendship and love are the real cure for a lost soul who cannot escape the dark place into which it has fallen.
Amelia (Rosamaria Murtinho) and Odete (Regina Vogue), worried about the bad depression that afflicts their sister Cida (Aracy Pedrozo), decide to take her on a mystical journey.
Hope and faith accompanies them but in the car there is also Fael (Diego Avelleda), a young man with an angelic and reliable appearance who acts as their driver and helper.
Carefree and entertaining, Milani's direction offers us a return to life, to youth, to joy and pleasure. A film that leaves you with a smile on your face and with a beautiful melody in your ears thanks to the music of Rolf Lovland, performed by the band Secret Garden
Maybe it's really true that angels are among us... you just need to call them!
Asherah's colours - Review
“Young hearts, run free…” like the pages of this beautiful script written by Gary Mazeffa.
Asherah’s colors is a carefree love story between Raphael, a young and naive French exchange student, and the beautiful and charismatic Asherah, a spanish American girl.
Together with them we breathe the joy of the first date, the shyness of the first glances, the words spoken with fear, the restrained desire to touch each other, to kiss each other...but above all the desire to amaze and make happy the person we are with.
The entire script revolves around Asherah's love for impressionist art and Raphael who, in order to make her happy, takes her to meet his grandfather Gene Duaiv: a French American impressionist artist and her wife Magella, a former ballet dancer.
The artist's atelier will be the stage of a memorable dinner where The two couples begin to know a little more about each other; from this moment on love and art become the same thing.
The colors mix with emotions, the drawings come to life, romanticism becomes a fundamental part of the paintings around them.
"It’s all about capturing a special moment in time. If successful... time stops, and the memory lives forever” as the famous painter explains to the guys.
A bittersweet screenplay well written and very well described, where reality and dreams meet and hold each others hands.
Not without gloves - Review
Nothing has made us more united and tragically separated than Covid-19.
The dramatic pandemic that hit the world in 2020 has powerfully succeeded in increasing our tangible loneliness and our desperate need for physical contact.
Not without gloves written, directed and produced by the visual artist and filmmaker Lena Mattsson is a delicate experimental short film that makes us reflect on one of the most excruciating experiences of the 21st century.
Being close but remaining at a distance, touching each other only if strictly necessary and only wearing gloves.
Gloves: an obligatory appendage for us poor humans at the mercy of fear, discouragement and impotence in front an exterminating virus.
Distant landscapes, crystallized sunsets, time that flows despite everything seems to have stopped. The beating heart of the nature is still in power.
Lena Mattsson gives us the chance to watch a poem, and the freedom to be open to any kind of interpretation
Norway - Review
“I am sailing, I am sailing
Home again, 'cross the sea
I am sailing stormy waters
To be near you, to be free..”
Do you remember this song? While watching Norway it echoed in my head the entire time.
This short documentary directed by Erik Jacobsen takes us to the icy northern waters along one of the most fascinating coastlines in the world.
Thanks to a funicular we admire Bergen from above: known as 'the city of Seven Mountains' and famous for its colorful wooden houses and historic wharf that sits on the harbor overlooking the scenic Byfjorden.
It is right from here that we get on board the legendary Hurtigruten line and prepare our eyes and our heart to admire the warm villages's colors compared to the cold northern light.
We set sail towards pristine wonders, snow covered peaks and lush silent landscapes where only the noise of nature and the currents swirling beneath the visible surface can be heard.
Jacobsen's voice accompanies us along the entire cruise as a good friend with whom we are exploring thIs breathtaking wonder.
With him we playfully invoke the God Neptune, we breathe the salty smell of the air and of Norwegian seafood; we freeze with him and his lovely wife while they enjoy a drink at the famous Artico Ice Bar and we admire enchanted the ancient Viking customs, their food, their music.
It's a passionate journey. A fascinating return to the ancient origins.
Thank you for this incredible adventure, Mr. Jacobsen!
Stages - Review
What do we have inside?
What are we made of?
What sound do we contain within ourselves in a certain phase of our life?
Stages is a short film written, produced and directed byCamille DeBiase that manifest a poignant and variegated symphony about being's seasons and the periods that unfold over the course of an existence.
Change as the fulcrum of all our incredible human mechanism.
The light after the tunnel that radiates birth, being made of water and like water seeking which path to flow, the age of innocence, our powerful blooming time; being incandescent like fire, the phase of impetuosity, the reasonableness phase, then the wisdom, the calm, the fragility that takes us away with a gust of wind and finally the death, the conclusion of the journey or perhaps the beginning of a new cycle… who knows.
Through colors, elements and music the director poetically directs a mysterious tangle of moments that make up our mazy story: a journey called life.
The Patagonia Triple Crown - Review
This is not only the story of a dream but also the exciting journey that traces an incredible adventure to discover one of the most fascinating places in the world.
The Patagonia Triple Crown directed by Nomade Media is an extreme and adrenaline-filled experience that takes us to discover three impetuous and unknown rivers: The Pascua River, Bravo and Baker.
Lorenzo Andrade - writer and producer of the film - Evan Garcia, Martin Specht, Eric Parker, Jared Seiler, Todd Wells, Kyle Hull & Diego Astorga are the daredevil protagonists of this thrilling mission to conquer the most restless waters on the planet.
The beauty of this documentary lies mainly in the fact that the viewer - thanks to spectacular shots - feels as an integral part of the splendid team of kayakers who, full of courage and passion, set off on this mission, which is, to say the least, arduous and risky.
Aboard a jeep we travel the dirt roads, we prepare the food necessary for the expedition, we laugh at accidents along the way and we are moved and amazed by the immense beauty that lies before our eyes.
High waters, wild currents, breathtakingly steep :the constant danger is as strong as the desire to succeed in the undertaking.
This is a spectacular challenge between the man and the imposing power of nature in all its splendor, in all its majestic and roaring bestiality.
A compelling and dynamic documentary, where you can breathe friendship, and which with great humanity also manages to highlight a dramatic aspect of Chile: the privatization of water - which came into force with the famous 'Codigo de Agua' approved by Augusto Pinochet in 1981 - which still dramatically afflicts an entire population.
Proud Girls - Review
In 2022, Roe vs Wade was overturned, de facto abolishing the national right to abortion in the United States. Ever since the political climate surrounding women's reproductive rights has been extremely tense. So much so, that in hospitals all over the country, doctors are scared to save women’s lives because deem it “too risky in this heated political environment to intervene”.
More recently, an abortion case in Idaho questioned the future of the government’s ability to invoke the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (Emtala) to protect women seeking emergency abortions.
So it doesn’t come as a surprise that recently, scripts revolving around reproductive healthcare — such as Proud Girls — started to appear.
Leslie Flannery writes a poignant 100-page satirical story about the world turning upside down. Everything starts with the attacks on the Capitol by Trump’s “Proud Boys”. The attack, which cost hundreds of people — including Proud Boys former chairman — several years of prison, is only used by Flannery as a pretext to rewrite the future of the country.
After the attack stroke, with a sort of triple flip, women take over the country and start avenging all the harm and damage they ever suffered. In a 100-year time jump, the new president (Mother of The United States) started ruling left and right, denying men all their basic needs and rights.
In this world, men are different shades of blue, women and young girls objectify and vilify boys and men, while everyone’s main goal is to preserve reproduction at all costs.
Because of all the graphic elements, it’s a bit hard to imagine the scenes by only reading the script. The writing is at times a bit too fast and the time and space jumps don’t help to fluidly understand the subplots; Kendoll, a teenage boy who lost his mother and gets adopted by Mother, and Mother’s relationship with her lover Fabio.
Everything gets a bit confusing towards the middle of the script, yet the language, the dialogues, and the overall setting are all extremely funny. It would be a delight to see this script produced into a film, as it calls for many possible creative decisions.
Will this script open the eyes of all the Trump supporters and all the people against women's health rights? Who knows. One thing is for sure, a future like this sure makes our skin crawl.
TutuTango - Review
Dance, universal language as much as love, is the protagonist of this film.
TutuTango is the engaging story of the encounter between two different bodies, two different worlds, two different dances... divided into four acts.
Four acts that in just 7 minutes manage to excite and immerse the spectator in the romantic collaboration/relationship between a ballet dancer (Nicole Assad) and a tango dancer (Fede Terra). Lightness on one side, and fury on the other.
I see you, the moment when everything happens, the meeting.
I prepare for you... the waiting, the desire, the longing, the needing to become perfect for each other.
I feel you... grace and passion finally meet, touching each other, breathing each other.
I miss you... the inevitable separation, the farewell or perhaps just a goodbye before a future new performance.
A Pas de deux between two souls in movement where differences and emotions mark time even more than music.
Static black and white photographs that magically come to life, giving shape and meaning to the uncertainty and frenzy of falling in love and the magic that can arise between two people.
What really makes this beautiful short film emotional is the fact that Dorothee Elfring and Michael Finbar Sheehan have never met in person. They simply put together their talent and their visions to bring this film to life, and the dancers as well have never seen or touched each other...incredible and romantic proof that art creates contact even where contact does not exist.