How would you program this year's newest, most interesting films into double features with movies of the past you saw in 2015?Looking back over the year at what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2015—in theatres or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2015 to create a unique double feature.All the contributors were given the option to write some text explaining their 2015 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch...
- 1/4/2016
- by Notebook
- MUBI
"Film or art?" was the first question I was greeted with upon arrival at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, a question essentially inquiring whether I was attending to watch "films" or "art" (i.e. video art) at the festival. But since no such demarcation really exists in the program, the question therefore expanded beyond its modest confines to provoke all kinds of immediately doubting self-inquiry such as: (1) Oh God, what if I'm here just for film?; (2) Wait, who says film isn't art?; (3) Is this person picking a fight?; and (4) How come no one asks me this in Cannes?
Still, it was a question I should have expected, since a festival dedicated to short moving image media—now; it had "just" films to consider—implicitly posits a number of questions about its chosen subject. As someone with a cinephile background in, let's say, traditional cinema, it is both frightening and...
Still, it was a question I should have expected, since a festival dedicated to short moving image media—now; it had "just" films to consider—implicitly posits a number of questions about its chosen subject. As someone with a cinephile background in, let's say, traditional cinema, it is both frightening and...
- 5/9/2014
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
Over the last century, each generation of technology revolutionized filmmaking. But with the smartphone filmmaking, the barrier to entry drops to something close to zero. It's an ultra low-cost medium. It's easy to use. It also offers a sense of immediacy -- you can do away with crew or shoot surreptitiously. It turns anyone into an amateur filmmaker -- but as the smartphone is being adopted by professional filmmakers, it's fostering a new aesthetic. Filmmakers first started using the smartphone to film in 2005; the following year Italian directors, Marcello Mencarini and Barbara Seghezzi released a feature-length doc, "New Love Meetings (Comizi d'Amore)," shot in Mpeg-4 with a mobile phone. In 2007, South African director Aryan Kaganof released "SMS Sugar Man," a feature-length narrative shot using the Sony Ericsson W900i. In 2011, directors Hooman Khalili and Pat Gilles released the feature, "Olive," shot on a Nokia N8, and Korean director Chan-Wook Park released.
- 1/29/2014
- by David Rosen
- Indiewire
Selection includes competition titles, a focus on Southeast Asia and a ‘Top 10’ compiled by director Rithy Panh.
The selection for the 26th Idfa (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) has been unveiled and includes 288 titles – selected from more than 3,000 submissions – of which 100 will receive their world premiere during the festival (Nov 20 – Dec 1).
There will be a strand dedicated to documentaries from Southeast Asia titled Emerging Voices from Southeast Asia.
This year’s Idfa Top 10 is compiled by Cambodian director Rithy Panh, and a retrospective of his work will be screening at the festival.
Panh, whose doc The Missing Picture won the Un Certain Regard strand at Cannes in May, has selected:
Alone
Wang Bing (Hong Kong/France, 2012)Don’t Look Back
D.A. Pennebaker (USA, 1967)Farrebique - The Four Seasons
Georges Rouquier (France, 1946)The Football Incident
Joris Ivens/Marceline Loridan-Ivens (France, 1976)I Am Cuba
Mikheil Kalatozishvili (Cuba/Russia, 1964)In Vanda’s Room
Pedro Costa (Portugal, 2000)A Man Vanishes...
The selection for the 26th Idfa (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) has been unveiled and includes 288 titles – selected from more than 3,000 submissions – of which 100 will receive their world premiere during the festival (Nov 20 – Dec 1).
There will be a strand dedicated to documentaries from Southeast Asia titled Emerging Voices from Southeast Asia.
This year’s Idfa Top 10 is compiled by Cambodian director Rithy Panh, and a retrospective of his work will be screening at the festival.
Panh, whose doc The Missing Picture won the Un Certain Regard strand at Cannes in May, has selected:
Alone
Wang Bing (Hong Kong/France, 2012)Don’t Look Back
D.A. Pennebaker (USA, 1967)Farrebique - The Four Seasons
Georges Rouquier (France, 1946)The Football Incident
Joris Ivens/Marceline Loridan-Ivens (France, 1976)I Am Cuba
Mikheil Kalatozishvili (Cuba/Russia, 1964)In Vanda’s Room
Pedro Costa (Portugal, 2000)A Man Vanishes...
- 10/11/2013
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
This Week’s absolute Must Read proves exactly why you should never absolutely trust what you read on IMDb. You may think it’s a 100% accurate website, but you’d be wrong. How wrong? The Temple of Schlock runs down the data on a bevy of ’70s exploitation films that are mis-dated, mis-credited and mis-titled. Posts like this prove how invaluable a research website the Temple is. Invaluable, I tell you! Plus, they have the ad mat for ’72′s Outside In, another incorrectly credited film.The Village Voice wrote up a very lengthy profile of NYC icon Lloyd Kaufman. About freakin’ time they did!Plus, 366 Weird Movies has the full rundown of Troma movies on YouTube. And, is Meshes of the Afternoon a “weird” movie?Salise Hughes releases an original digital drawing based on her upcoming Charades project that is really, really cool looking.Aryan Kaganof posted up a scan...
- 7/8/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Motion Picture Purgatory cartoonist Rick Trembles has moved from purgatory and into hell recently thanks to what appears to be a possible illegal eviction by his landlord. A Montreal news station covers the story and interviews Trembles who provides some damning evidence. The turmoil has left Trembles in a bad way, so if there’s any way anyone reading this can throw him some work, he’d appreciate it. Lastly, his latest strip is a review of 1968′s Canuxploitation thriller Playgirl Killer.Cinemascope gives the true history of the filmmaking via cell phone phenomenon, giving rightful appreciation to Aryan Kaganof’s boundary-breaking SMS Sugar Man.Heard that old Bad Lit friend Christopher Folino (Gamers) has a new movie in the works called Sparks. Actually, I think it’s nearing completion and you can get a preview of it at its official website. Based on a comic book co-written with William Katt...
- 2/12/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
This Week’s Absolute Must Look is a series of film stills from Storm de Hirsch’s documentary about Jonas Mekas making his documentary of the performance of The Brig in 1964. So that’s what a filmmaker shooting with a film camera looks like!Aryan Kaganof had an unpleasant experience at a European film festival. Maybe it’s just me, but I think his comment to Bela Tarr is funny.Jason Kupfer has a snazzy new filmmaker website, which I’ve been meaning to link to for awhile, so I guess it’s new-ish.Dominic Deacon’s nunsploitation feature Bad Habits got reviewed on the site Scaryminds and received a 3 out of 5 on the sex and violence scale.The site Bad at Sports interviews filmmaker Jesse McLean.J.J. Murphy reviews Azazel Jacob’s feature Terri, marking it along the filmmaker’s inching closer to the mainstream. Or is there something...
- 1/22/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
For their 5th annual event, which is set to run Sept. 8-11, the Sydney Underground Film Festival is looking a little more demented than ever. And that’s saying a lot for this scrappy, still relatively young fest, which typically offers ample twisted cinematic offerings.
The fun kicks off with the Opening Night film, the demented superhero comedy Super, written and directed by former Troma go-to screenwriter James Gunn (Tromeo & Juliet); then ends with the Closing Night wallowing in Sydney’s seedy underbelly, X, by homegrown filmmaker Jon Hewitt.
Crammed between these two excursions into violence and depravity is a lineup filled with perverse visions, scandalous public figures, sickening horror, experimental pop culture remixes and more.
For Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film, the highlight of the fest is Usama Alshaibi‘s Profane, a complex psychological, psychosexual, spiritual morality play about a Muslim sex worker who endures a “reverse...
The fun kicks off with the Opening Night film, the demented superhero comedy Super, written and directed by former Troma go-to screenwriter James Gunn (Tromeo & Juliet); then ends with the Closing Night wallowing in Sydney’s seedy underbelly, X, by homegrown filmmaker Jon Hewitt.
Crammed between these two excursions into violence and depravity is a lineup filled with perverse visions, scandalous public figures, sickening horror, experimental pop culture remixes and more.
For Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film, the highlight of the fest is Usama Alshaibi‘s Profane, a complex psychological, psychosexual, spiritual morality play about a Muslim sex worker who endures a “reverse...
- 8/9/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
If you live in the U.S. — and probably many places in the world — you don’t know who filmmaker Aryan Kaganof is. His films don’t screen at festivals here. Never has his work been released on DVD here. Nor is he ever written up on any U.S. film website, except the one you’re reading. While the above video produced by One Small Seed is more abstract than a proper intro, the piece gives a good feel of what this South African cinematic provocateur is all about. Warning: Nsfw in the least!
At any given time, Kaganof would top a Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film list of filmmakers who deserves wider appreciation. I wish his films would make it to the U.S., so everyone could see what they’re missing out on. Luckily, I was introduced to his work via mutual friend Dionysos Andronis,...
At any given time, Kaganof would top a Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film list of filmmakers who deserves wider appreciation. I wish his films would make it to the U.S., so everyone could see what they’re missing out on. Luckily, I was introduced to his work via mutual friend Dionysos Andronis,...
- 6/6/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Is there something major going on in film tonight? Who knows? So, enjoy these links about movies that don’t get all the attention!
The big news this week is that the last lab in the UK has just stopped printing 16mm film. That’s right: It is now impossible to get your 16mm film printed in England! Thanks, Deluxe! Filmmaker Tacita Dean writes an impassioned, personal article about this devastating blow to the film world for the Guardian.(By the way, the image above was taken by documentary filmmaker Lynne Sachs and is of Craig Baldwin’s 16mm film archive.)At Africa Is a Country, Sean Jacobs interviews South African filmmaker Dylan Valley about the documentary The Uprising of Hangberg, which Valley co-directed with Bad Lit fave Aryan Kaganof. The film documents the South African police crackdown of a small village full of “alleged” squatters. Heavy emphasis on “alleged.
The big news this week is that the last lab in the UK has just stopped printing 16mm film. That’s right: It is now impossible to get your 16mm film printed in England! Thanks, Deluxe! Filmmaker Tacita Dean writes an impassioned, personal article about this devastating blow to the film world for the Guardian.(By the way, the image above was taken by documentary filmmaker Lynne Sachs and is of Craig Baldwin’s 16mm film archive.)At Africa Is a Country, Sean Jacobs interviews South African filmmaker Dylan Valley about the documentary The Uprising of Hangberg, which Valley co-directed with Bad Lit fave Aryan Kaganof. The film documents the South African police crackdown of a small village full of “alleged” squatters. Heavy emphasis on “alleged.
- 2/27/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Going to start off a little differently this week. I was chatting over email this week with Brett Kashmere about the history of Canadian experimental and avant-garde film. Well, more like the lack of much written about that history. So, a few Canadian links! First, the Canadian Encyclopedia has an entry on Film, Experimental. Film Reference also has a brief article covering Canadian experimental film. This is a Pdf link, so you might want to download first: For his Masters in Fine Art degree from York University, Gerald Saul wrote a thesis on the Canadian avant-garde in the ’90s. Actually, Saul’s website in general has some good resources on it. Barbara Sternberg has an old article about the rise of Canadian experimental in the ’70s, reprinted from the 1991 catalog “The Visual Aspect: Recent Canadian Experimental Films.” Mike Hoolboom has reviews and details of his book Inside the Pleasure Dome: Fringe Film in Canada.
- 11/14/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Mike Rollo has just started a new series on old theaters in Saskatchewan. I’m very excited about this, especially based on his first profile of the Majestic Theatre in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Also starting a new blogging series is animator Patrick Smith of Scribble Junkies. He’s teaching “Animation 101″ online and, again, has an excellent first post about sacks of flour. (Sounds like I’m joking, but I’m not.) Plus, one excellent and one horrendous Bakshi movie poster. Smith’s blogging partner Bill Plympton has a horrifying story of when self-distribution goes awry. (At least it all worked out in the end.) P.S. Words of advice: When starting a filmmaking competition, be sure to remember that your email is working. Dolphins, space whales and Stan Vanderbeek, oh my! Andrea Grover on the collision of science, sea creatures, space and the universe. Film Studies for Free has compiled a...
- 9/19/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
The 16th annual Bradford International Film Festival, which will run March 18-28, is a total celebration of all forms of cinema, from classic films to modern world cinema to a tribute to Cinerama and more. But, most excitingly, is a bombastic collection of some of the best, most exciting underground films being made today.
From Bad Lit’s perspective, the most thrilling screening of the entire 10-day affair is the new film by British filmmaker Peter Whitehead, Terrorism Considered as One of the Fine Arts. In the U.S., Whitehead is a “lost” filmmaker from the underground’s heyday in the ’60s, being left out of most histories of the underground movement. Whitehead directed several influential films, including Wholly Communion and The Fall, before dropping out of filmmaking in the mid-’70s.
Film historian Jack Sargeant wrote extensively about and interviewed Whitehead for his wonderful book on Beat cinema, Naked Lens.
From Bad Lit’s perspective, the most thrilling screening of the entire 10-day affair is the new film by British filmmaker Peter Whitehead, Terrorism Considered as One of the Fine Arts. In the U.S., Whitehead is a “lost” filmmaker from the underground’s heyday in the ’60s, being left out of most histories of the underground movement. Whitehead directed several influential films, including Wholly Communion and The Fall, before dropping out of filmmaking in the mid-’70s.
Film historian Jack Sargeant wrote extensively about and interviewed Whitehead for his wonderful book on Beat cinema, Naked Lens.
- 3/5/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Embedded above is the short film Self-Portrait: M. Rankin directed by Canadian filmmaker Matthew Rankin. The film was produced, I’m gathering, as part of an initiative to spur the production of Canadian films on cell phones. The initiative is now dead, but the films and tutorials remain online.
In the film, a man is chastised for imitating Matthew Rankin and can only find forgiveness if he presents the real Rankin with the Socks of Pity. And the film, again I’m gathering, is in Farsi. It’s a funny, absurd little flick. There’s very little of Rankin’s work online, so it was nice to stumble upon this.
Rankin hails originally from Winnipeg, which I’m constantly amazed by the amount of great underground filmmakers who come out of that city. Of course, Winnipeg’s most famous filmmaking son is Guy Maddin — and he’s referenced in the film above.
In the film, a man is chastised for imitating Matthew Rankin and can only find forgiveness if he presents the real Rankin with the Socks of Pity. And the film, again I’m gathering, is in Farsi. It’s a funny, absurd little flick. There’s very little of Rankin’s work online, so it was nice to stumble upon this.
Rankin hails originally from Winnipeg, which I’m constantly amazed by the amount of great underground filmmakers who come out of that city. Of course, Winnipeg’s most famous filmmaking son is Guy Maddin — and he’s referenced in the film above.
- 12/23/2009
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
One of the great things about producing Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film is that it has introduced me to the work of underground filmmakers from all over the world that I would not have heard of otherwise. Sure, there are tons of fantastic, talented filmmakers in the U.S. whose work I love seeing and reviewing, but there’s something exciting — especially as someone who’s rarely ever traveled — about getting DVDs from foreign lands.
Also, I wrote on the site recently that I didn’t know what types of films could truly be called “innovative” these days. “Innovative” doesn’t automatically conjure up a stamp of quality, of course. Plus, this past year I’ve seen tons of films that have been uniquely creative and have pushed boundaries. Many of the films that ended up as runners-up to this year’s “Movie of the Year” have totally...
Also, I wrote on the site recently that I didn’t know what types of films could truly be called “innovative” these days. “Innovative” doesn’t automatically conjure up a stamp of quality, of course. Plus, this past year I’ve seen tons of films that have been uniquely creative and have pushed boundaries. Many of the films that ended up as runners-up to this year’s “Movie of the Year” have totally...
- 12/17/2009
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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