It is instinctive to be sceptical of a movie produced with the direct involvement of the party depicted in it, even if that party happens to be an organization with as upstanding a record as the Red Crescent Society. Obviously, they have a vested interest in their workers and volunteers being depicted in certain ways that maintain their organization’s credibility. And we’ve seen movies that are just puff-pieces for their companies. But director Kaouther Ben Hania, a filmmaker with as much experience in documentary as with narrative films, finds a way around that conflict of interest by proving at every point she can the factual validity of what she is depicting. And with a story like this that is especially important. The death of Hind Rajab is one of the most enduring and potent tragedies of the Israeli genocide in Gaza -a six-year-old girl whose family car was mercilessly and repeatedly attacked by the IDF, resulting in the deaths of several of her family members, before the ambulanc...
The Shakers they were called. An offshoot sect of the Quakers known for their gender and racial egalitarianism, communal Utopian philosophy, agrarian lifestyle, and adherence to strict sexual abstinence. Also their worship practices involved dramatic swaying and dances, hence the name. Even as someone who grew up in a Christian community, I had no awareness of the Shakers and the curious history of their great prophet (and to some the second coming of Christ themselves) Ann Lee, who led a small flock from her native Manchester to New York state to establish a colony in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Watching Mona Fastvold’s phenomenal movie on these subjects I couldn’t believe the “Shakers” were even their real name. That turned out to be true, and while I don’t know how much else strictly is (although given the sources in the end credits, it appears that Fastvold and her partner and co-writer Brady Corbet did Robert Eggers levels of research here), this depiction of th...