Reviews of the Bosch

Samiramis Kia, winner of the Best Canadian Short Film Award for her movie MILK        I've never walked a Red Carpet before.        It's not too special; you have to duck around people taking photos lest you wind up some intrusion in their otherwise happy memory, and the carpet is just a carpet. Not to mention in this specific case, the Casino Regina Show Lounge isn't the ideal place for one, lacking sufficient space for a Hollywood-style runway. It still felt special though, but what was at the end of it was the real treat.        There were maybe a couple dozen people in the reception area when I arrived. An hour later, shortly before the Awards Ceremony was due to start the place was packed. Every sponsor and financier, program coordinators, volunteers, and festival directors were there, as were of course the directors, producers, even stars of the nominated movies and their families. As a humble small-time critic I...

Eva Löbau's Alice anxiously awaits an interview in  The Chairs Game        The great bragging rights of attending a film festival is getting to see movies, sometimes great movies, before the rest of the world. I know I’m envious of the lucky folks at Cannes who have already seen Bong Joon-ho’s Parasites , Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire , or Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse . And on the fourth day of RIFFA I felt at least a sampling of that kind of privilege. At last I got to see a couple narrative features from little-known international directors that probably won’t ultimately be seen by a substantial audience. And that is a great shame. Rafiki  was such a film, which I saw earlier this year, and is still one of my favourites. But the least I can do is tell people about these movies. Crush My Heart  is an interesting one. An Austrian movie about a Romeo & Juliet kind of romance that forms between two teenagers trapped in the gri...

Klaus Eder talking film criticism with moderator Dilani Rabindran        If there was a theme to the Third Day of RIFFA it's that the current state of affairs is bad. Whether it be personal technology, modern cinema, or the physical world as we've remade it, in the old vs. new debate the old was winning out, or at least being more vehemently argued for, while the problems in modernity were being spotlighted.        Obviously such generalities are flawed though, and that's demonstrated by my first real disappointment of the festival.  Selfless  is a film that’s equal parts documentary, sermon, and Terrence Malick movie as it examines modern technology and social media dependence, on which it blames most problems facing today’s teenagers. It doesn’t seem to understand the neutrality of technology and social media though, that they’re only symptoms of much larger social and cultural institutions that don’t go away when you turn off...

Documentarian and professional animal trainer Andrew Simpson ...and me  (photo credit: Morgan Beaudry)        I saw eight films yesterday! Of wildly different types and genres too. Most were shorts, indeed I’ve seen more short films these past couple days than I usually see in two months (especially now that the last bastion of cinematically shown shorts, Pixar, has quit). Ever since an Australian called Charles Tait made an hour-long movie about Ned Kelly and subsequently an American by the name of D.W. Griffiths supplanted it with a three-hour monstrosity, short films have struggled to be taken seriously next to features. But short films, in addition to often being the testing ground for most early filmmakers, are an art unto themselves, and can produce great talent and artistry as well as any feature.        Some exist to pay tribute to talent and artistry, as is the case with The Faces We Wear , a ten minute documentary about the ...

       Film Festivals, critic and academic Klaus Eder emphasized at the RIFFA opening ceremony, are the only places people can see those movies that major studios and industries won't give a second glance at. As often as they're touted for introducing great movies to the world, they're also avenues for young, ambitious, and experimental fringe artists to have their work seen, their voices heard, their messages conveyed. Festivals are also living celebrations of film, it's wildly diverse forms and perspectives, offering opportunities to truly make or experience something new.        Eder noted that the Regina International Film Festival and Awards is quite new, "a baby" as far as film festivals are concerned. But it has so much promise given the local pool of Saskatchewan talent it's accessible too, as well as its expansive reach. I was invited to RIFFA this year, a special guest thanks to my work in and outside of this blog as an "influencer...