Authors — Brandon Harris
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THE 2011 KRAKOW FILM FESTIVAL
One of the oldest festivals in Europe, the Krakow Film Festival has a reputation among cinephiles as one of the continent’s most prestigious venues for short filmmaking and one of Eastern Europe’s largest markets for documentaries. Its 51st edition, which came to a close Memorial Day weekend, largely lived up to the hype. Unspooling 87 films of various shapes and sizes during the final week of May, it devoted a significant amount of its program to Polish cinema, with a competition section devoted solely to Polish films regardless or length or type. The shorts programming seems to be the heart […]
by Brandon Harris on Jun 13, 2011 -
MIA TRACHINGER, “REVERSION”
Three years ago Sundance played host to Mia Trachinger’s weird, beguiling take on the low-fi, sci-fi dystopia genre, Reversion. Odd, playful, melancholy and ultimately riveting, it bounced around the fest circuit for the past couple of years without finding a home with specialty distributors, perhaps a sign of just how ahead of its time it was. A couple of years later Sundance began its NEXT section, a category for films just like Reversion; adventurous, low budget mindbenders, genre deconstructions and idiosyncratic visions that SXSW would normally be the target destination for. Trachinger, whose Bunny was a success of the festival […]
by Brandon Harris on Jun 8, 2011 -
SHAWN KU, “BEAUTIFUL BOY”
It’s been a dozen years since the Columbine tragedy and almost a half decade since the Virginia Tech shooting, but random outbursts of violence by troubled young male students with easy access to weaponry are still among the most troubling topics that our society is struggling to come to grips with. Less self consciously arty than say an Elephant or We Need to Talk About Kevin, Shawn Ku‘s Beautiful Boy tells the story of Bill and Kate, (Michael Sheen and Maria Bello), a relatively comfortable suburban couple who have entered middle age content but relatively uninspired. First and foremost a […]
by Brandon Harris on Jun 1, 2011 -
GREG JACOBS, “LOUDER THAN A BOMB”
The world’s largest youth slam poetry competition is the subject of Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel‘s audience-pleasing doc, Louder Than A Bomb, a high school competition pic in the tradition of films like Spellbound and Mad Hot Ballroom. For a decade now the Louder Than A Bomb competition has brought together budding young slam poets from over 60 Chicago high schools for a series of juried team and individual readings. The contest is highly competitive — one school goes home with the prize — but the event itself provides something far more valuable than competition; it is one of the few non-sports related […]
by Brandon Harris on May 18, 2011 -
Out in the Neighborhood: Dee Rees on Her Directorial Debut, Pariah
Dee Rees’s debut feature, Pariah, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month with a free screening and Q&A hosted by the Academy Museum. Rees, who first appeared in Filmmaker when she was selected for our 2008 25 New Faces, was interviewed upon the film’s release by Brandon Harris. That interview, originally dated November 18, 2011, is reposted below. The free screening of Pariah is viewable until May 20. — Editor With Pariah, a buoyant tale of a young, middle-class New York lesbian’s tough coming-of-age amid the class and cultural proxy battles that simmer within black America, lauded newcomer Dee Rees […]
by Brandon Harris on May 10, 2011 -
10TH TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES WINNERS
Tonight at the W Hotel Union Square the winners of the 10th Tribeca Film Festival‘s competition categories were announced, with the grand prize in the international narrative competition going to Lisa Aschan‘s She Monkeys (pictured), an evocative Swedish thriller about the burgeoning, sexually explosive rivalry between a pair of teenage girls engrossed in the world of competitive equestrian acrobatics. Both a daring coming of age tale and an increasingly tense thriller, the Danish born Aschan’s directorial debut made its North American premiere at Tribeca after winning the best new Nordic film prize at last year’s Goteberg Film Festival. Alma Har’el stunningly […]
by Brandon Harris on Apr 28, 2011 -
OFF PLUS CAMERA INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF INDEPENDENT CINEMA
Ambitious and generally without a dull moment, the fourth Off Plus Camera International Festival of Independent Cinema unfurled from the 8th through the 17th of this month with little of the inconvenience and national tragedy that marked last year’s affair. Having been interrupted by the volcanic explosion that grounded planes across Europe last April and shortened by the tragic plane crash which killed an entire generation of Polish political and civic leaders, the third edition was a ragtag affair with few guests and an anarchic spirit that few festivals are able to generate. This year the festival was running at […]
by Brandon Harris on Apr 26, 2011 -
JIM MICKLE AND NICK D’AMICI, “STAKE LAND”
In so many ruined, dystopian futures, ravenous beings stalk the burned out countryside, praying on the flesh and/or blood of humans, while a small band of tough survivors, almost always including a grim professional killer, a protege and a young refugee, desperately try to escape this world overrun. This basic conceit resembles Jim Mickle’s somber, post-apocalyptic tone poem fashioned as a late night, grindhouse B movie, Stakeland, which proves altogether more satisfying than any of the recent cable and multiplex ready vampire narratives or dystopian dramas (The Road, Time of the Wolf, One Hundred Mornings or Children of Men). Despite […]
by Brandon Harris on Apr 20, 2011 -
ALISTAIR BANKS GRIFFIN, “TWO GATES OF SLEEP”
American independent films of the narrative variety are rarely hard art films. But in the case of Alastair Banks Griffin’s Two Gates of Sleep, which bowed at last year’s Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes before finding its way to AFI Fest last Fall, one should be ready to enter a long-take heavy, unspeakably gorgeous dirge that is sure of its influences and even more sure that it has something deeply resonant to express to you. It’s the type of movie that, as the cliche goes, requires the audience to “do some work,” that isn’t going to bend over backwards to entertain […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 30, 2011 -
Adam Bhala Lough And Ethan Higbee, Tha Upsetter
Widely revered in reggae and hip-hop circles, Lee “Scratch” Perry is one of 20th century music’s most influential and mysterious artists, a tried-and-true rasta man whose lasting contribution goes beyond spawning some of reggae’s most seminal acts. He was, in fact, the driver for the aesthetic innovations that germinated into the two genres mentioned above, and he reinvented the image of the studio engineer from mere technician to artistic focal point. Now in his mid seventies and expatriated to Switzerland, he’s the subject of the feature-length doc The Upsetter, from the directors Adam Bhala Lough (The Carter, Weapons) and […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 23, 2011
