Category Archives: Film Festivals

Lunenburg Doc Fest Review — Taming The Garden

September 25, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Salomé Jashi | 91 min This is a slow and strange portrait of an enormous landscaping project. Georgian billionaire and former Prime Minister, Bidzina Ivanishvili — he never appears in the film but is spoken about like he's a king, a devil, or a myth — has paid to have enormous, ancient trees…Read More

#FIN2021 Reviews — The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, Mothering Sunday

September 24, 2021 flawintheiris

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain | Directed by Will Sharpe | Written by Sharpe and Simon Stephenson | 111 min Not that we needed any further confirmation, but Benedict Cumberbatch is really good at portraying eccentric real-life period Brits, from Alan Turing to Thomas Edison to Greville Wynne. It's certainly not all he does…Read More

Lunenburg Doc Fest 2021 review — Fanny: The Right To Rock

September 23, 2021 flawintheiris

On the podcast I co-host, LENS ME YOUR EARS, a recent episode focussed on music documentaries, which introduced me to a few artists and bands I'd previously known very little about. Now that I've seen Fanny: The Right To Rock, the opening film at this year's Luneburg Doc Festival, I'm a little bummed we didn't wait…Read More

#FIN2021 Reviews — Petite Maman, Flee

September 22, 2021 flawintheiris

Attending multiple screenings in one evening at a film festival you can't help but bear witness to unintentional, sometimes poetic cinematic segues. They were out in full force on Tuesday evening at the FIN Atlantic International Film Festival. First off, I attended Dementia, Dad & Me, Hannah Minzloff's documentary about her family and her father's…Read More

#FIN2021 Review — Titane

September 21, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Julia Ducournau | Written by Ducournau with Jacques Akchoti, Jean-Christophe Bouzy, and Simonetta Greggio | 108 min The only film in FIN's 2021 Extreme program — can a program really be called a program if it only includes a single movie? Discuss — Titane is from the director of French cannibal coming-of-age thriller Raw,…Read More

#FIN2021 Reviews — Wife Of A Spy, The Worst Person In The World

September 19, 2021 flawintheiris

Wife Of A Spy | Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa | Written by Kurosawa, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, and Tadashi Nohara | 115 min Kobe, 1940. The military presence in Japan is cracking down on free thinking merchants and amateur filmmakers like Yusaku Fukuhara (Issey Takahashi), who heads to Manchuria with his nephew on a business trip. Is…Read More

#FIN2021 Review: Memoria

September 18, 2021 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul | 136 min It's been more than a decade since I've seen a film by the revered Thai filmmaker with the challenging-to-pronounce name. It was his Palme d'Or-winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, a picture that is delightfully resistant to the tyranny of traditional narrative. His…Read More

FIN Atlantic International Film Festival 2021 — Preview

September 16, 2021 flawintheiris

The FIN Atlantic International Film Festival is back, and this year it's a hybrid presentation: Features, documentaries, and shorts programs will be available for in-person screenings from September 16 through 23rd at Cineplex Park Lane while the Atlantic Canadian program is online at FIN Stream for the duration. Go to finfestival.ca for the full schedule…Read More

HIFF reviews: Saint-Narcisse and The American Sector

June 24, 2021 flawintheiris

The 15th Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival arrives this week, running from Thursday, June 24 to Sunday, June 27. For a decade and a half HIFF has been the alternative local film fest, offering a program of local and left-of-centre movies — features, documentaries, and shorts. This year it's entirely online, with individual tickets going for…Read More

The AFX Animation Festival of Halifax is on now!

May 7, 2021 flawintheiris

In its 10th year, the AFX brings short and feature animation to Haligonian audiences in the spirit of Helen Hill, the beloved animator who lived in Nova Scotia for years. The program runs through Friday and Saturday online — with material for all ages and just for adults — and it's all free. Amongst the…Read More