Over the last decade, filmmaker and video artist Tulapop Saenjaroen has been stretching cinema and the short form. Exploring some of the fundamental quandaries of experience: work, play and freedom with a sharp and puckish sense of their history within this long century of moving images.
Nothingtoseeness
Looking back at December’s ‘NothingtoSeeness’ film program at Akademie der Künste in Berlin, including an excerpt from Gregory J. Markopoulos’ ‘Eniaios’
Exposed Plywood: Lin Tuan-chiu’s ‘The Husband’s Secret’ (1960)
“When Le-hun sobs in the artificial rain, back pressed to a plywood facade, the plainness of the wood’s grain brings the audience closer to the material rather than adding distance: the production and the resulting film seem one in the same, part of an enthusiastic defiance of mass-market cinema in favor of local storytelling.”
Natural Selection: Five Films by Larry Gottheim
curated by Your Fellow Traveler, Ruairí McCann and Maximilien Luc Proctor / images courtesy of Larry Gottheim and Your Fellow Traveler Made in 1987, The Red Thread is […]
Larry Gottheim on ‘Natural Selection’
In anticipation of of a new streaming program, ‘Natural Selection: Five Films by Larry Gottheim’, which premieres on Thursday, March 31st and runs through April 14th, Ultra Dogme […]
A Tamil Trio: Views on the Cinema of Tamil Nadu in the 21st Century
Three new texts on Tamil cinema
Digging Shallow And Deep—Portrayals Of ‘The Farmer’ In New Tamil Cinema
“The customary hero-introduction shot in Tamil language drama Kadaikutti Singam (2018) happens during the scene of a rekla race, the traditional bullock cart sport held in Tamil Nadu villages. Before Karthi Shivakumar, the star actor who plays the lead character, makes an appearance, Soori, the comedian who plays the hero’s best friend, takes a look at the bustling arena where bulls are rubbing shoulders with men, and gushes, “How could you curtail this happiness!””
Squeal Like a Pig—Custodial Violence in Tamil Cinema
“The subject of this essay is custodial violence in Tamil cinema, films produced in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where over a hundred custodial deaths were recorded in the past two decades without a single conviction.”
A Sculpture of Ashes—Liner Notes On A Modern, Cinephilic Tragedy
” When I boarded the Nellai Express early in the morning of 16 June 2019 to journey from Neyveli to Chennai along the eastern stitch of the Indian peninsula, I was only marginally surprised to find a thick diary, of the corner-stationery variety, lying atop the brief table next to my berth. Someone had also left behind a half-eaten packet of salted almonds.”
“Are You Waving The Flag At Me?”—Sly and Prurient Americans at the Berlinale
Ruairí McCann looks back at two distinctly American titles from this year’s Berlinale, one new and one old.