Film Festival Coverage Hub - Reviews & Recaps

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Quick Recap of AFI Fest 2024

AFI Fest continues to shine as one of the premiere film festivals in Los Angeles. The programmers do a great job of curating the best films from the 2024 festival circuit whilst introducing international films from first-time filmmakers that run along side the big red carpet premieres. The 2024 edition was no different. Outside of the camera grabbing U.S. features, there was a litany of international gems. Find a recap of our favorites below.

Our Top Three from AFI Fest 2024

1. Sujo (Mexico)

Sujo starts with narco-violence in remote Michoacan, so I was expecting this to become the latest pessimistic and bleak narco-flick that festivals have been gobbling up over the last ten years. However, this film explores an alternative narrative, in which Sujo (the son of a hit-man) is carefully guided away from his father’s fate despite all the temptations. His journey is posed as an allegory for the history of modern Mexico, in a similar way to Innaritu’s Bardo from 2023. It presents a hopeful future, despite a traumatic recent history and the plans of fate, with the help of dreams and magic.

2. La Cocina (Mexico/U.S.)

La Cocina is brimming with energy. It’s present in the editing, the acting, and the dialogue and makes the film captivating despite the small set. The lead dominates the camera with the control of his body, expressions, and voice to create a character you cannot look away from. Everything is captured brilliantly in this one-set recreation of a stage play. The only thing holding it back from being one of the greats is that it feels limited by the restrictions of the stage. It doesn’t quite feel like it has truly transferred from the stage to the cinematic medium (similar to the limited space in Birdman and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom). Despite this, La Cocina is still one of the year’s most engrossing dramas.

3. No Other Land (Palestine/Israel)

Israel’s encroachments on Palestinian territory date back to the country’s formation. However, the encroachment is typically overshadowed by developments in the conflict in the international news. No Other Land intimately documents Basel Adra’s lifelong protest against Israeli settler encroachment. In the film, Basel is joined by a sympathetic Israeli that helps to publicize their struggle. The footage places you within their struggle, which is at times shocking and appears increasingly hopeless. However, Basel’s calm words encouraging patience for activists worldwide is the message everyone should take away from this enlightening documentary.

Honorable Mentions

Santosh (India)

Santosh is a gripping thriller that follows the plight of a police widower that takes her dead husbands job to stay afloat and gets caught in a web of sexism and classism. She battles with the prejudices of others as well as her own, as she seeks to re-right the wrongs done to her.

Second Chance (India)

A wonderfully low-key fish-out-of-water story featuring a city girl living in a home-stay in the Indian Himalayas. The humble way of life in the mountains helps to ground her after a tumultuous break-up so she can re-find herself before she returns to reality.

Viet and Nam (Vietnam)

The slowest film I watched at this years AFI Fest, Viet and Nam features a few narrative segments that each touch on the hopelessness of life in contemporary Vietnam. Whilst the message is bleak, the pictures are gorgeous, especially the dark shots deep in the mines which merge the underground with the celestial.

Thank You for Banking with Us! (Palestine)

This Palestinian family drama features a housewife that is pushed into a new lease of life with the help of her sister following the unexpected death of her father. Politics are in the background as the film centers on the awakening of an ordinary housewife overwhelmed by the expectations of her role as a woman and mother.

Another year, another great slate of films from AFI Fest. We strongly encourage everyone to check out next years edition. Please find previous coverage of AFI Fest here.

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The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet – Sundance Film Festival 2021

Dogs are everywhere. Before the pandemic, ownership seemed to be rising. Everyone either had a dog or knew someone who did, whether it was a neighbor or a colleague who brought their dog into work. Now, with everyone stuck at home, they’ve become even more popular as companions for those living alone and friends for kids. They’re also still the small talk champions (perhaps even more so than babies). Nothing else can get a stranger talking to you better. It’s within this context that The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet kicks off.

Sebastian’s troubles start when he bumps into a neighbor in the courtyard outside his house, who starts complaining about the noises his dog makes. In what’s quite a funny scene, in an awkward way, Sebastian stands there, under his umbrella in the rain, nodding along to his neighbors monologue. Other neighbors turn up and add to his neighbors complaints and crowding the small courtyard. Right after that scene, Sebastian has a similarly awkward chat with his boss at work. They also don’t want his dog around, and like his neighbors, awkwardly avoid telling him directly.

Solving his troubles at home and work in one, Sebastian moves to the country for a happy life with his dog. But, things don’t end there, as the chain of events started by his less than silent dog keeps progressing. Amongst other things, we’re taken through Sebastian’s different jobs, a clandestine cooperative, and a sudden pandemic. It’s an oddball journey. However, despite how strange the events are to us, Sebastian goes along with them as if they’re completely normal. It’s like he’s resigned himself to the path his dog has placed him on.

His stoic face throughout all these surprises is what makes this film so quietly funny. In a way his role isn’t too dissimilar from the great silent movie comics like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Whilst he doesn’t perform any stunts like them, the comedy of the film is created around his non-reaction to the things happening around him. Like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, Sebastian is the comedic fall guy for the movie. His misfortune and his acceptance of it exists for everyone to laugh at.

So, if you’re looking for another quietly funny Argentinian satire along the lines of Martin Rejtman (see The Magic Gloves) check out The Day the Dog Wouldn’t be Quiet.

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Where I Come From (Cameroon) – Pan African Film Festival 2022

11 year old Mambi relies on her luck at gambling to pay off her father’s debts and save money for education in Where I Come From. However, as her father’s own gambling addiction gets worse, Mambi sacrifices her own dreams to protect her father.

The first thing I learned from watching Mambi was that English is spoken in Cameroon. All of the previous films I’ve seen from Cameroon were in French so I ignorantly assumed the whole country spoke French. The reality is that whilst around 80% of the country’s population are in French speaking regions, the 20% in the North, along the Nigerian border, speak English. The English speaking region has recently become a hotbed for film production, earning it the nickname ‘Collywood’ to differentiate itself from Nigeria’s neighboring Nollywood. Three of the industry’s films have even been bought up by Netflix: the award winning The Fisherman’s Diary, A Man for the Weekend, and Broken. Where I Come From might be hoping to join them soon.

Unfortunately the plot feels a bit too similar to a host of other African films that focus on poverty and promote education and stable family life such as Hand of Fate, Jebel Nyoka, and Shaina. Even though their situations all seem impossibly bleak, education is presented as a panacea for everything. It almost comes across as a government PSA because it feels so unrealistic given the protagonists’ circumstances. The promotion of gambling (and luck) as a solution also felt a bit off. Whenever Mambi gambles, inspirational, uplifting music starts as if it’s encouraging her to gamble. Promoting education and the luck of gambling in the same movie doesn’t match up.

Despite the cookie-cutter plot, Where I Come From is at least memorable for it’s brilliant lead performance from 11 year old Faith Fidel. She deservedly was nominated for Most Promising Actor at the African Movie Academy Awards last year and should be an actor to look out for in the future. It’s also worth noting that 95% of the film’s crew were under 30, so look out for more from Takong Delvis and his team in future.

Check back to our Pan African Film Festival 2022 page for more reviews coming out of the 30th edition of the festival.

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Long Distance Film Festival 2021 – An Eclectic Mix of Shorts For Free

If you’re looking to binge on a curated selection of new short films from around the world, look out for the 2nd edition of the Long Distance Film Festival next week. It will be streaming a diverse mix of shorts from May 28th to May 31st ranging from Sundance-award wingers such as Bambirak and The Touch of The Master’s Hand to a one minute long iPhone film of a seagull eating a chicken wing. From the early peek we got of the festival’s ‘Future’ segment (streaming May 31st) we can definitely confirm that you’ll get an eclectic mix of shorts. It’s like a film fan’s lucky dip. Plus, the best part of the festival is that it’s all free to watch from wherever you are in the world. All you have to do is tune in to the stream at the right time.

We’ll be watching and reporting on the event. From the early previews we saw, we recommend looking out for Raspberry and Shadows in a Landscape from the Future segment and the Intimate Views special presentation. Raspberry has one of the most memorably comedic undertaker scenes in cinema, Shadows in a Landscape’s storytelling in the British midlands feels incredibly ghostly, whilst Intimate Views captures what feels like a dystopian vacation service. Just go into the screenings with an open mind as, sticking to it’s roots in supporting art and media made under quarantine’s limitations, the Long Distance Film Festival’s 2nd edition continues to support personal films made with smaller budgets and crews.

Ahead of the launch, please find more information on the films and when to watch them on the Long Distance Film Festival’s website linked above. We’ll check back in after the festival with an overview of what we saw.

Check back to our Long Distance Film Festival 2021 page for more reviews coming out of the 2nd edition of the festival.

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Before, Now & Then – AFI Fest 2022

In Before, Now & Then, Nana finds security in a second marriage to a wealthy old man, having lost her family to the war in West Java. However, she cannot escape the dreams and trauma of her past, or the expectations of her new family and becomes a ghostly figure until she meets one of her husband’s mistresses. Together they can escape and find their own freedom.

Stylistically, Before, Now & Then feels heavily influenced by Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love. Whilst the colors are more muted, the dreamy pacing and slowed down scenes between Nana and her second husband feel just like the slow romantic scenes between the two protagonists in In the Mood for Love. These scenes in both films are designed to convey uncertainty. In In the Mood for Love the uncertainty is romantic – we don’t know if the two characters will keep seeing each other. In Before, Now & Then, the uncertainty is melancholic. Similarly, we don’t know if the two characters will be together for much longer, however given that the two characters have been together for a while, it feels as if their relationship is dying instead of burning brightly.

The uncertainty of Nana’s relationship is symbolic of the state of the country. Just like the current Indonesian regime, she knows what she’s getting from her stable marriage to an older husband. Whilst it has confined her mostly to the house – and the back of the house at that, as she rarely shows her face publicly – she knows that she will be taken care of. However, there is no love in their relationship. The new freedom she gains with her husband’s mistress, in contrast, is exciting. It fills her with hope that things could be different and more free.

Whilst we have the hindsight to know that the political change happening in the background of Before, Now & Then wasn’t a positive one, the film captures the uncertainty of the times well with it’s dreaminess.

Head to our AFI Fest 2022 Hub for more reviews from AFI Fest 2022.