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Still from the debut film, A Bagful of Fleas, by Vera Chytilová

by :Ela Bittencourt
04-22-2021
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I have such an intense admiration for Vera Chytilová's work that it's almost impossible for me to see her belonging exclusively to cinema history. Her experimental surrealist film, Daisies (1966), made during the brief period of political "thawing" in the...

by :Ela Bittencourt
02-6-2021
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Ripples of Girl Anger: International Film Festival Rotterdam

I've been loving films centered on girl anger. I'm sure that as a tentative grouping, it isn't anything new. Nevertheless, one can't help noticing -- and appreciating -- when a new crop of movies, such as Jessie Barr's Sophie Jones...

by :Ela Bittencourt
02-5-2021
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Taking Risks: First Look at IFFR Tiger Competition

I'm coming to the first slate of films at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) directly from the digital viewings at the Sundance Film Festival (that alone quite a privilege, though necessitated by the pandemic; normally, critics find themselves having...

A still from Downstream to Kinhasa, one of the films from Africa which plays at international festivals in 2020

by :Ela Bittencourt
12-21-2020
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2020 Highlights: Films from Lesotho, Senegal and Democratic Republic of Congo

This month The Criterion Channel has unveiled an ambitious slate of Afro-Futurist Cinema, curated by Ashley Clark, which includes both films by directors from various countries in Africa and by African-American directors. It seems like a good moment to also...

Women directors as seen in the still from Jessie Barr's Sophie Jones

by :Ela Bittencourt
12-16-2020
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Mar del Plata International Film Festival: A Good Year for Indie Women Directors

Mar del Plata International Film Festival is the culmination of what I think we can say has been a good year for indie women directors, despite it being overall an impossibly difficult year, with so many films not getting wider...

by :Ela Bittencourt
11-23-2020
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Dream of Women’s Collectivity: ODORIKO by Yoichiro Okutani

Watching Odoriko, the splendid immersive documentary by the Japanese director Yoichiro Okutani, I kept asking myself what was being left out of the picture. Okutani's compassionate camera observes the women who work at a Japanese striptease theater, performing at times elaborate,...

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