When I got accepted as an accredited press for the 50th edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, my plan originally entailed writing a conventional review each for all the films I would be watching in two feature categories. Plans changed when I still haven’t got a groove on what I would write about a …
Covering an International Film Fest for the First Time Read More »
Quo Vadis, Aida?, the Bosnian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards, gives light to the events leading up to the 1995 Srebrenica genocide which resulted in the deaths of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims. The protagonist is the titular Aida, a translator for the UN trapped in the center …
Ivory Coast’s third submission to the Academy Awards’ Best International Feature Film category is like a fairy tale. But for a film that highlights an actual fairy tale story as the cream of its plot, Philippe Lacôte’s Night of the Kings (La Nuit des rois) works best when you focus on the ritual of storytelling rather than the …
Riders of Justice pushes its synthesis that a chain of trivial causes can lead to events happening in the grandest of scales by having its plot elements emerge out of the blue. If that’s ironic, it is. Coming from an initial stance that causality is true, the film in its point of crisis flirted with the …
Dagupan City, Philippines — Lemongrass Girl follows a young production assistant tasked to plant lemongrass as part of Thai superstition to ward off the rain. In complying with the demands of the ritual, she begins to crumble as the days go on. Since its world premiere at the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition at the 50th …
Dagupan City, Philippines — “Has anyone seen Piano?” Lemongrass Girl follows the story of a young production assistant named Piano who is assigned to plant lemongrass daily to prevent rain from disrupting their filming process. This ritual, reserved for virgins, is a common practice in Thailand, especially on film sets. While she takes on this …
Lemongrass Girl (2021) and Ritualistic Restrictions Read More »
