This screened on BBC4 last week, and is now available for UK viewers on BBC iPlayer. Disturbing, slightly jaw-dropping, and well worth watching.
UK libraries have reported a rise in requests to take books off the shelves, with signs that the US action groups featured in the documentary are extending their influence across the Atlantic. So keep your eyes on your libraries.
Today I got a notification from WordPress saying that it was the blog anniversary. It’s actually the day I registered to start setting things up when I was transferring over from blogspot after 4.5 years – my first post on here was on 20th August 2015.
I recently came across a stash of film posters in the loft, all ones that I had on my walls in my teens and twenties. I was struck by how much my tastes have changed; although there were films that I still rate highly, there were none that I would put on my walls now (and some where I genuinely can’t understand why I bought the poster). Maybe life experience causes things to read differently, but I’d also say that film is no longer as central to my life as it was back then…and falling in love with a film now usually involves buying the soundtrack rather than the poster. The image above* is part of the repeating pattern in the blog header, updated in 2023 because the 2015 original didn’t reflect my then-current viewing habits or tastes…I’d probably choose different films again now, so that may be something I re-do before the year is over. [* it includes three films that I’ve had posters of (none of which I found in the loft) and two where I bought the soundtrack]
I’m currently in a fallow period with the blog – I’ve decided that I’m only going to post if I have something to say, and at the moment…I don’t have anything to say about films or cinema. I haven’t watched many films so far this year, and likely won’t post anything about specific films unless something really grabs me. Stuff that may or may not make an appearance at some point: I’ve still got a stack of older French films to watch, stemming from Tavernier’s documentaries but also going off on some tangents when I’ve liked an actor or filmmaker; Radiance are releasing Carlos Saura’s first film – Los golfos / The Delinquents (1962) – on Blu-ray, so I may watch that to see if it’s any different to the version I’ve seen previously; and I liked this short video essay about Sophia Loren on the BFI Player, so some Loren films could be in the mix as well (incidentally, if you’re interested in Loren, I recommend Pauline Small’s book about her career, one of the few star studies that considers the commercial and industrial contexts that shaped the development of a star’s image).
I don’t read much industry news, so this article in The Guardian was the first I’d seen about Mubi taking investment money from a firm with close ties to the Israeli military (the backlash from certain filmmakers was first covered by Variety). I’ve cancelled my subscription (and I specified why on the cancellation form); a small gesture – and not one that will make any difference to the people in Gaza – but something that felt necessary to me all the same.
‘Un impulso colectivo’ [a collective impulse] is a regular section of Barcelona’s D’A Festival, and takes its name from a September 2013 article by programmer/critic Carlos Losilla in the magazine Caimán cuadernos de cine – I have previously investigated some of the films from the earliest editions of the strand (alongside el otro cine español), and highlighted the first series of the podcast back in 2023.
Now there’s a second series, this time focussing on women (including filmmakers, programmers, and critics).
I haven’t listened yet, but series one was really interesting and episodes are only around 30 minutes, so I’ll make some time in the next few weeks. Thanks to Jacob Gómez for bringing the second series to my attention.
At some point last year, WordPress removed the ability have lists of links in the side bar (at least with the blog design I’m using – I don’t know if it’s possible with a different template, and tbh can’t be bothered to faff around finding out). It used to be possible to add a list widget and set it to a category of links already saved in the back end. I can see that lists can be added but, as far as I can tell, you have to add each thing individually rather using a dropdown to apply a group of links in one go. So, if I have to add stuff individually, I think it’s better to do it in a post (so it can’t disappear in its entirety again) and then see if I can just add a link to this post of links in the side bar.
I added the main links to my writing elsewhere to the About page at the end of 2024 – those links should take you to all of my writing on the named sites. However, I also want individual links to pieces, mainly because I find it easier to find stuff when I’ve saved a direct link. I’m going to use some of the same categories I previously had in the side bar to divide things up – interviews, festival reports, reviews – but instead of grouping the reviews by the year they were written, I’m going to divide them into some sub-categories where there are multiple pieces that could be grouped together (e.g. reviews of documentaries, Spanish films, films relating to ‘el otro cine español’). Some may appear in more than one sub-category.
I’m also going to link to pieces written either here or on the old blog where I’ve focussed on a single film (excluding the Carlos Saura Challenge because that’s a series of linked posts) – they’re not really ‘reviews’ per se (they tend to be more expansive, and sometimes relate to films that I’ve reviewed but had more to say than would be appropriate in review format, but sometimes it’s just something I wrote after watching). I’ll put blog posts in with the reviews but mark them with *.
Continue reading “Interviews, Reviews, and Festival Reports”
Well, I had plans for 2024, but you know how that goes. A stressful combination of circumstances early in the year meant that anything that wasn’t a necessity had to be put aside. Blogging was definitely not a priority. So 2024 will get a round-up post, and hopefully I’ll start afresh in 2025.
My last viewing update was towards the end of July, so I thought I’d better get on with posting this one before the year ends.
Arrebato en celuloide. Destellos de luz y otras divergencias del cine español from Instituto Cervantes on Vimeo.
During November, on its Vimeo channel, the Instituto Cervantes has a programme of Spanish films titled Arrebato en celuloide. Destellos de luz y otras divergencias del cine español / Rapture on celluloid: Glimmers of light and other divergences in Spanish cinema. Programmed by Ángel Rueda, director of the (S8) Mostra Internacional de Cinema Periférico in A Coruña (which focuses on experimental films and always seems to have an interesting line-up), the season takes “an eclectic tour of the different expressions with which the traditional 16 mm and Super 8 formats have taken shape in Spain’s cinematographic panorama in recent years. […] The programme will also reveal the sensory relationship that analogue film brings to these filmmakers’ productions. It is a tactile, light-sensitive medium that gives an intimate view, amplifying the themes they deal with in their films” (text taken from (S8)’s email newsletter). Each of the films will be available for free for 48 hours from 8pm (GMT+1) on the dates indicated – audio in Spanish with subtitles in Spanish, French, English, Italian, and Portuguese.
The films included are (the links currently require a password to access):
The only one I’ve seen previously is Sin Dios ni Santa María (which I reviewed back in 2015 – recommended).
‘Un impulso colectivo’ [a collective impulse] is a regular section of Barcelona’s D’A Festival, and takes its name from a September 2013 article by programmer/critic Carlos Losilla in the magazine Caimán cuadernos de cine (he programmed the films in the section’s first iteration in 2014, and I believe has been responsible for doing so in the ten years since as well). In the previous version of this blog, I started off on the trail of el otro cine español (that link is the tag for related pieces on this site) but quickly found it to be a nebulous term that included such an array of filmmakers (for example, Caimán‘s list of 52 directors of ‘nuevo/otro cine español’) that it was difficult to know where to begin. I ended up starting a mini-project focussed on the films that appeared in the first edition of ‘Un impulso colectivo’ because I realised that it had been programmed so as to give an overview of the cinema being made on the margins/periphery in Spain. I wrote a summary of what I found in that initial collection of films, and then I went to the D’A Festival in 2015 (the various pieces/interviews I wrote about the films on that trip are collected on the old blog) because I realised that if I wanted to see films that pertained to this collective impulse, I needed to travel.
Bloomsbury, publisher of the BFI’s books (including the indispensable BFI Film Classics series), currently have a sale on their site – you can get 25% off using the code BTU23UK (most of the books already have a discount if purchased via the publisher’s website, but that code takes the full discount off at the check-out). Given the price of film books, I thought I’d pass that on.
I have purchased the above book, which is quite the tome, and I’m looking forward to dipping into old and new pieces by one of my favourite film writers. I’m now going to go back and see whether the code works on pre-orders, as I’d like Pamela Hutchinson’s forthcoming book on The Red Shoes. [Update: it doesn’t work on pre-orders, but the discount lasts until 8th October and the book is published on the 5th…so I will return!].
In which I go off-piste (no Tavernier-related viewing, no Ménochet, no Sorogoyen) and lose momentum.
Nobody Knows Anybody 