Category: Reviews

Kelly Bergsma’s Behind Closed Doors treats its protagonist, a cop suffering from PTSD like a raging wild animal who is meted out extreme treatment. In both cases, neither is given proper attention. As a result, the film feels half-assed and a mess in its very ideation. Leighton (played by Jason Verner) carries with him the… Continue reading Behind Closed Doors: Keeping (Unreal) Things Real With Camerawork

There is a stillness that pervades Yuchao Feng’s Pearl like a fog. If you look through it, there is great turmoil underneath. And yet, Lin and Wang regularly turn it over its head like child’s play, while their mother looms large over them like the epitome of that chaos-laden still.  Living in a remote fishing… Continue reading Pearl: Looking for Light Beyond A Sea of Grey

Windblown starts off with great promise. Things go badly when a grieving young woman visits her New England cottage after losing her brother. The premise is intriguing, but Katie Vincent as the lead actress is heartbreaking. Vincent has also written the screenplay and co-directed the film with Usher Morgan. Her performance in the first half… Continue reading Windblown: Giving Rein To The Fantasies That Grief Brings After It

Anna Carvalho’s Death Is The Place On Earth (DITPOE) ponders on the nature of humanity through the metaphor of an exiled goddess, cursed to roam the earth as an immortal.  It’s an ambitious project to be sure, and certainly contains some stunning frames, but the film does not ultimately come together cohesively.  Writer-director Carvalho, who… Continue reading Death Is The Place On Earth: A Contemplation On Humanity

A fast, jazzy score and a delightful leading character (among other things from a list of impressive elements), Sam Fichtner’s Thick as Thieves comes with the perfect balance of ingredients that keeps this comedy about a pair of thieves sparklingly fresh. It employs sitcom humour and focuses more on the humorousness of the story than… Continue reading Thick as Thieves: A Romance For The Ages

Thrillers are a tight business. The smallest missteps can make a piece of work fail like a collapsed souffle— not unpalatable but certainly a disappointment. If your antagonist is both oily and stiff, while the unsuspecting potential victims are barely more than ads for their home-for-hire, then we might have a collapsed souffle on our… Continue reading Just Lie Here: Twenty-Three Minutes Of Stolen Identities And Multiple Murders

Writer/Director/Actor Anjeli Jana’s My Marina is an ode to her love affair, one that she cautiously explored, of a famed shore that has been a lover to many. With Jana’s voice over, we see the harbour as she sees it – bright, welcoming, and beguiling. With yachts and sailboats docked, a curious seal peeping out… Continue reading My Marina: Unusual, Quirky And Yet Monochromatic

This is not the first time Leni Riefenstahl has been portrayed as less than a Nazi propagandist, but Fragile Ghost is insufferable for more reasons than this. Kit Wilson’s 17-minute short sees Riefenstahl as an angry filmmaker and unwilling contributor to the Nazi frenzy during the war.  Played by Ronee Collins, the portrayal is jarring… Continue reading Fragile Ghost: A Fragile Revision Of History

Hickey is a supernatural drama accompanied with the gore fest, heavy on audio strings yet easy on its trajectory. Bagging the spot for Best Director in Horror Hotel Award & June Award, Kyle Kleege presents this short in 18:27 minutes.  Kleege gives the cue to the sombre, perturbing reality of a man turned vampire right… Continue reading Hickey: An Unnecessarily Long Entry In A Vampire’s Diary