Movie Magazine International Blog

By Moira Sullivan The organizer of several excellent special programs on film noir at the Roxie in San Francisco,   Don Malcolm,   hosts films he calls Agitprop and says we can learn from especially given the political climate of today. (Part of the A Rare Noir is Good to Find series). Prior to the present administration where human rights are at stake films like these were relics from the past reminding us that social justice was abused by the discriminatory legislation and institutions that defied human rights. Racist and anti-Semitic vigilante groups that worked to meter out abuse is the subject of the film Open Secret, directed by John Reinhardt, a B film noir classic from 1948 starring John Ireland. A newly married couple Paul and Nancy Lester bunks down in the apartment of an old friend who never returns. They become embroiled in discovering there is a clandestine operation that seeks to snuff out Jews from the community and make their life difficult with const...

By Moira Sullivan The 70th Edition of the Cannes Film Festival runs from May 17 to 28 with Spanish director Pedro Almodovar presiding as President of the Jury of the Official selection. Also noteworthy is the Mistress of Ceremonies for the event, a gender title which sounds unworthy of Italian actress Monica Bellucci. The festival poster this year is Italian actress Claudio Cardinale dancing on the rooftops of Rome in 1959. Already stirring controversy is the airbrushing of the poster that diminished the waist and thighs of the actress. This didn’t bother Cardinale who identifies as a feminist and said that she is proud of her body image in which she dances film-- this is just a representation she said Presiding over the Camera d’or jury as president for a director's first work jury is Sandrine Kiberlain French actress who has worked with the French director Laetitia Masson where she won the most promising actress at the 1995 French Cesar wards and in 2013 and 2014 she...

By Moira Sullivan The title of “People That Are Not Me” by young Israeli filmmaker Hadas Ben Aroya is intriguing for so many young women are like Joy, viscerally played by the filmmaker. Winner of the Jury Prize, special mention at Créteil Festival International de Films de Femmes 10-19 March, 2017. The precociousness of youth is and is not wasted in this film, along with the spirit to experiment with stability and freedom in relationships.  Joy has just broken up with her boyfriend and becomes friends with Nir (Yonatan Bar- or ) and isn’t against dating other men. The focus of the film is on the passage of time by youth before establishment and also is about gender differences. The film comes close to not passing the “Bechdel Test” designed by Alison Bechdel. A film to pass the test requires two women with names who talk to each other about something other than men. In the scene that makes the film pass the test, Joy meets a woman at the bar of a nightclub she has freque...