Currently Browsing: Malin Jörnvi
A life’s journey captured in motion: female auteur Jane Campion is at her best in this canonical masterpiece from 1990. Based on writer and poet Janet Frame’s autobiographies, An Angel at My Table depicts in three parts Frame’s incredible struggle for existence in a world which was never made for her. (MJJ: 5/5)
Featuring five remarkable women activists across four continents, #Female Pleasure continues the global conversations regarding women and sexuality. Director Barbara Miller’s documentary gives an informative update on the contemporary view of female bodies and reminds a progressive and feminist audience that though we have come a long way, there is still a long way to […]
Aiming to celebrate the human ability to survive even the most horrific of events, The Second Sun has an honorable theme. But though director Jennifer Gelfer succeeds in showing glimpses of the miracles life holds if looked at carefully, the quality of narration is too uneven to give full justice to the remarkable plot. (MJJ: […]
Nureyev is an astonishing testament to the motion in motion pictures. Written and directed by Jaqcui Morris and David Morris, this documentary saves the phenomenon and life force of one of 20th century greatest ballet dancers and—also—pop icon, Rudolph Nureyev from the oblivion of history. In combining narration and archive footage with danced and dramatized […]
Though based on Shirley Jackson’s mystery novel, director Stacie Passon’s and screenwriter Mark Kruger’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle is not very chilling, instead it is quite uncomfortable. Discomfort is arguably a very good response to a thriller, but this unease was unfortunately not due to the story—it came from the storytelling itself. […]
Elena Ferrante is one of Italy’s internationally most popular authors, yet – in using a pseudonym and insisting that her works should speak for themselves – remains an intriguing mystery to mass media and readers alike. In this documentary of classic interviewee format, director Giacomo Durzi and screenwriter Laura Buffoni have literary personae talk about […]
Becoming Astrid is a powerful rendering of the early years shaping the world-renowned children’s book author Astrid Lindgren. The film is about the person behind the beloved stories and depicts her youth pregnancy and unsteady existence as she travels between her childhood hamlet Vimmerby, her secretary school in Stockholm and her son’s foster home in […]
Searching for Ingmar Bergman by German directors Margarethe von Trotta and Felix Moeller is another attempt to understand the real person behind the legendary name Ingmar Bergman. The Swedish arthouse director is one of the greatest influences on filmmaking to this day, and in light of this, Searching for Ingmar Bergman sets out to interview […]
Mountain is an ode to mountains: 74 minutes with frame after frame of steep views and the pull of dangerous explorations, all augmented by the strokes and keys of the Australian Chamber Orchestra. In addition to the visuals of sublime nature, director Jennifer Peedom takes a philosophical stab at the subject matter, but the abstract film could have gone further with the human psychological relationship to mountains left only at the surface. However, for anyone sharing Peedom’s fascination with ice and stone, Mountain is sure to be an awe-inspiring watch. (MJJ: 3.5/5)
Many films are born out of passion for an issue or cause, and the visual medium is a tool for conveying those passionate messages. Love & Bananas depicts director Ashley Bell’s love and compassion for elephants as she embarks on a two-day rescue mission in Thailand. (MJJ: 5/5)
Submergence is a perfect example of a story that would have been better served by not employing Hollywood stars. Resisting the attraction of the many close-ups on the stunningly made-up Vikander, or McAvoy’s tantalizing and immensely blue eyes, perhaps the washy story would have stayed longer on the drawing table and a more focused rewrite […]
Vazante is painful to watch. Director and co-writer Daniela Thomas challenges the viewers in both subject matter and execution, but if you can stay with the long takes, presented without score and without color, a slow momentum is created that leads to an extraordinarily powerful ending. (MJJ: 3.5/5)
I Am Evidence is the timely exposure of a justice system that continually prioritizes other cases above the violation of women’s bodies. Horrifying and captivating, this documentary will keep you continuously engaged. (MJJ: 4.5/5)
32 Pills: My Sister’s Suicide is Hope Litoff’s directorial debut and depicts her experience of coming to terms with her sister, New York artist, Ruth Litoff’s suicide seven years earlier. Unfortunately, the film is hampered by an unfinished storyline and overlooked details. (MJJ: 3/5)
Director Rebecca Cammisa’s documentary is a testament to the minimizing and denying by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the danger that exists in North County, and how the sacrifice of war is always the greatest in communities furthest from the decision-makers in Washington D.C. (MJJ: 4.5/5).
Director and editor Claire Ferguson seamlessly pulls together 13 years of collected material to create a cohesive and deeply moving quilt of an ashen past that is frighteningly present. (MJJ: 4/5)
Directed, written, and co-produced by Jessica M. Thompson, “Light of the Moon” is about rape and the traumatic effect it has not only on the victim herself, but on the relationships to the people in her immediate surroundings. (MJJ: 2.5/5)
Co-directors and co-writers Magdalena Zyzak and Zachary Cotler’s creation is a disturbing and nightmarish meditation on reputation, power, loneliness, creativity, and the body of the aging woman. (MJJ: 3.5/5)
Professor Marston and the Wonder Woman is the fictional behind-the-scenes flick about the creators of the comic book heroine Wonder Woman. Director and writer Angela Robinson’s story is as visceral and multifaceted as its muse, if given the open-minded attention it deserves. MJJ: 4/5
Co-directors Kief Davidson and Perdro Kos and screenwriter Cori Sheperd Stern team up with passionate friends and start building long-lasting community-based systems— proving it is possible to change the world. (MJJ: 4.5/5)
Faces Places is about faces and places and the stories they tell. Along the way they explore stories, memories, and, pretentiously or enchantingly, remind us about the human in humanity. (MJJ: 4/5)
Blood Stripe is a subtle, and yet violent, critique of American veteran treatment. In Blood Stripe, director and co-writer Remy Auberjonois and writer Kate Nowlin force us to reflect on the veterans around us (MJJ: 4/5)
Through Lind’s camera and Bobbi Jene’s movements this documentary magically renders that passion, at its core, is nothing but a vigorous need to experience and make some kind of sense of living. (MJJ: 5/5)
Filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz takes her audience to the Philippines and the world’s busiest maternity ward. Motherland is a powerful insight into the lives and the struggles of women and mothers far away from Western society’s planned C-sections. (MJJ: 4/5)
Embargo circles around the history of the more than a half-century-long US embargo on Cuba. Director Jeri Rice meticulously explains the mechanics of how and why not much has changed, quite obviously not in the ceaselessly embargoed communist Cuba, but neither at the dream site of transformation: the blockading neo-liberal and democratic US. (MJJ: 3.5/5)
Glory sets its teeth in a capitalist society with increasing income gaps and leaves a biting remark. Co-directors Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov portray a promising clash of an eloquent and cunning unfortunately, the moral lesson defaults. (MJJ: 3.5/5)
