The nonprofit film series is entering its 15th year, and its 2017 iteration is spread across more than three screening locations, with programming that includes features, short films, fiction and nonfiction, panels and parties, innumerable filmmakers in person, all the works.
HIGHLIGHTS: “HIDDEN FIGURES” AND “20TH CENTURY WOMEN”
Films set in specific periods of history necessarily broach at least two major subjects: the way that things have changed, and the way that they haven’t.
NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND: REPORT #1 FROM BUFF 2017
The happening plays host to the too strange, the too scary, the too sexual—the films that are all too something to play anywhere else around here.
OPEN HAUS: “GRRL HAUS CINEMA” TAKES OVER THE BRATTLE ONCE AGAIN
In the coming weeks we’ll be publishing often about our “highlights of 2016”, but there’s one event I can add to the list ahead of time. Last year we attended an evening of screenings hosted by Grrl Haus Cinema at the Brattle Theatre—and the program is back at that same location tonight, just over a year later, […]
WATCH THE THRONE: ON PRINCE’S RAREST FEATURE
When we lose one of our most beloved artists, the nature of popular culture demands that we collectively pick one work to define them. Unfortunately we’ve experienced this multiple times in recent months: With Bowie, we heard “Starman” in the streets and on the stump; with Cohen, it was “Hallelujah” late on Saturday night. […]
CONFLICT OF INTEREST: ON “SONITA”, WHEREIN THE DIRECTOR IS THE CO-STAR
The two shots that bookend the title card of Sonita [2016] tell entirely different stories. First, before we see the film’s name, we see its namesake: Sonita Alizadeh, a teenage Afghani refugee living in Iran and receiving an education on behalf of a NGO. She’s rapping her own lyrics to a captivated audience of […]
SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN: ON THE COOLIDGE HALLOWEEN HORROR MARATHON
The concept of a “playlist” has traditionally been linked to music, but you’ll find analogues for it strewn throughout film culture. Repertory programs are something like an equivalent. But a closer relative—the closest—would be one-sitting movie marathons. In this city, a number are held annually: The Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival hosts 24 hours of consecutive […]
“THE FOOTPRINT OF A TIME”: AN INTERVIEW WITH KELLY REICHARDT
One of the nation’s foremost narrative filmmakers talks about her craft
RUNNING THE NUMBERS: AN INTERVIEW WITH GAVIN O’CONNOR
Gavin O’Connor is an American filmmaker whose work includes Tumbleweeds [1999], Miracle [2004], Warrior [2011], and Jane Got a Gun [2016]. His latest film, The Accountant [2016]—which stars Ben Affleck as Chris Wolff, an autistic mathematician under siege—opens today. Maybe I’ve got the wrong impression, but you’re a genre filmmaker working primarily in the […]
JUMPING INTO THE FIRE: AN INTERVIEW WITH SASHA LANE
Sasha Lane’s first role brings her cross-country
