Certain nonfiction and experimental cinema forebears were quite present during the 2019 iteration of the Camden International Film Festival, which exhibited numerous films that were far more than mere tributes to their predecessors but proudly wore citations on their surfaces anyway. The program “Shorts X: The Hermit”, for instance, included two separate works, Ellie Ga’s […]
FESTIVAL REPORT: “CABALLERANGO” AT CIFF AND BLIFF
Caballerango (2018) played as part of this year’s Camden International Film Festival, which took place from September 12-15, 2019. It will play as part of the Boston Latino International Film Festival tonight, September 27, at the Emerson Paramount Center. At the 2018 iteration of the Camden International Film Festival I saw one film of […]
FESTIVAL REPORT: INTRO FROM CIFF; NOTES ON TWO SHORT FILMS
For the next week DigBoston.com will be publishing reports from the 2019 iteration of the Camden International Film Festival (9.12-9.15), which I’m attending for the third consecutive year, meaning I’ll hopefully finally start to get the hang of its wonderfully complex rhythm. It’s taken so long because the program, which exhibits contemporary nonfiction cinema, typically […]
CIFF REPORT #1: ON “HALE COUNTY”, “BABY BROTHER”, AND “NORMAN NORMAN”
The nonfiction feature Hale County This Morning, This Evening [2018] is first and foremost a sensorial experience, not a narrative one. With that said, filmmaker RaMell Ross does introduce his main characters very early on: first Daniel and Quincy, two young basketball players on the come-up in Hale County, AL, and then Boosie, who is […]
CIFF INTERVIEW: DIRECTOR J.P. SNIADECKI, OF “EL MAR LA MAR”
The new film primarily displays landscape footage of the Sonoran desert, while the audio track features interviews with numerous figures that have experienced the location firsthand—including immigrants who had just crossed the border, as well as some patrolmen who consider it their job to stop them.
CIFF CAPSULE: “ABACUS — SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL”
The punchline to those lone criminal charges—as it’s told in this film by Hoop Dreams [1994] director Steve James—is that Abacus didn’t even contribute to the crisis.
CIFF CAPSULE: “MAINELAND”
While accommodating on a technical level, they meet the foreign students with typical condescension: signs for “English-only common spaces,” classes that begin with “so where are you from” conversations, that whole routine.
