Fill the Void depicts the Chassidic world from a female perspective with sensitivity and artistry.  Orthodox Judaism is typically represented in cinema one of three ways: There’s the “Yentl” approach, in which the Orthodox world remains frozen in Old Country Shtetlach even as their inhabitants sail to new opportunities elsewhere. If our story takes place outside of pre-WWII Europe, Orthodox Judaism is often presented as an oppressive institution that prevents a film’s hero from pursuing their true love or calling (Think The Jazz Singer (1927 and 1980), Disobedience (2017), and Felix and Meira (2014)). And of course, there are the incidental comedic encounters where Orthodox Judaism is presented as little more than a punchline-à

The Favourite is one of the least sexy films ever made about lesbian relationships. And somehow, it’s directed by a man.   Last week, The Favourite (2018) was nominated for ten Academy Awards. It’s an excellent film that certainly deserves the awards and press. It is also a fabulously unsexy film in spite of a plot driven by the power and sexual dynamics between its female leads. There are no shots in the final cut with the sole purpose of titillating the audience, and the camera refuses to objectify the three women who reign over the screen. Most shocking of all, The Favourite achieves this while being directed by a

More than a decade prior to the release of  Belle de Jour, Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel directed this Mexican melodrama about the effects of infidelity on a family.  https://youtu.be/KvhiILFqGJM At first it may not seem as if there is much that distinguishes the 1952 Mexican movie A Woman Without Love from other films of its era. The narrative generally never strays far from the confines of romantic melodrama, and the film features a constrained, yet lush and glamorous aesthetic clearly indebted to Classical Hollywood. However, upon further inspection it becomes clear that what makes A Woman Without Love stand out is that it represents nothing less than the

In a style reminiscent of Chris Marker,  Reunification  (2015) meditates on the nature of memory, family, and art.  Alvin Tsang is motivated to contextualize his family’s experience empathetically, historically, and philosophically. The intimate family history we are given is marked by immigration, betrayal, and divorce. But Tsang never relies on the shock of the real that reality-injected TV has worked so hard to manufacture.  Instead, the film tries hard to be less sensational. This is a personal story and a personal drama. To create the needed intimacy, the film relies on matter-of-fact conversations, family photos, and the documentation of personal spaces. It is from

Contributor Sean Duffy interviews  Julian Antos,  The Music Box Theatre‘s  Technical Director, about the theater’s upcoming 70MM Film Festival.  For the third time in three years, the Music Box Theater in Chicago is putting on a film festival dedicated specifically to showcasing 70MM. This year’s festival, “70MM Film Festival: The Ultimate Version”, includes previously shown classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Vertigo, Lawrence of Arabia, and It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, as well as first-time prints of Brainstorm, Starman, Krull, and even a collection of shorts co-presented with the Northwest Chicago Film Society.  Not only is this the Music Box’s biggest 70MM festival yet in terms of its programming, it’s also the first with their new 41-foot