Documentarian Jason Loftus and artist /protester Daxiong pay a remarkable film tribute to the brave souls who carried out the 2002 hijacking of Chinese state TV to counter China’s crackdown on the spiritual practice of Falun Gong. Daxiong, a renowned commercial artist was arrested, but unlike his colleagues, some of whom died in police custody, he escaped and settled in… View Post
Tyler Perry’s A Jazzman’s Blues, while not a true story, is based on Black experiences in the racist American Southern USA not so very long ago. A conversation with the late playwright August Wilson inspired him to start writing this story, a remarkable, deeply moving achievement, the story of “star-crossed lovers” caught in society’s traps starring Broadway stars Joshua Boone… View Post
Brett Morgen’s brain melt of a documentary Moonage Daydream on the elusive David Bowie is like none other. The Bowie estate handed Morgen 5 million assets including never before seen footage, private concerts, interviews, and Bowie’s own words on his 54-year career, his troubled childhood, beliefs, artistic sensibility, and his legacy. It’s an outstanding achievement as a portrait of Bowie… View Post
By Anne Brodie Gina Prince-Bythewood’s gobsmacking take on the historic warrior women of west Africa – the Dahomey Amazons – feels like a superhero epic but with living, breathing, relatable humans. The Woman King. The warriors are phenomenal – Viola Davis is power personified as Nanisca, leading a fine ensemble of actresses, who can convey it all with a look,… View Post
St. Vladimir’s Academy tips the hat to the original literary and folktale-based vampire, Dracula (Drăculea), Vladimir II of Wallachia who took the name “Dracul” after being invested in the Romanian Order of the Dragon in 1431. Cut to contemporary times as fresh young students, vampires in training, draw on the rich legacy of the bloodsucking yet seductive, romantic monster to… View Post
Andy Siara’s complex, time travelling mystery series The Resort is set in beautiful sunny Cancun where families have come for healing R and R. It’s anything but for two groups, linked by a catastrophe in 2007 that decisively changes the lifepath of a married couple vacationing there in 2022. All because of a flip phone. Siara says he once wanted… View Post