TIFF 2021: Mlungu Wam (Good Madam)

In Mlungu Wam (Good Madam), archaic ideals take on a nightmarish role for a woman and her family. Tsidi (Chumisa Cosa) is estranged from her extended family after her grandmother dies. She leaves the family home to stay with her mother, Mavis (Nosipho Mtebe), a maid for an ailing, rich white woman named Diane (Jennifer... Continue Reading →

September 12, 2021

Final Girls Berlin 2021: Los Que Vuelven (The Returned)

Perspective is everything in Laura Casabé’s film Los Que Vuelven (The Returned). Julia (María Soldi) is the wife of a landowner Mariano (Alberto Ajaka), in 1919 Argentina. She hasn’t been able to have a live birth. When her third child dies, she begs her indigenous housekeeper Kerana (Lali González), to take her to a mountain... Continue Reading →

February 4, 2021

Fantasia Film Festival 2020: Detention

The Taiwanese Government was under martial law in 1962, so anything considered left-wing or remotely communist was barred and could be punishable by death. In John Hsu’s film Detention, we see how a secret book club puts the lives of both student and faculty in jeopardy. Wei (Jing-Hua Tseng) is a student at Greenwood High... Continue Reading →

August 25, 2020