Day: February 29, 2020
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Femspectives Festival Exclusive Review: The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open
One of the concluding films for the Femspectives festival was Elle-Maija Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn’s collaborative film, “The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open” (2019) a harrowing, but a quietly meditative film about solidarity. It’s a bleak and often uncomfortable watch, but its dedication to telling stories often forgotten, or worse ignored, is what makes it such an exciting new entry into Femspective cinema. The film is a Canadian/Norwegian film centred around a chance encounter between two women – Aila (played by Tailfeathers) and Rosie (Violet Nelson). Rosie is an expectant young mother who lives with her boyfriend and his mother. Aila is a similarly young woman who herself wrestles with the concept of motherhood. Aila meets Rosie, barefoot and in the pouring rain, as she is running away from her violent boyfriend. She takes her back to her place, and in the uncertainty of what to do next, the two start to form a connection of sorts.
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GFF Exclusive Review: Proxima
During the Q&A after the screening of “Proxima” (2019), writer/director Alice Winocour commented on the significance of its title. For “Proxima” is not just the name of the central space mission within the film. Proxima Centauri is the name of the closest star to our solar system outside of the Sun, yet is still 4.2 light years away. Winocour described this star as so close yet so distant too, a description which is at the heart of this film’s themes – one of the key reasons why “Proxima” works as well as it does. Opening the 2020 Glasgow Film Festival, this French drama stars Eva Green as astronaut Sarah Loreau. She is selected for a one year mission on the ISS, a choice which delights Sarah. This is what she has always wanted. But there are certain complications. Not only must she undergo rigorous training for the mission, but she is leaving behind her eight-year-old daughter Stella (Zelie Bouland), who struggles to comprehend the idea of not seeing her mother for a whole year.
In Their Own League 