Year: 2023 Runtime: 85 minutes Director/Writer: Mstyslav Chernov By Joan Amenn Those of a certain age will find this film recalling painful memories of watching footage from the Vietnam War on the nightly news. Raw and powerful, “20 Days in Mariupol” (2023) deserves its nomination as Best Documentary for this year’s SIFF competition. It will leave you with your heart bounding and a sense of … Continue reading 20 Days in Mariupol: SIFF Review
Year: 2023 Runtime: 87 minutes Director/Writer: Sarah Kambe Holland Actors: Sabrina Jieafa, Louis Tomeo, Asahi Hirano, J. Scott Browning, Roger Greco, Kelley Mauro, Ayden Lee By Joan Amenn Kicking off my coverage of the Seattle International Film Festival with this film was honestly one of my best choices of the last week. I initially thought that with a title like “Egghead & Twinkie” I should … Continue reading Egghead & Twinkie: SIFF Review
Sometimes, the stars align and an incredibly talented person is in just the right time and place to do something revolutionary. Continue reading Siff 2022 Review: Quant
“Young Plato” is a lovely story of how much a child can be impacted by someone in their lives who guides them with kindness and reason. Continue reading SIFF Review: Young Plato
Sinead O’Connor was an explosive presence to anyone who was young in the 1980’s. Androgynous, furious and mysterious, she seemed to descend upon popular music like the wailing banshee from the folklore of her native country. Continue reading SIFF 2022 Review: Nothing Compares
Like any Italian woman, she is concerned about what he is eating in a foreign country that thinks that pizza should taste like ketchup on cardboard. Continue reading SIFF 2022 Review: Lonely Voices (Le Voci Sole)
Grief is a mysterious thing. It can linger below the surface of our awareness like driftwood bobbing under the edge of a wave. Continue reading SIFF 2022 Review: Midday Black, Midnight Blue
Year: 2022 Runtime: 65 minutes Director: Norbert Pfaffenbichler Writer: Norbert Pfaffenbichler Cast: Stefan Erber, David Ionescu By Joan Amenn This film is a strange amalgamation of dystopian horror, Grand Guignol and a homage to Charlie Chaplin. If experimental film is your thing, you may find “2551.01” (2022) a fascinatingly phantasmagoric ride. If not, the film may just frustrate with its hallucinatory images and lack of … Continue reading SIFF 2022 Review: 2551.01
This is a film about war which is indiscriminate in what it destroys and no one bears the terrible burden of that destruction more than the women of the world. Continue reading SIFF 2022 Review: Klondike
As Art Cullen writes in one of his editorials, “Tyranny prevails wherever the press is not free.”
Continue reading Storm Lake: SIFF DocFest 2021 Review
In Their Own League 