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  Film Festival | Uncategorized

  The New York Jewish Film Festival Jan. 14-28

  By Kurt Brokaw

  An uptown museum and Lincoln Center fest offer unbending Jewish support in a time fraught with peril in the worldwide…

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  Zine Article

  Directing Under Dictators: Shin Sang-ok, the Prince of Korean Cinema

  By Olivia Smith

  In 1978, the South Korean Park Chung-hee regime shut down a film studio that defined the country’s postwar film industry after the release of a forbidden kiss scene. Six months later, the studio’s head was abducted by the North Korean Kim Jong Il regime. The head was a South-Korean director and producer, Shin Sang-ok, who directed the film that caused the controversy: “Rose and Wild Dog.” Shin’s career survived two authoritarian governments, as well as an abduction and imprisonment. Through these constricting experiences, he continued to make films — whether under surveillance, direct orders or freely, proving that systems of censorship and political warfare will fail in their efforts to squash creativity and passion. 

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  Film Festival | Zine Article

  A Call for Film Festivals to Choose Bravery: The Story of Jafar Panahi’s ‘It Was Just An Accident’

  By Mia Cassidy

  Currently, the United States faces its own wave of censorship catalyzed by book bans, the destruction of DEI programs and overwhelming budget cuts to universities, news organizations and national education/art programs like PBS. All the while, the implementation of artificial intelligence around the world brings a threat of unreliable media and the decentralization of individual thought. With all of these elements at play, the need to combat suppression in the creative world is more dire than ever. With the potential for films to champion a diverse array of voices and stories, one of the most powerful spaces to protect this freedom is in the film festival realm.

• Zine Article

  Reclaiming the Male Gaze: Learning to See Through Film Photography

  By Terra King

  I’ve questioned my own gaze for years. As a small child, I observed my three sisters — triplets eight years older than me — become women, and marveled at the power, allure and dynamism in femininity. Simultaneously I saw men lie, cheat and be violent in their reach for women. And I’ve gazed at myself in the mirror, watching my perception of self shift from day to day. My own perception of myself is as capricious as the winds, rising and falling with my mood, my cycle, the day’s events.

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  Features | Zine Article

  The United States, Its Secret Origins, and the Deflation of ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’

  By Terra King

  At last year’s Academy Awards, Lily Gladstone was the first Indigenous American to be nominated for Best Actress. Her nomination was one of 10 Oscar nominations for Martin Scorsese’s film “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which many celebrated as progress for Indigenous representation in Hollywood.

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  Features | Zine Article

  Too Daring for a Domestic Audience? Examining the 1964 Japanese Horror Film ‘Onibaba’ 

  By Nate Ruttenberg

  “THE MOST DARING FILM IMPORT EVER . . . FROM JAPAN!” is how Toho Studios first advertised “Onibaba” to foreign audiences. With a sex-centered plot that features disturbing, psychosexual encounters between characters, writer/director Kaneto Shindo’s intentionally controversial 1964 horror film pushed the limits of both Japanese and international censorship laws. Mildly censored in Japan and banned outright in countries such as the U.K., “Onibaba” serves as a deeply unusual combination of folkloric story and bold, modern sexuality.