Longform writing is the raison d'être of Animus. These free-to-access essays, by writers from around the world, cut through the noise and are guaranteed to be worth your time.
Essays
Artwork by Neven Udovičić The films discussed in this issue all, to some degree, use provocation to fulfil their goals. Speaking to Mark Asch, Daniel Goldhaber explains that his film How to Blow Up a Pipeline isn’t designed to advocate for a specific politics, but rather to shake up
Essays
On Nathan Fielder's show The Rehearsal (photo Allyson Riggs/HBO) There’s a telling moment about halfway through the pilot of The Rehearsal, Nathan Fielder’s series for HBO Max, in which Kor, the episode’s middle-aged subject, compares Fielder to Willy Wonka. The remark is meant as
Essays
On Babak Anvari's I Came By (2022) The hypocrisies of modern life, where all of us are complicit in the suffering and exploitation of others whether we choose to be or not, are not a new field of creative exploration for filmmakers (heard of Fight Club, anyone?). Beyond
Essays
On Satyajit Ray's Devi (1960) “I’ll convince him! I have all the latest arguments at my fingertips,” boasts the cocky Umaprasad (Soumitra Chatterjee), when his friend confesses that he wishes to marry a widow but is afraid of his father’s disapproval. Throughout Satyajit Ray’s Devi
Essays
Promotional picture for My Six Convicts (1952) One of the most striking sections of this year’s edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato, the repertory film festival that takes place annually in Bologna, Italy, was the series on director Hugo Fregonese. Born in Argentina but working in Hollywood in the years
Essays
On digital vs. film Why return to the discourse surrounding digital and film now? Walter Benjamin wrote, “In every era the attempt must be made anew to wrest tradition away from a conformism that is about to overpower it.” Today digital sensors have largely erased the aesthetic discrepancies between digital
Essays
Artwork by Neven Udovičić Few films that purport to “blur the boundaries between fiction and reality” ever go beyond stating the fact that much of reality is fake or performative, and that, conversely, a lot of what we assume to be entirely artificial is in fact the most true. That
Essays
On cinema as a refuge Stop pathologising Disney adults! Thus rang out a cri de coeur, recently, from one Dr. Jodi Eichler-Levine, Professor of Religion Studies at Lehigh University, at the outset of a Twitter thread that swiftly went viral. The professor was reacting to a Reddit thread about two
Essays
Toothless satire and punching down in All My Friends Hate Me Much of UK-made cinema from the last few years has felt increasingly unimaginative. On one side, you have the feel-good, Richard Curtis-esque comedies, the Downton Abbeys and WWII adventures, invariably starring any number of Colin Firth impersonators. On the
Essays
How did we get here? The trap of representation, “in cinema at large and in Hollywood in particular,” Elena Lazic wrote, “is usually understood to mean the way in which increased presence on screens does not necessarily translate into larger creative power or salaries in front of and behind the
Essays
Croatian director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović on her film Murina Over the course of a few days, existing tensions between a father and his teenage daughter escalate to a point of crisis. It sounds like a straightforward coming-of-age story, but it is not. Here, the person throwing tantrums and acting irrationally
Essays
Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason on his film Godland Godland begins, like Fargo, with a title card announcing a spurious real-life inspiration for the film: in this case, a cache of seven wet-plate photographs, taken by a Danish priest in the 19th century, that are the first known pictures of South