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'Delphine's Prayers' & 'Ten Skies' at Open City 2021

Manuela Lazić writes about two of the films that made the biggest impact on her at the 2021 Open City Documentary Festival in London

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A Family Affair – Director Mo Scarpelli on 'El Father Plays Himself'

El Father Plays Himself is so much more than a making-of documentary. Director Mo Scarpelli charts not so much the making of a film, as she does the making and re-making of a relationship — that between her partner, Jorge Thielen Armand, and his father, Jorge Thielen Hedderich. Son is directing

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His House (Remi Weekes, 2020)

Besides its original, welcome and refreshing focus on refugees, Remi Weekes' His House also stands out for its nuanced and unconventional portrayal of (survivor’s) guilt and trauma, undermining cliches and expectations at every turn to craft a more unstable and therefore more haunting kind of horror.

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Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (Sidney J. Furie, 1987)

The poor quality, cheap special effects and banal approach to both the character of Superman and the threat of nuclear annihilation in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace are of course very endearing, and the film undoubtedly deserves its place in the so-bad-it’s-good canon. But its true appeal lies

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The Assistant (Kitty Green, 2019)

Considering how topical this film was at the time of release and remains today — showing the bullying and silencing of a young woman working for a powerful film producer, clearly based on Harvey Weinstein — I am sure there have been tons of writing on the dynamics it explores, namely the

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Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

At first glance, Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always appears to adopt wholesale a visual style that seeks to make the viewer experience, on a visceral level, the habitat of the characters, the mood and the texture of their lives. Shot on 16mm, the film favours close-ups on faces

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Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 2000)

From the very first shots of Yi Yi, Edward Yang’s control of his images is evident. He does not cut away from long takes when one would expect him to, nor does he follow up a long shot with the kind of close-up most filmmakers would use to punctuate

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The Legend of the Holy Drinker (Ermanno Olmi, 1988)

Something that has been occupying my mind a lot lately is the concept of fantasy. I don’t mean the literary genre, but the imaginary world that we sometimes find ourselves spending more time in than reality. I think that many of us often live in a fantasy — at least

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On 'Des' (2020) and Gerard Johnson's 'Tony' (2009)

I have been watching a lot of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit these past few weeks, and in that show, the cops essentially do not care about why the perps (SVU talk for “perpetrators”) do what they do; all they care about is stopping them. This is obviously not

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The Hard Way (John Badham, 1991)

It is always painful to realise what a brilliant actor James Woods is, considering the kind of person he has become. Interestingly (or not), he is really good at playing very unpleasant characters, and The Hard Way is no exception. His John Moss is a brutal NYPD cop whose work

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Risky Business (Paul Brickman, 1983)

I don’t think that a teen film which does not begin to enact its basic concept and selling point (here, a kid setting up a brothel in his parents’ house) until an hour in could be made today. But even more inconceivable to me is the idea that a

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Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (Kim Henkel, 1995)

I know this entry in the franchise is reviled by most. There is nothing I can do about that. But for my own sake, and in the secret hope that history will eventually prove me right, I want to go into some detail about why I find this film an