The Tale of Silyan

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By C.J. Hirschfield

As the former CEO of Children’s Fairyland in Oakland, I appreciate a good folktale. As an aspiring  birder, I am fascinated by their remarkable species. And as someone who follows politics, I value learning about how governmental actions can have profound effects on the lives of working people.

National Geographic Film’s new documentary The Tale of Silyan checks all of these boxes for me—and is stunningly beautiful as well. Director/producer Tamara Kotevska, who also directed the 2019 Oscar-nominated Honeyland, weaves a tale about a down-on-his luck Macedonian farmer who creates a special bond with a wounded white stork—a story that very much parallels a beloved regional folk tale, in which a boy named Silyan is transformed into this regal bird. Continue reading →

CULINARY FILM FARE AT SEATTLE’S 50TH FEST

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By Vince Keenan 

(May 22, 2024)

(Editor’s note: As people increase their frequency of going out to entertainment, most events that went virtual during Covid have returned to in-person presentations, including film festivals. The Seattle International Film Festival has programmed a number of their in-person selections for streaming through May 27 so that people not in the Seattle area can discover them.  Film lover and mixologist Vince Keenan writes about four Eat & Drink Films he saw at the festival.)

50th Seattle International Film Festival May 9–19, 2024

The Seattle International Film Festival has always offered a robust selection of movies about food and drink, “Culinary Cinema” being one of its staple programs. It continues the tradition in its fiftieth anniversary season. Several of the relevant titles are programmed in categories related to location—the Pacific Northwest and the Iberian Peninsula—which is only fitting, as the films all touch on and expand the concept of terroir. Continue reading →

The Pleasures of an Omakase Movie

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By Gaetano Kazuo Maida

“It’s never finished. It’s always in movement.”—Michel Troisgros

Okay, so let’s say you’re like me and you don’t customarily (like, never!) spend $1000 for lunch for two, and it happens that you don’t live in France, and yet you have good taste in food, you know what it is to enjoy a fine wine occasionally, you’re curious about the synergies between sustainable agriculture and restaurants, and at the moment are feeling a bit peckish. Well, the universe is generous, and Menu Plaisirs Les Troisgros offers a reasonable facsimile of enjoying one of the world’s top haute cuisine institutions from the comfort of your own seat or couch for four hours, about the duration of a really nice long lunch, albeit without the tasting bit. Continue reading →

“Pandora’s Box” – A Stunning Film on the Big Screen at the Spectacular Paramount

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By Nancy Friedman

(April 25, 2023)

Maligned, misunderstood, and mercilessly censored when it was released in 1929 – and virtually forgotten for the next three decades – Pandora’s Box (Die Büchse der Pandora) is today acknowledged as one of the masterpieces of silent cinema. That honor is attributable in part to the artistry of director Georg Wilhelm Pabst and cinematographer Günther Krampf, two giants of German film. But the film’s real magic resides in the indelible performance of its American star, Louise Brooks, whom the film historian David Thomson has called “one of the most mysterious and potent figures in the history of the cinema.” The British film critic Pamela Hutchinson has said that Brooks – with her impish smile, dancer’s lithe body, and gleaming black helmet of bobbed hair – “both defines the Roaring Twenties and stands outside it. She is timeless.” 

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All The Beauty and Bloodshed

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By C.J. Hirschfield

(March 10, 2023)

The documentary feature All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is actually three movies in one. Directed by 2015 Academy Award winner Laura Poitras (Citizenfour), the film explores the art, life, and political activism of internationally renowned artist Nan Goldin, whose story could not be more compelling. Through her photos, slideshows, interviews and video footage, we get a real sense of what inspired both her art and her activism.

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A House Made of Splinters

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By C.J. Hirschfield

(March 8, 2023)

Some feature length documentaries transport you across the world, into space, or under the ocean, exploring fantastic and fascinating environments that you never could have imagined.

The Academy-Award nominee A House Made of Splinters takes place under just one roof, and the drama is no less compelling for it. Inside the walls of an Eastern Ukraine temporary shelter for children, there is compassion, friendship, love, and joy, mixed with fear, pain, and lost childhood.

 

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Fire of Love: Bring On The Heat and Light

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By C.J. Hirschfield

July 8, 2022

National Geographic and Neon hope that you’ll come for the volcanoes and stay for the love story. And you most definitely should.  “In this world lived a fire; and in this fire, two lovers found a home.” Jeesh.
What are the odds of two scientists, obsessed with volcanoes, falling in love and then traveling the world for decades in an attempt to get as close as possible to the most dangerous, active eruptions? Continue reading →

UNSUNG HEROES THROUGH THE NIGHT- Special Free Screening Thursday, Jan. 19

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By C.J. Hirschfield

(Updated January 17, 2023)

Shanina and Noah

Shanona Tate is one of the frontline workers we have come to revere as of late—a pediatric emergency room nurse who works the overnight shift at a New York hospital. We can bang pots and pans to acknowledge her service and that of other employees within essential industries who must physically show up to their jobs—at whatever hour–but until we really see the economic and psychic toll it takes we can’t begin to understand how our current system is not working for them.

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I Didn’t See You There

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By C.J. Hirschfield

(Updated January 9, 2023)

A monument to circus showman P.T. Barnum stands in Reid Davenport’s hometown of Bethel, Connecticut. “He got a pedestal,” says the director of I DIDN’T SEE YOU THERE, the new documentary that premiered at the 65th SFFILM Festival, while the disabled filmmaker’s perspective is from the sidewalk. The film, a meditative and personal feature that invites the viewer to see the world through his eyes—and at his level– often refers to the corrosive legacy of Barnum’s freak shows and how society relates to those who are different.

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