Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.
Vanessa Anzola Castellanos: My article is about the Colombian documentarist Marta Rodríguez; she is one of the first documentary filmmakers in Colombia and her work focuses on advocating for human rights. In my article, I described how she uses ethnography to portray reality and the effect her documentaries have in the communities that she films.
Continue readingOn behalf of the Georgia Tech Online Editorial Board, Film Matters is happy to announce a new CFP–“Flash Essays on Why Film Matters Now, or Hot Takes on Hot Takes”–from current undergraduates and recently graduated undergraduates for consideration in a special online dossier.
The deadline is April 1, 2025.
For more information about this call for papers, please see the official document (PDF):
Submissions and questions should be directed to:
Please note that Film Matters does not accept submissions that are currently under review by other journals or magazines.
Georgia Tech students await your hot takes!
Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.
Ann Zhang: My article is about the idea of character “doubles” and how they are represented in film. Developments in visual effects technology have diversified the selection of strategies by which filmmakers can create human doubles. I compared modernist and postmodernist film philosophies through a close analysis of the human subject in Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966) and Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan (2010), two films in which doubling functions similarly in the narrative but manifests in different ways onscreen.
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Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.
Charlie Mc Evoy: My article discusses the 1955 film, The Man with the Golden Arm by Austrian director Otto Preminger. The Golden Arm is a typical noir is many ways – dark, gritty, set on the back alleys of Chicago and boasting a fantastic jazz score. What is surprising is that the protagonist, played by Frank Sinatra (Frankie) is addicted to heroin. This plot point has, however, in my opinion, served to overshadow the most interesting element of the film, which is that Frankie’s wife (Zosh), is a ‘’fake’’ wheelchair user and that this characteristic serves to almost singularly doom Frankie to a life of addiction and booze. I argue that the film constructs Zosh as a kind of crip fatale, with all of the destructive impulses and deceitful wiles of the femme fatale, but none of the allure.
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Some people compare it to being on an island among foreigners. Others say it’s similar to sticking your head in a goldfish bowl. But the reality of what I can and cannot hear is a lot more complicated than anyone could put into words.
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Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.
Aidan O’Malley: My article explores the rise of “cringe culture” on the internet and applies the ironic viewing practices of movies considered “so bad, they’re good” to an emerging twenty-first-century canon, which I’ve taken to calling “cringe cinema.”
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“Sometimes a movie isn’t what you think. It can offer a different perspective or solution to a crisis . . . so long as you can crack THE CODE.”
Eugene Kotlyarenko opens his 2024 film, The Code, with this quote, credited to Orson Welles. This is the film’s thesis: a secret signal that will not be understood until later on that the film is not all that it seems. The film centers around Celine Unger (Dasha Nekrasova) and Jay Richard (Peter Vack) as they attempt to rekindle their relationship; and their goal is simply to have sex with each other, but they are also their biggest obstacles. Celine is filming a documentary about love under quarantine; but Jay is paranoid that it is really a biased film about their relationship and where it is failing, which will result in him getting canceled again. The two repeatedly go behind each other’s back to “help” one another, only resulting in chaos and undermining, a comedy of errors.
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), directed by David Yates, is one of the most underrated films within the franchise. The reasons are multiple, and most are direct consequences of the undeniable limits of adaptation. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the finale of J. K. Rowling’s series, about six hundred pages where a lot happens not just plot-wise, but within the characters as well. Not even splitting the film into two disparate parts, approximately two and a half hours each, permitted screenwriter Steve Kloves to include everything – or to try and resemble the narrative pace the book so brilliantly masters. Nonetheless, if we take part one as a piece of cinematic work, rather than just the piece of the bigger narrative, the film presents some beautiful features and interesting adapting choices.
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I had the privilege of attending the New York Kurdish Film Festival this month for the New York City premiere of Kurdish-Swiss director Mano Khalil’s 2021 film, Neighbours. As I walked into the Angelika Film Center in the East Village, I was brought almost immediately to the director. Khalil, a curly-haired man with kind eyes, shook my hand as I introduced myself. Our conversation felt very natural as Khalil told me about other screenings of the film he had attended as part of its film festival run, which includes over 200 festivals. We laughed together, musing on the reasons behind what brings humans to the movies. I could tell that Khalil is a hopeful man, filled with gentle life. Upon seeing his film, Neighbours, shortly thereafter, it became clear that his naturalism and warmth seeped into the tone of the film.
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Rowdy Friends, the new feature-length film directed by Jacob Hatley, is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, and it likes it that way. Rough around the edges but full of exuberance, this film throws fiction and truth into a blender and spits out an experience that is not always enjoyable, but is definitely memorable. The film meanders loosely about its narrative, unsure of where to place its emotional highs and lows. The strength of the film lies within its actors’ performances, which feel so real that it’s hard to distinguish their performances from their everyday personas. This is due in part to the fact that they’re all fresh, first-time actors with real-life experience dealing with the subject matter. The choice to shoot on location in the North Carolina towns of Badin, Asheboro, and Thomasville only reinforces the narrative’s truth.
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