It Doesn’t Follow: Linares Villegas’ Queer Horror Forgets the Fright Factor
Horror has long been a safe space to explore queer stories; from cult classics Jennifer’s Body and Ginger Snaps to horror villains found in The Babadook and the androgynous gender fluid figure Pinhead from Hellraiser. Dominican filmmaker Victoria Linares Villegas ambitiously threads themes of closeted homosexuality into a horror framework in her debut feature Don’t Come Out (No Salgas). Invoking a homophobic killer as both threat and metaphor, despite its conceptual promise, the film struggles to generate genuine scares, fully realized characters, or a narrative pulse strong enough to sustain tension.… Read the rest
Long have Chinese filmmakers used the medium of film to address China’s growing industrialisation and embrace of capitalism. Modern master Jia Zhangke comes to mind as an inspiration but few have tried something quite as unique as with Light Pillar. For his debut animated feature, Xu Zao (also known as Xu Jingwei) has crafted a sometimes baffling, visually daring dreamscape grounded in reality with genuinely unique formal decisions. The animation is pushed to its limits as he weaves live-action performers into its zany, eclectic world — though not in any way you’ve seen before.… 
The sovereignty of Australia was never officially ceded by its First Nations peoples, succinctly stated in the 1980s slogan “
True to form, or rather, anti-form, 
How does one define their own home? Is it the place we were born? The place we grew up? Or a more abstract attribute like sexuality, self-acceptance or maybe even a hobby? In Kai Stänicke’s feature debut we focus on Hein (Paul Boche) returning to a tiny German island community 14 years after leaving for the mainland. The only problem is he appears to have physically changed quite a bit and no one seems to be wholly certain this is the young boy that left all those years ago. The village decides the best way to solve the issue of allowing Hein to return is a trial in order for him to prove himself to truly be Hein.…