Screen Anarchy

IS GOD IS Review: Playwright-Turned-Filmmaker Aleshea Harris’ Remarkably Assured Debut Dazzles, Shocks, Impresses

IS GOD IS Review: Playwright-Turned-Filmmaker Aleshea Harris’ Remarkably Assured Debut Dazzles, Shocks, Impresses

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a bolder, more fearless feature-length debut this year than playwright-turned-filmmaker Aleshea Harris’ uncategorizable feature-length debut, Is God Is.   Part righteous rampage of revenge (down, as always, with the patriarchy in all its forms), part road movie, part grindhouse allegory, Is God Is qualifies as a singular achievement in filmmaking. It’s one of one, and so, apparently, is Harris herself. Sometimes — and this is one of those times — hyperbolic superlatives are fully merited.    After receiving her BA from the University of Southern Mississippi and her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Harris focused her artistic talents on playwrighting. Is God Is premiered at NYC’s famed Soho Repertory Theatre in February 2018, winning three…

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San Francisco 2026 Review: EVERY CONTACT LEAVES A TRACE, Poignant, Thoughtful Cine-Essay

San Francisco 2026 Review: EVERY CONTACT LEAVES A TRACE, Poignant, Thoughtful Cine-Essay

The latest project by filmmaker Lynne Sachs (Drift and Bough, The Washing Society, Film About a Father Who) opens with a quote from the French-born father of 20th-century forensic science, Dr. Edmond Locard: “Every contact leaves a trace.”   The basis for “Locard’s Exchange Principle,” it also doubles as the title of Sachs’ documentary, a deeply personal cine-essay.   With more time behind her than in front of her, a meditative Sachs uncovered a box of 600 business cards dating back to 1990 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. As a young woman and burgeoning filmmaker, Sachs met Angela Haardt, a Berlin resident, a founding member of the International Forum of the Film Avant-Garde, and the director of a shorts festival (1990-1997) where Sachs placed an…

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