BFF FILM & FESTIVAL BLOG
3 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE WGA STRIKE
Good Read For Emerging Writers and Entertainment Enthusiasts
The Writer’s Guild of America - which represents approximately 11,500 people who write the Hollywood shows and movies you love - is on strike! As the clock struck midnight on May 1st, the WGA's 3-year contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) expired. In the six weeks leading up to the deadline, the WGA has been fighting for a new contract that gives writers their fair share for their creative work. The guild's demands include higher minimum pay across all media, improved residuals, fair compensation for TV series writers throughout the entire production process, and increased contributions to pension and health plans. They're also pushing for stronger professional standards and overall protection for writers, and more. The WGA's proposals aim to bring in $429 million more per year for writers, while the AMPTP's counter-offer is just an $86 million bump. You can check out the WGA proposal chart here
There's a lot to unpack about the WGA strike, so we've distilled the info into a quick 5-minute read. Whether you're an indie writer hoping to join the union ranks or just someone fascinated by the inner workings of the film and TV industry, we've got you covered. Here's a summary of three essential things you need to know about the strike.
Bushwick Film Festival Alumni Tess Harrison (left) (2018 BFF short Take Me Out with the Stars) on the picket line during the 2023 WGA Writer’s strike.
1. THE ORGANIZATIONS AT THE TABLE
Who is the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP)Sitting on one side of the table is The Writers Guild of America (WGA), the labor union representing professional writers in film, television, radio, and new media across the United States. Split into two branches, the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) is based in New York City, while the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) calls Los Angeles home.
The WGA is all about safeguarding its members' rights by hammering out contracts, setting industry standards for minimum compensation, regulating working conditions, and ensuring fair distribution of residuals and royalties. The guild also champions writers' creative rights, such as proper attribution and protection against unauthorized changes to their work.
On the other side of the negotiating table sits the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), a California-based trade association representing over 350 American film and TV production companies. This powerhouse negotiates with entertainment industry unions like SAG-AFTRA, DGA, IATSE, IBEW, Laborers Local 724, Teamsters Local #399, and WGA, fostering collaboration and promoting cooperation.
The AMPTP's member roster reads like a who's who of the entertainment world, including major motion picture studios (Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros.), principal broadcast TV networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC), streaming services like Netflix, Apple TV+, and Amazon, select cable TV networks, and other independent film and TV production companies.
2. THE BEEF
What are WGA and AMPTP fighting about?
There are a few pressing issues that need to be addressed in the upcoming 3-year contracts negotiated by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) with the AMPTP that are crucial to the fair compensation of writers. Here are three important ones: the impact of streaming services, the creation of the mini room, and the regulation of AI.
Let’s start with streaming services. Shorter seasons and longer gaps between seasons on streaming platforms contribute to a significant decline in writer’s earnings. Streaming showrunners receive a median salary of just 46% of the broadcast median due to contractual differences, despite working similar hours. Thus, writers face challenges in job security and fair compensation. In addition, residual issues have arisen in streaming, with the calculation method not yet on par with broadcast TV. Residuals on streaming platforms are generally lower, even for shows created exclusively for streaming. The WGA argues that writers should share in profits generated by successful streaming shows, a demand previously refused by the AMPTP in negotiations. For example, if a show is successful on Netflix (who like most streamers don’t reveal their numbers) the writer gets very little residuals as income as opposed to if the show was on TV.
The mini-room model is a hot topic for writers, as it treats them like they're disposable and leaves them unpaid during production. This trend, which started a decade ago, has taken off with the rise of streaming shows. Mini rooms hire fewer writers to work on episodes before a show gets the green light, unlike traditional writers' rooms and writers often earn less. This model also splits writing and production, which used to be a combined process. The guild highlights that this separation causes problems, as writers typically advance from entry-level roles to higher-paying, experienced positions through mentorship during production. The ultimate goal for many writers is to become a showrunner, a role that requires experience.
Lastly, the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the film industry is an emerging challenge for writers, as it threatens to disrupt traditional creative processes and compensation models. The possibility of AI tools being able to generate plots or even entire scripts raises concerns about job security and fair pay for writers. While current AI tools may not yet produce the best quality scripts, the technology is rapidly advancing and could lead to writers being replaced with machines that simply adapt existing ideas rather than creating original content. Moreover, AI-generated content raises questions about credit, residuals, and potential copyright issues. As the industry adapts to new technologies, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) ultimately wants to protect the interests of writers by asking Film and TV studios to regulate the use of AI.
3. STRIKE RULES
What are the strike rules?
All WGA members everywhere are required to follow the following WGA strike rules and non-members who undermine these rules will also have consequences.
Immediately stop writing for all struck companies.
Do not deliver or submit any literary material to a struck company. Do not sign or deliver documents related to writing assignments or the sale or option of literary material to a struck company.
Do not negotiate with struck companies for writing services, and notify your representatives to cease negotiations on your behalf until the strike concludes.
Notify struck companies to return or delete writer-owned “spec” literary material or sample scripts.
Do not discuss future writing assignments or the sale or option of literary material with a struck company.
Do not negotiate with a struck company for the development, financing, or production of a project.
Honor all Guild picket lines and do not enter the premises of any struck company.
Preserve a digital date-stamped copy of all unproduced literary material written for a struck company.
You must inform the Guild of the name of any writer you have reason to believe is engaged in scab writing or other strikebreaking activity.
You must picket and/or perform other strike support duties and cooperate with Guild committees charged with enforcement of the Strike Rules and each Guild’s Constitution.
Do not attempt to negotiate a settlement of the strike with any struck company.
Hyphenates (i.e. members employed in dual capacities such as writer-director, writer-producer, writer-performer, etc.) are prohibited from performing any writing services for a struck company.
Rules pertaining to non-members: The Guild does not have the authority to discipline non-members for strikebreaking or scab writing. However, the Guild can and will bar that writer from future Guild membership. Guild members are asked to report the name of any non-member whom they believe has performed writing services for a struck company.
These rules may sound strict to some, but the purpose of the rules is to win the best possible contract and future for writers. Hopefully, both sides can come to an agreement soon because there is a lot at stake. We hope this helps you wrap your mind around the strike and if you want to dig in a little deeper, below are some articles you can explore.
Must Read Articles About the Writer’s Strike
https://deadline.com/feature/hollywood-writers-strike-wga-explained-1235341146/
https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/writers-strike-2023-wga-pay-negotiations-rcna82236
https://www.wgacontract2023.org/strike/strike-rules
https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/wga-strike-rules-1235594857/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/writers-guild-streaming-report-members-falling-behind-1235352341/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/writers-guilds-negotiations-team-interview-strike-mini-rooms-1235352708/
https://www.vox.com/culture/23696617/writers-strike-wga-2023-explained-residuals-streaming-ai
Everything Everywhere All at Once: A tale of the Simplest and Queerest of Loves
The movie, led by the fabulous Michelle Yeoh, under the creative supervision of the directorial duo of Daniels, and divided into three parts named in the title of the film itself- ‘Everything,’ ‘Everywhere’, and ‘All at Once,’ presents its viewers with a simple concept told through the hula hoops of the modern sci-fi tropes.
Review Written by Harhi Batt
Written by Harshit Bhatt
Every once in a while, a piece of work comes along, something that truly brings to the light the existence of the cosmos to the forefront for its spectators, something that breaks you, exhausts you, and yet in the end, you find yourself simply content and grateful that you got to look at something of this grandeur. Everything Everywhere and All at Once is all of this and then some more.
The movie, led by the fabulous Michelle Yeoh, under the creative supervision of the directorial duo of Daniels, and divided into three parts named in the title of the film itself- ‘Everything,’ ‘Everywhere’, and ‘All at Once,’ presents its viewers with a simple concept told through the hula hoops of the modern sci-fi tropes. The premise is set in a very conventional immigrant setting: a Chinese mother and father operating a small business, taking care of an elderly father, all the while fussing over their daughter’s lesbian identity. Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) and her husband Waymond Wang (Ke Huy Quan) find their biggest problem to be the Income Tax audit they have coming up, only to realize that it is the gateway to get sucked into a mind-bending whirlwind of cosmic chaos.
Though the summarization of the movie is almost impossible, this author, therefore, will try her best to give you her analysis. The first part, also being the longest part, titled ‘Everything,’ sets the notion of the abstract idea of the ‘road not taken’ very straightforwardly to its audience. The concept of the multiverse, though usually seen in the Marvel and DC comics, puts forth the possibilities of having different versions of the same person in all the different universes, who may have started from the same point in their lives but made different choices.
There is a version of Evelyn that was prolifically trained in martial arts and went on to become a cinematic legend, and then there is a version of her character that became a chef. There is also a version who had hot dogs for fingers and lives with the same IRS bureaucrat (Jamie Lee Curtis) who audited her laundromat. The main drama, however, comes back to the familial domain of a mother-daughter equation and how the daughter’s Queerness causes this utter annihilation of her mother’s universe.
Joy, Evelyn’s daughter, played by the show-stealing Stephanie Hsu, is an openly gay woman living the current twenty-first-century ideals of life. Her life, outside of her conventional Chinese immigrant parents’ house is probably brimming with colors of Pride and gender fluidity, yet unlike her glee-inducing name, it is the family house that her story is set and explored. One must also pay close attention to the idea of Joy’s alter ego, Jobu Tupaki’s depiction as the main villain or the great evil that must be eradicated is completely twisted and leaves the climax of the movie at a peak when during the early revelation of Jobu Tupaki leads Evelyn to shout in horror, “You’re why Joy thinks she’s gay.”
Tupaki’s response to that accusation is just as hilarious in her bedazzled Elvis Jumpsuit, but I shall leave that for you to explore on your own. The movie’s eventual resolution comes to the mundane realization in both the mother and daughter, that one must simply choose the choices they are making, especially when concerning a loved one, from a place of love and affection in their heart, not from a place of age-old prejudice and shame. The movie also includes a lot of Asian symbols, one being the googly eyes that Waymond plays with childishly, becoming almost like a third eye that helps Evelyn see her surroundings from a different perspective.
This movie has almost everything for everyone. Lauded by a worldwide audience, winning Yeoh her first Golden Globe and making her the first Asian woman to be nominated in the best actress category at the 2023 Oscars, Everything Everywhere All at Once gives you just right balanced taste of convention and rebellion with a kick of genre-bending chaotic queerness. Stephanie Hsu also has been nominated in the Best supporting actress category at the Oscars, bringing the total to a whopping 11 nominations in almost all the major categories. Though they just might be numbers to some of us, it really does bring to mind how different these award categories look than they did just a decade or two back. The film holds a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes if you still need some convincing.
About The Author
Coming of Age: An On-Screen Guide to Growing Up
Written by Katerina Plescia
(From left) Tracy Letts, Saoirse Ronan, and Laurie Metcalf in Ladybird (2017) Photo Credit: IAC Films and Scott Rudin Productions
The mere thought of aging has the ability to send any individual into a downward spiral of overthinking and anxiety. As the years tick by, a person’s experiences will morph and shape their personality and their viewpoint on the surrounding world. Young adolescents and teens seek comfort in the early years of becoming an adult, figuring out where they may fit into society and how society may take to them. The classic coming of age film has provided a security blanket to a handful of generations, allowing impressionable viewers to connect with the fictional characters and lose themselves in a story paralleling aspects of their own life.
When I was in middle school, the majority of my Friday nights were spent at home sitting in the living room with my dad and our two dogs. At the end of every grueling school week, I had Friday nights to look forward to, a living room picnic dinner and a “new” 80’s movie. My dad, being a film enthusiast, introduced me to the paradigmatic films of the decade, from Footloose, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, to Back to the Future, Weird Science, and The Breakfast Club. Being on the cusp of teenhood, I soaked up every ounce of these films, setting my expectations for aging around a life written by John Hughes.
Now let’s take a time jump into a new decade, one engulfed in fast-paced technology, national terrorism, and a global pandemic. As the world that teens live in is vastly changed from that of their parents, their experiences in it differ wildly as well. Rather than shy away from these modern situations, coming of age films continue to evolve and provide comfort to a new generation.
This cinematic shift began to take place towards the late 2010’s, with the release of multiple indie films. The most popular, Greta Gerwig’s honest portrayal of a young girl’s trials and tribulations of becoming her own person, was Ladybird (2017). Saoirse Ronan delivers an authentic performance as Christine “Ladybird” MacPherson, concentrating on the hardships teens experience in their senior year of high school. While Ladybird falls in love a few times, Gerwig chooses to focus on the young woman’s heartache, high expectations for life, and tense relationship with her parents.
Streaming services quickly jumped on the coming of age bandwagon, producing countless teen rom-coms, dramas, and comedies, all attempting to strike a chord the way Gerwig had done. In the midst of endless titles, a small handful proved to resonate with their adolescent viewers. The most popular films determined that audiences preferred candid coming of age stories, seamlessly disregarding those with the overused plot line of boy meets girl.
Jenna Ortega (left) and Maddie Ziegler (right) in The Fallout (2021) Photo Credit: New Line Cinema
Following its premiere at South by Southwest and early 2022 release date on HBO Max, The Fallout (2021) sent chills up the audience’s spine and took critics’ breath away. Writer and director, Megan Park, sought out a similar outcome as Gerwig, by relaying a truthful narrative that today’s generation can relate to. Park introduces viewers to Vada (Jenna Ortega), a high schooler swimming in a sea littered with cliques, popularity, and social media. Vada’s world crashes around her as she finds herself huddled in a bathroom stall with popular girl, Mia (Maddie Ziegler), during a school shooting. In the year of the film’s release, there were 34 school shootings across the United States as tracked by Education Week. Ortega delivers an outstanding and genuine portrayal of post-traumatic stress while continuing to deal with the struggles of teenhood in the 21st century. National terrorism and school shootings have plagued the country heavily for the past decade, Parker’s film discloses students’ raw reactions and coping mechanisms in these brutal times.
(From left) Teala Dunn, Rowan Blanchard, and Tyler Alvarez in Crush (2022) Photo Credit: Animal Pictures
The Hulu original, Crush (2022), made its way onto the streaming service in late April of 2022. In her directorial debut, Sammi Cohen, alongside writers Kirsten King and Casey Rackham, put a twist on the classic coming-of-age film. Odd-ball artist, Paige Evans (Rowan Blanchard), composes a master plan to clear her name as the anonymous school graffiti artist and get her crush, Gabriela Campos (Isabella Ferreira), to notice her by joining the varsity track team. Cohen’s story demonstrates how life never follows a single path, especially as a teenager. Paige battles with her own self-image as an artist while realizing she may be falling for Gabriela’s sister, AJ (Auli’i Cravalho). Crush’s vibrant color scheme and witty writing grasps the attention of young audiences and broadens the genre of teenage love stories amongst the LGBTQ+ community.
Although the classic coming of age films will always hold a special place in my heart, I believe that writers and directors should continue to blend their stories into the times. While films offer an escape from reality, impressionable viewers seek comfort from their favorite pictures, hoping that maybe it means they are a little less alone in this unpredictable world. As teens continue to subconsciously utilize these films as a template to outline their unforeseeable future, the human desire to belong will fuel coming of age narratives for generations to come.
Katerina is a senior at Pace University in Pleasantville, NY. After graduation, she aspires to work as an entertainment journalist, centering her writing around music, film, and the arts. She grew up in Bethel, NY, and is a dog mom to a Pitbull rescue, Maddie. Find more of her work on her website or Instagram.
Mimi Cave Gives Audiences a Fresh Look into Modern Dating
Written by Katerina Plescia
Sebastian Stan as Steve (left) and Daisy Edger-Jones as Noa (right) in Fresh Photo Credit: Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
Online dating has catapulted the millennial and Gen Z cohort from avoiding the awkward and often cringe-worthy “meet-cutes” that were made popular by Meg Ryan and Amanda Bynes, to safely taking refuge behind a screen and getting to know a partner through instant messaging and photographs found after hours of Instagram searching. The majority of users are well aware of the risks when signing their souls away to the cult of online dating apps. These include, but are not limited to: catfishing, stalking, scammers, cheating partners, weirdos, and much more. Struggling to find honesty and adoration, all online daters strive for the romance they’ve seen on the silver screen.
Mimi Cave’s directorial debut reveals an unusual and chilling approach to the unpredictable world of modern dating. As a consequence of living in a society where dating happens through emojis and Snapchats, prospective singles have lowered their standards when faced with dating in the real world. Cave explores the issue of lowering what one expects from a suitor’s pursuits and dives headfirst into a mysterious relationship in her thrilling film, Fresh. Beneath the horror atmosphere and shocking plot twists, Cave divulges how fast individuals are willing to trust when cinematic love is on the line.
Cave’s haunting narrative follows a young woman, Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones), who has experienced her fair share of failure in the online dating community. In the first act, Noa exhibits an inability to connect with partners due to her negative outlook on the uncertainty of long-term commitment and men’s general dating etiquette. Upon meeting an attractive stranger at the supermarket, Noa and the man, Steve (Sebastian Stan), have a flirtatious exchange and go their separate ways after trading phone numbers.
Following a handful of successful dates, Noa’s prior pessimistic views are diminished due to Steve’s chivalrous and charming nature. Though the couple hasn’t been dating each other for long, Noa accepts Steve’s invitation to spend a weekend away in a remote “surprise” location. Abandoning the safety of the city and cell phone service, Noa’s whereabouts remain a mystery until her best friend, Mollie (Jonica T. Gibbs), senses something may be wrong. The second act of Cave’s masterpiece drastically changes the film’s genre from romantic comedy to a horrifying thriller.
Daisy Edgar-Jones as Noa (left) and Jonica T. Gibbs as Mollie (right) Photo Credit: Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
While the genre shift in the midst of the film occurs and makes viewers anxious to watch Steve’s carnivorous habits, Cave utilized this tone change to her advantage in the narrative. As opposed to beginning the film with an ominous atmosphere, a familiar feeling for horror fans as audiences look onto an innocent family walking into a house of death, Cave chooses a unique route. Starting Fresh off as a romantic comedy, a young woman searching for love in a materialistic and online world, draws viewers into a story they can connect with. When discovering the truth about Steve, this discovery emulates how all victims feel when swindled by a catfish or liar. The shocking turn of events from romance to horror reveals the harsh nature of the modern world of dating.
Aside from the jaw-dropping plot and horrifying turn in events, Cave incorporated a subtle motif of feminism and the strength of platonic love throughout Fresh. From the first scene, Mollie openly speaks her mind and vocalizes her care for Noa’s well-being and happiness. As Steve swindells Noa and whisks her away to their “surprise” getaway, Mollie’s persistence and passion for Noa completely derails his plans. Cave breaks away from the traditional rom-com, where the girl and guy live happily ever after, and instead pits girl against guy with her ride or die. This theme proves to female audiences that not every partner will be the one and you will make regrettable mistakes, however, happiness and fulfillment come in a variety of forms. The love that Mollie and Noa have for each other, and their strength as young women, drives them to fight for their independence and survival.
The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in late January of 2022 before being released on the streaming platform, Hulu, on March 4th. The overall consensus surrounding the picture was positive, receiving 81% Rotten Tomatoes.
Director: Mimi Cave
Running Time: 1 hour 57 minutes
Trailer Link for Fresh
Katerina is a senior at Pace University in Pleasantville, NY. After graduation, she aspires to work as an entertainment journalist, centering her writing around music, film, and the arts. She grew up in Bethel, NY and is a dog mom to a Pitbull rescue, Maddie. Find more of her work on her website or Instagram.
Lovely or Harrowing? - A Review of Ashim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely
Written by Mirika Rayaprolu
Photo credit: Easel Films/Eagle Movies
Any average Indian’s Instagram feed is always filled with a hard 20% of engineering memes, a solid 80% of paparazzi shots of a ragged Ranbir Kapoor, and a pajama-clad Alia Bhatt grabbing an expensive cup of coffee in an expensive neighborhood like Juhu in Mumbai. Bollywood has always been the epitome of the glitz and glamor that artists strive to be a part of, thus laying a sacrificial amount of cards on the table. The amount of ‘give-up-everything’ has always baffled the Indian audience through Ted Talks and Zoom interviews. Basically, there is always a pedestal, an award, a badge of honor for the most suffered actor. However, the audience does a fabulous job at filtering the darkness out of Bollywood in spite of having considerable knowledge of what goes down in the basement of Bollywood.
Ashim Ahluwalia’s first feature narrative, Miss Lovely, portrays a brutal Bombay in the late 80’s and its interaction with a growing ‘C’ grade industry. The city of dreams saw a major influx of young women from all around the country, looking for jobs as actresses and models. The competition, corruption and lust-thirsty producers led to a huge number of these women entering the world of pornography, gangs and covert funding. Miss Lovely follows the story of one such adult film production house and its tango with the underworld grindhouse industry.
Two brothers, Vicky Duggal (Anil George) and Sonu (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) have been in the industry for years with their production house. The unchaste Vicky seems to have dabbled with big gang bosses for years, in an effort to continue funding the sex film studio. Sonu, with a relatively large conscience, gets sucked into the world of sex. But lo and behold! The man falls in love with a pale, white, long black-haired Pinky, and promises to cast her in a romantic film called ‘Miss Lovely’. He enjoys this feeling of being in love with Pinky until he starts to uncover a history that drives him into a frenzy. Ugh. Love.
The very easily sellable concept of success in the film industry in Bombay is somewhat of a quicksand patch. The more you step into it the worse, for the simple reason that the persistence of the mind to reach new heights of testing yourself never lapses. It behaves like a drug that makes you push yourself till the edge. Almost like a game of Jenga that grows increasingly perilous with each block you place on top, testing the extent of how tall your building can grow. My dearest, dearest Sonu and Pinky. I grew uneasy in my seat at the sight of a helpless Sonu and Pinky stumbling around like gasping fish in a shallow pond. The grains on the 16mm made me feel a chill of sadness as these women grew closer and closer to gold rings and expensive cigars. The sex parties that ruled the underground seemed wicked and yet opulent in its own regard making every wakeful audience aware of their own voyeurism. The direction was a Garden of Eden that had a golden space in the film’s flow.
Photo Credit: Easel Films/Eagle Movies
Love, lust, gangs, money, the polluted Bombay air and the very notion of scuttling around to make you love work, Ahluwalia’s gives you all of it. The uncanny location portrayal of what the city looked like in the 80’s was an all-immersive experience that acted on entertainment and the pique that the average viewer would feel about unregulated pornography. Ahluwalia’s documentary-style filmmaking takes us to an 80’s Bombay, right from the title cards to the credits. His way of conducting a shoot is very non-fiction-like and remains to be a visual-treat for all those who encounter his work, much like the great Mira Nair’s work that continues to be a module to be taught in every Indian film school, ‘Salaam Bombay’ being a personal favorite.
Was Miss Lovely harrowing or lovely? A peculiar concoction of both? Some things are better left unsaid. I’ll never know.
Director: Ashim Ahluwalia
Running Time: 110 minutes
Link to the Trailer- Miss Lovely | Trailer
Mirika is a current film student from Mumbai, India. She just moved to America and works as a freelance videographer and editor. Her interests lie in documentary and experimental filmmaking, and is keen on using film as a tool for advocacy. Find her on Instagram
What We Loved About Sundance
Written by Katerina Plescia
Still from The Janes courtesy of Sundance Institute
After their first virtual viewing experience, the 45th annual Sundance Film Festival commenced on January 20, 2022, in a hybrid form. Over the eleven-day celebration, artists presented their films through various online programs.
With the looming pressures of the Omicron variant and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Sundance artists persevered to uphold the importance of gathering as a community. Regardless of the circumstances, the Sundance Film Festival reminded audiences that in these tough times, viewers should continue to come together and celebrate what the artists have to offer.
The Festival brought out a conglomeration of fantastic and culturally significant films. Each submission offered a glance into a variety of social and cultural lifestyles.
Filmmakers Tia Lessen and Emma Pildes premiered their documentary, The Janes, at the festival, enthralling audiences with a story of women who organized nearly 11,000 affordable illegal abortions in Chicago, IL prior to the passage of Roe v. Wade. While the documentary was impressive and educational for those unfamiliar with the situation, the film did not add anything new to the conversation. The revolution was primarily set in the late 1960s, however, bringing the story into the modern era would have granted it the potential missing element.
The film Midwives centered around the relationship between Muslims and Buddhists in Myanmar. Setting aside military differences, a Buddhist woman, Hla, and Nyo Nyo, a Muslim woman, worked together to treat Muslim patients. Sundance newcomer Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing’s feature debut was incredibly insightful, providing audiences with a close-up glance into the relations between Muslim Rohingya of Myanmar and Buddhists of Myanmar.
Still from Midwives courtesy of Sundance Institute
Reid Davenport’s experimental documentary, I Didn’t See You There, approached the viewpoint of a wheelchair user from a new perspective. Although Davenport is never seen on the big screen, the film consists of hand-held point-of-view shots, placing audience members in the shoes of a wheelchair user in America.
The 2022 celebration of the Sundance Film Festival lifted the spirits of community members and continued to spread their message of support to independent artists. The festival was packed with a total of 85 features, 59 short films, and much more. Filled with enlightening interviews, thoughtful conversations, and groundbreaking films, the Sundance Film Festival of 2022 has us on the edge of our seats waiting for next year.
Katerina is a junior at Pace University in Pleasantville, NY. After graduation, she aspires to work as an entertainment journalist, centering her writing around music, film, and the arts. She grew up in Bethel, NY and is a dog mom to a Pitbull rescue, Maddie. Find more of her work on her website or Instagram.
The Last Out: Q&A with Directors Sami Khan and Michael Gassert
Written by Aubrey Benmark
Carlos González in The Last Out Photo Credit: Sami Khan and Michael Gassert
October means one thing to die-hard baseball fans— Major League Baseball playoff season. Millions across the nation collectively hold their breath at every pitch as the best teams battle their way towards the World Series, but for Cuban athletes it takes significantly more than talent and training to bring them to the pinnacle of their profession. Due to a decades long trade embargo between the U.S. and Cuba, most Cuban ballplayers must face perilous travel conditions via human smugglers as they defect from their country knowing they might never see their families again, risking exile if they succeed, and all before they reach a foreign training camp where they are required to obtain residency, or no MLB club can even consider them.
The Last Out, a feature-length documentary directed by Oscar nominated Sami Khan and Michael Gassert, details the journey of three players, Happy Oliveros, Carlos González, and Victor Baró, as they struggle to make their greatest dreams a reality. Filmed over a four-year time span, Khan and Gassert dedicated themselves to an honest and emotional depiction of the nefarious Cuban pro baseball pipeline. At times the story is heavyhearted, the disappointment and homesickness from Oliveros, González, and Baró is palpable, but the camaraderie and love they offer each other uplifts the soul. Despite devastating setbacks, the men forge ahead to build better lives for themselves and their families. I’m fortunate to ask the directors of The Last Out, Sami Khan and Michael Gassert, a few questions about the inspiration behind this story and the process of making it.
As baseball fans yourselves, why was it important to you to capture this particular story, and did you know it would resonate with a much wider audience?
Sami Khan: Early on in the pandemic, there was nearly a collective “eureka!” moment for Western civilization. We briefly got a window into all the invisible people our fragile economy depends upon. Not just the nurses and doctors but the janitors, the truck drivers, the grocery store employees, the farm workers, and factory workers - they’re all threaded together in this delicate tapestry that modern life depends upon. In March 2020 when things screeched to a halt, we got a glimpse at that tapestry. Sadly, that moment has since been lost and we’ve moved on with our absurd existence of abundance and convenience. But, for us, about seven years ago, we started to think about that secret tapestry in baseball, specifically around the wave of dangerous defections from Cuba and the hidden cost, financially and morally, of the national pastime.
Michael Gassert: When Sami first pitched me this idea I immediately felt that dream you have as a little kid to reach the major leagues and come through for your team in the biggest moments. Any kid who’s thrown or hit a ball has also chanted; bottom of the 9th, two outs, bases loaded… But more than just chasing a dream with prospects in real time, I knew that Sami had keyed into something much bigger. That the inequities created by the US trade embargo on Cuba could lead us to some dark places as the demand for Cuban ballplayers was at an all time high. We soon discovered that by telling that story in a very intimate, personal way, we can open a portal to some bigger questions about immigration, the commodification of athletes of color, and the cost of the American Dream.
The migrant trail into the U.S. is often associated with manual laborers, not professional athletes, and yet the audience is afforded an up-close view of Happy Oliveros’s passage after he is surreptitiously cut from the training camp in Costa Rica. Was there a point in the journey when you feared that Oliveros wouldn’t make it into the United States?
MG: Happy’s journey and the process of making this documentary overlap in many areas but perhaps most comprehensively in their inherent uncertainty. There have been many twists and turns along the way, some foreseeable and others not. But like Happy, I think we always just tried to put ourselves in position to be successful and never give up. Palante siempre, candela!
There were certain moments along the way where Happy’s original plan didn't pan out and the odds were against him, but he found a way. For example, in a moment that you don't see in the film at the first border crossing into Nicaragua, Chele and I saw Happy being escorted by a border agent back into Nicaragua after we originally split off. I thought we might not reunite for a long while. But Happy met us on the other side with a 30 day visa no less.
But as the situation in Costa Rica worsened and the political situation changed under our feet, our concern grew for all the guys and all immigrants, in fact, who face such precarious circumstances. When Carlos tried to cross into Nicaragua a few weeks later, he had a much harder time, was stripped of all his money, and was fortunate to make it back to San José in one piece to try again the following month.
Official Movie Poster The Last Out
The inclusion of the athletes’ families back home in Cuba was especially touching to see in the film, as all of the men made enormous sacrifices with the intentions of supporting their loved ones. How was it for you to spend time with the families, knowing their sons could not go home and do the same?
MG: This was perhaps one of the most touching experiences for us as filmmakers. You feel so much for these guys not being able to just turn around and visit their families whom they love so much while they’re out there risking everything for them. Sami and I went on an epic adventure not just to meet up with a few relatives but track down and spend meaningful time with the immediate family members of all the guys, even those you don't see featured in the story. We felt it was vital in telling their story to have a strong, first hand sense of what they mean to their loved ones. Spending time in the players’ houses, eating their favorite meals cooked by mom all brought us closer to them and how meaningful of a sacrifice they each made. There were pig roasts in Mayari, river bathing in Baracoa, stories of achievement and longing everywhere we went. Being able to bring those photos, videos, personal notes and first hand accounts to the guys meant so much to them but also deepened the trust we had built. It also made more clear to them what we were really after in following their stories. I remember walking back to the barber shop with Baró after the emotional moment when he watches the video message from his mom at the stadium and he just turns to me and says, “I get it now Mike. I get it mi hermano.”
Near the beginning, your film highlights a troublesome statistic, “In the last five years hundreds of baseball players have left Cuba. Only six have made it to the Majors.” Initially over two dozen eager baseball scouts visited the training camp to assess Oliveros, González, Baró, and the other players’ skills, only for their contract negotiations to dwindle after months of not being able to obtain Costa Rican residency. While the odds of making it into any professional sports league are staggering, in your opinion how much of the austerity of their situation affected the players’ performance on the field as time wore on?
SK: We definitely saw the toll wear on the guys. One of the hardest things for all of them was seeing guys they used to play against sign multi-million dollar deals while they were waiting for their paperwork to clear. I vividly remember one instance where Mike and I rushed to tell the guys that one Cuban player they knew had just signed a huge contract and Happy said something like “That’s good for us. We’re at that same level.” But the contracts never came. A large part of that was because of mistakes Gus and his team made in the paperwork, another huge part was that the market shifted against the guys, and the final part was the emotional and physical toll it took on the guys which led to declining performance. But can you really fault someone for having one bad showcase when they’ve risked everything, left their homeland and their family and aren’t sure if they can trust the process anymore?
In previous interviews, you’ve discussed the cost that making it to the pros exacts upon the players, and that we are living in a time where athletes are heeding the call to social justice. As a devoted baseball fan myself, is there anything that fans can do, beyond raising their awareness of such issues, in order to support the current and future Cuban ballplayers trying to make it to the U.S.?
SK: In all honesty, fans should start to develop a sense of outrage that extends beyond just whining over a slugger popping pills or a team stealing signs. There are very shady things that go on in professional sports where young athletes are exploited by the system and too often fans have the attitude: “Oh, well if my team wins, I don’t really care.” That’s a messed up way to live your life.
One concrete thing right now fans can do is support Minor League players who are fighting for a living wage. There are ballplayers, Cuban, Dominican, and American who are making starvation wages in the Minors. Organize your buddies to write emails to your team’s leadership to ask that they pay their Minor Leaguers humanely. That would be a good start.
Directors: Sami Khan & Michael Gassert
Running Time: 84 minutes
Available to view Oct 20-24 at watch.bushwickfilmfestival.com
"Cracked": Q&A With Writer/Director Lin Que Ayoung
Written by Marisa Bianco
Meliki Hurd (left) and Tatum Marilyn Hall (right) in “Cracked” Photo Credit: Lin Que Ayoung
The narrative short category at this year’s Bushwick Film Festival is perhaps one of the most exciting. The films selected explore a diversity of experiences, defying genre and encompassing a full spectrum of emotions. One of my favorites is “Cracked”, an intimate coming of age story directed by Lin Que Ayoung. “Cracked” is Lin Que’s thesis project for NYU Graduate Film. Before her filmmaking career, Lin Que was a hip hop performer and lyricist. A musical sensibility clearly permeates her film work.
“Cracked” tells the story of Toya, a young teen in 1980s Queens, who fights with her siblings and navigates her first love. Meanwhile, she is forced to confront a past trauma. In just 14 minutes, the film touches on a multitude of relationships and themes, and it paints a full picture of Toya’s interior and exterior worlds. The film, in part funded by the Spike Lee Production Fund Grant, has had a successful festival run. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and will now screen at BFF.
“Cracked” is one of the most arresting and emotionally gripping selections in the Narrative Short category at this year’s festival. I jumped at the opportunity to connect with my fellow NYU alum Lin Que Ayoung and learn more about this project. Read our conversation below.
Like you, I graduated from NYU virtually in May 2020. What was it like ending your time at Tisch online? Does the success of your thesis project, “Cracked”, in any way feel like a make-up graduation?
Graduating from NYU Grad Film marked the ending of a major journey in my life so graduating virtually had its pros and cons. After being in my thesis years, which included two years out of classes, I was looking forward to seeing my Tisch Family and having the opportunity to celebrate years of hard work together. It was difficult not having that opportunity, but we were able to still connect virtually and every last one of us was able to say something about their time at Tisch. This made it very special.
The success of “Cracked” is a joint venture and something that highlights the importance of all the incredible relationships I've been able to make at Tisch, the collaborators I plan on working with throughout my career. It's been absolutely a Blessing celebrating together as fellow filmmakers and filmgoers feel connected to the film.
This film clearly demonstrates an incredible attention to detail from you and your team, especially production design and wardrobe. I loved the way you give the viewer small glimpses into Toya’s world through close up-shots. It's the details in her home, the color of those details, and how they’re lit, that show us what Toya, her family, and Pooch are like. What details in the costumes, props, or production design were especially important to you?
Everything is/was important to me. I was born a detail-oriented person. The details are the underpinning that solidifies every other dimension of the film. It bolsters it up and hopefully imperceptibly draws the viewers into the world. It's absolutely delightful to know that you and others are noticing the decision-making that has been implemented to create authenticity.
Official Movie Poster for “Cracked”
Looking at your work on “Cracked”, where do you see the influence of your hip hop and music experience?
Music is so important to our culture. Within a millisecond, it can catapult us into a time and space with the efficiency of a state-of-the-art time machine. Its influence is so far-reaching. I had to work on post-production during Covid and I wasn't able to get the music that I wanted so I made the hard decision to record something myself, which in hindsight, made it even more authentic for me... being that “Cracked” is based on my childhood experiences. Prior to this, I would have undoubtedly told you that I was done rhyming. Life is funny.
You are open about the fact that “Cracked” is in part autobiographical. Did you always want to make a project using your own story? Or was it something that took time for you to become comfortable with? Has transitioning mediums from music to film changed your perspective on being vulnerable in your creativity?
Since I'm a former hip hop recording artist and lyricist, speaking from the heart is first nature and actually vital in order to connect with your audience. My aim as a filmmaker is to do the same. Film & television were Everything when I was a child. It showed me that there was a whole different world outside of my home, my block, my neighborhood. It fueled my imagination… and continues to do so every day. For me, my art, whether musical or visual, is about vulnerability. To me, my job as an artist is to have the courage to be vulnerable.
The ending of this film is incredibly impactful. During my first watch, I wasn’t sure how Toya’s father would react to what she told him. When his initial anger turns to love, and he embraces Toya, it feels right—because your film is full of love and warmth despite the trauma it addresses. What do you think this ending says about the relationship between anger and love, especially love that perseveres through trauma?
I probably get the most angry with the people in my life that I love the most. As a woman, I believe it is important to own our anger. As a society, I believe we are learning more about how to process anger in a healthy way. For me, emotions are signposts that help me navigate my inner life. It can get really tricky when I have mixed feelings. Anger and love can feel like they're on two opposite sides of the spectrum, but when someone loves you, they give you the space to process your anger. Anger can motivate you into positive action. Toya's father's anger quickly dissipates after he realizes what Toya needs at the moment. She needs unconditional love and that is exactly what he gives her.
Director: Lin Que Ayoung
Running Time: 16 minutes
Available to view from Oct 20-24 at watch.bushwickfilmfestival.com
Everything in the End: Q&A With Writer/Director Mylissa Fitzsimmons
Written by Kennedy McCutchen
Hugo de Sousa as Paulo in Everything in The End Photo Credit: Hello Charles LLC, Bearly There Media
Imagine Richard Linklater’s Boyhood and Eric Rohmer’s Le Rayon Vert creating an apocalyptic, grief-inducing film of silent self-exploration. That is precisely what Mylissa Fitzsimmons has created in her first debut feature film submitted to this year’s Bushwick Film Festival. A self-proclaimed fan of the slow-burn, or in Fitzsimmons words, “the quiet film,” the Los Angeles-based writer, director, producer, and photographer achieves her own version of man-meets-nature-meets-end-of-the-world. Viewers follow Paulo as he travels to Iceland, where he contemplates his tainted past, his sequestered present, and his unattainable future. We were able to speak with Mylissa about the genesis of her film, cultivating resourcefulness for low-budget indies, and her cinemagraphic inspirations.
Congratulations on your debut feature film! Perhaps the equally simplest and most exciting question: Why this film? What was the genesis of Everything in the End? What was its gestation period?
Thank you, and thanks Bushwick Film Festival for programming the film, we’re very excited to screen there. It’s been a great, but challenging adventure bringing my debut future to festivals this last year. The pandemic has made this film and the whole experience making it feel so much more personal.
In October of 2018, I was in Iceland as part of The RIFF Talent Lab, and the whole time there I just became obsessed with the idea of shooting a film there. When I came back to LA at the start of 2019, all I knew was I wanted to shoot a film there but had no idea what, when, how. I then was asked by Raul, a friend from Spain who I had met at the lab, if I was interested in doing a short film as part of a series of shorts about the last night on earth. Nothing came from that project, but that simple question of, “What would you do if it were the last night on Earth? “ really planted the seed for the idea of a film. I have always been a fan of dystopian genre films and kinda ran with the idea that I wanted to do this “end of world” film but actually not make a film about the end of the world. More so, I wanted to make a film about the kindness of people at the end of the world, so instead I gravitated to a story that was less plot driven and more emotionally driven. I really enjoy films that make me feel wrecked and depressed when I leave the theater.
I needed to do a feature film, I wanted to move forward with my film career and I just couldn’t do any more short films. By August 2019, we had finished crowdfunding, found two investors who put in some extra money to get us through filming it, and by September we had a cast and another draft of the script. We had a 5 person crew shooting the film, 2 producers, and a 10 day shoot schedule. Basically we somehow wrote, produced, and shot a film in 3 months start to finish.
Near the end of the film, Paulo asks his friend if he is going to church. His friend replies: “No. No, it’s too late for that. No, I’m going up that mountain.” This, to me, is an imperative motif of the film: a rejection of orthodoxy, particular orthodox forms of comfort and security, and an undertaking of the difficult, the uncomfortable, of nature in all its grim, sublime beauty. In many ways, perhaps, it is Sisyphus himself returning to the bottom of the hill to push the boulder up again. As the writer, what does this “mountain” mean to you? What universal human mountains, like death, is the film forcing to the foreground?
That mountain represents very different answers to those two characters who climb it. When writing I felt that this mountain was the final symbol of love, a place where one returns often because he fell in love there. A place where someone was conceived out of love, and finally a place where in the simple act of going to this place a person is fulfilling the last wish of a loved one and in doing so can finally forgive and love himself. There’s the line in an earlier scene where Ana says, “Death reunites us with the ones we love” -- to me death is the obstacle to that love, and the mountain is where one is reunited with the love, figuratively and metaphorically. In order to get to that place Paulo has to go through the process of grief; it’s messy, uncomfortable, and emotional. The beautiful thing he discovers about it, is that he doesn't have to grieve alone.
Official Movie Poster provided by Hello Charles LLC, Bearly There Media
What was the process like of capturing such an intimate audio-visual experience of nature, particularly in relation to such a natural phenomenon like death? How important was the location - Iceland - to your work, and how did you make your scouting decisions?
Financially, as an indie filmmaker who is also a producer on a micro budget film, Iceland probably wasn't the smartest decision. But as a director who started out as a photographer, visually Iceland was my only choice. From the very beginning, I knew that it was important to me that the film portrayed nature in all its beauty, but that those landscapes also had to be a little unforgiving towards Paulo, making him feel more isolated, alone and grieving, forcing him to find comfort in others. Another thing that I really wanted to do was to work with our sound person, Kirbie Seis. I had approached her and said, “I want to make a really quiet film and I need it to sound like the earth is grieving, but also make it sound like Iceland.” I’d often look around and see her off in the fields or by the side of the road with her microphone just recording sounds. So when we got back she had this library of sounds of Iceland, and every sound was incorporated into the design, and then Darren Morze came in with this emotional score that incorporated that and just leveled it all up. It made me so happy, it really was beautiful to sit and watch the film and hear. I could isolate all the locations from the recordings and it transported me right back. It’s very subtle and really what I was hoping we could accomplish. To make a very quiet film that felt like the Earth was crying out in grief.
I’m going to admit something: scouting was all done via Google Earth and Airbnb. I picked a few areas that I had been to and knew what to expect visually. It doesn't sound very glamorous, but we also did not have a budget that allowed us many options. We really lucked out though. We only have 3 locations, and once we found a place where we were going to live, all those locations were within minutes away just by pure luck.
Your film’s aesthetic brought to mind projects like Richard Linklater’s Boyhood and Eric Rohmer’s Le Rayon Vert that retain equal parts spaciousness and intimate psychological profiling. What filmmakers and movements inspire your work?
I have my favorite filmmakers that have inspired me to be a filmmaker, but I’m not sure how much each one inspired this film specifically. I suppose on some conscious or unconscious level it’s all in there. I do know for this film I had a small list of films I asked the crew and Hugo de Sousa the lead actor to watch. I wanted them to get a better understanding of the tone and pacing. Starting with Kieslowski’s Blue, and then Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy, and finally Kogonada’s film Columbus. All three really set the tone for me and were a great starting point for inspiration. I’m guilty of being a fan of the “slow burn” movement of filmmaking. I don’t like that description as much. I like saying “the quiet film” movement!
This film seems to question the meaning and interpretations of family. We see Paulo drift from one companion(s) to the next, even winding up next to a mother and her child, as if he himself is the father. How does family and its significance vary from character to character? How does this film contribute to the redefinition of concepts we take for granted?
Yes and no. These characters represent the stages of grief one goes through, but I made a conscious decision to make them all female for a reason. That being that each woman he encounters are these representations of his mom. Who she was and who she became and these manifestations of her in various stages are what he is processing, accumulating to this final acceptance stage with the mother and child. It really depends on the audience and how they feel and experience it. I wanted to give options actually because I wanted the space there for people to feel they could make that decision of how they feel about it all on their own. Really that is what I hope for, that people walk away with one feeling and then have a slow-think, and a couple of days later it hits them with a different feeling.
What is on the horizon? How do you think Everything in the End will influence your next project?
The frustration of having a film that has gone through festivals this last year has been that most have been virtual. A festival allows a filmmaker to connect, especially emerging filmmakers. This being my first feature, it’s been a bit of a challenge to connect. Virtual hasn't allowed me many opportunities to meet and connect with future film collaborators, so in a way the next project feels like it will be starting from square one again. So the horizon looks a little murky right now. It for sure involves another film with a small crew in an intimate setting again and obviously a slow, quiet burn. So if that type of film peaks someone’s interest they should reach out!
Director: Mylissa Fitzsimmons
Running Time: 75 minutes
Trailer available Here
Premiering at the Bushwick Film Festival Oct 20-24 at watch.bushwickfilmfestival.com
The Self and the Stranger: A Review of Language Lessons
Written by Kennedy McCutchen
Adam Duplass in Language Lessons Photo Credit: IMDB
It was only fitting that I took a friend I met on Bumble BFF to see a movie portraying the formation of an unconventional, technologically-dependent relationship. As we rode the subway into Brooklyn, we filled our would-be silences with lively and meaningful discussion about our favorite films, our romantic relationships, and our shared appreciation for learning. There were, as always, moments of vulnerability: some in an effort to keep the conversation alive, others to reveal ever-becoming parts of ourselves - our fears, ambitions, and turmoils - to demonstrate the authentic trust we were attempting to build with each other. We never really know the inner life of the stranger, however long we have known and loved said person, but we can make the valiant and potentially transcendental effort to try. And, not once, did we discuss our phones, friendship-meeting apps, or any other technological mechanism of communication. Nor do Cariño (Natalie Morales) and Adam (Mark Duplass) in Language Lessons.
Zoom feels quite camouflaged throughout the movie, though it is the only way we, as viewers, are able to see Morales and Duplass on screen together. It is never a point of discussion; it is simply a tool (an increasingly crucial one at that) to facilitate human exchange. The more contingent aspect of the film, and perhaps in our lives altogether, is the liminal relational space between two separate people, the self and the stranger, and the subsequent evolution of knowing, understanding, and loving.
Natalie Morales and Adam Duplass in Language Lessons Photo Credit: IMDB
Cariño and Adam’s platonic meet cute is predicated on Adam’s husband, Will, surprising Adam with one-hundred Spanish lessons taught by Cariño, who is based in Costa Rica. Their initial meeting, interrupted infrequently by internet glitches (that are surprisingly artful on film), is one of immediate kinship. Their bilingual banter exudes warmth and familiarity; while Cariño is certainly more reserved than her boisterous and chatty student, they meet one another with kind listening ears. The interplay of multiple languages, too, both emphasizes and marries their distinct personalities into a relationship that I and my friend found immediately compelling.
Like most relationships, however, tragedies and misunderstandings impede upon the pair’s closeness. Cariño consoles Adam in a time of loss. Cariño and Adam get closer, exchanging witty, humorous videos that reveal more of themselves and their personalities. Adam begins to assume Cariño is hiding a secret that keeps her in danger. Cariño lashes back at Adam, claiming he knows nothing about her. Adam beseeches Cariño to let him into her life. The art of conversation, the dance of getting to know one another continues.
I don’t state these plot points trivially. I state them so bluntly to emphasize how true-to-life Morales and Duplass kept their script, how effortlessly Morales’ direction captured a kind of immediacy and relatability which permitted us to see ourselves in these characters and honestly parallel the exchanges I have with the people I interact with on a daily basis. Whether it be the friendly Trader Joe’s grocer asking me if I found all that I needed on an isolated Thursday evening, or the mother I call when I’m feeling lost and overwhelmed, or the partner I both turn to and retreat from when I feel misunderstood and alone, all of my interactions are inevitable contestations that require choice in presentation, authenticity, and character, none of which are easy to determine. I can viscerally remember the last time I claimed to someone that they didn’t really know me, didn’t really understand what I was going through, not necessarily because they psychologically and pragmatically could not, but because I wanted to evade vulnerability and resist the other’s (or, in Lacanian and Camuian fashion, “The Other’s” or “The Stranger’s”) gaze that reflected what I was most avoidant of in myself.
Official poster for Language Lessons
Whether or not we confront alterity in ourselves and with each other is up to us. How we move forward and proceed with our own journeys in self-realization also rests in personal decision-making. Both choices, however, can be positively informed and influenced by art, especially in the cinema when the screen so often becomes a mirror. Films like Language Lessons succeed tremendously because they so beautifully explicate how hell really is other people, though not a demonic, stultifying hell. Hell, instead, is vital confrontation, intimacy, and, at its best and most terrifying, love.
Director: Natalie Morales
Running Time: 87 minutes
Currently playing in select theaters.
Trailer
Erin Brockovich, Stephen Sodorbergh, and the Argument for Environmental Regulation
Read how Erin Brockovich continues to hold relevance to current conversations around climate justice.
Written by Marisa Bianco
Erin Brockovich Photo Credit: MovieStillsDB
“It all comes down to what this one judge decides”
Erin Brockovich (2000 dir. Stephen Soderbergh) is different from the typical legal movie. There is no climactic trial scene where the orchestral score swells to its peak as the lawyer or the witness gets their big moment to convince the jury of their case. The protagonist is neither the lawyer nor the plaintiff nor the defendant. Erin Brockovich is about the paralegal, the assistant. The action focuses on the research and the work behind the scenes, not the courtroom arguments. It’s a working-class woman going to bat for working-class people.
The film, famously based on a true story, takes place in early 1990s Los Angeles where the twice-divorced, single mom of three Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts, in her Oscar-winning role) has reached a low point after being injured in a car accident and losing the resulting personal injury suit. Using her stubborn persistence, she snags a job at her former attorney’s office (Ed Masry, played by Alfred Finney), where she discovers evidence that the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has poisoned residents of the nearby town, Hinkley, CA, with chromium contaminated groundwater. Erin takes the lead on the case, gathering evidence herself, getting to know each and every plaintiff, and blowing past anyone in her way with savage verbal takedowns.
This film has more to offer than similar 90s studio movies because it is refined by the Soderbergh auteur style. We can see this in the warm, intense yellow filter through which we experience Southern California, contrasted by the clinical, unsettling blue light of the courtroom scene when the PG&E suit is allowed to go forward.
However, in the vein of the uplifting 90s-2000s mid-budget studio film, Soderbergh doesn’t dwell on the gravity of the situation in Hinkley. There is never any doubt in the viewer’s mind that Erin and Ed will be successful. I was most invested in Erin’s story at the beginning, when we feel the confines of her poverty and her desperation, as she skips meals to feed her kids. Susannah Grant’s script and Roberts’ performance do a great job of portraying the emotional realities of Erin’s financial struggle. After Erin is hired and really gets going on her investigation, the film's stakes start to fall away. Every time the lawsuit hits a roadblock (and it hits many), Erin overcomes it with ease. Ed wants to back out because the suit is growing too expensive. Erin convinces him to change his mind. Do they need a piece of evidence linking PG&E Corporate to PG&E Hinkley? A mysterious man shows up with the necessary documentation in one of the next scenes. The fact that this is a movie based on a true story makes it obvious that the legal battle will end in victory for Erin. If not, why would the movie have been made? This gets to the heart of my problem with the film—Soderbergh fails to convey the emotional stakes of the story to the viewer.
Erin Brockovich Photo Credit: MovieStillsDB
And the stakes are high, especially for the residents in Hinkley. In environmental law, people have two options to monitor polluting corporations: regulation and litigation. The film shows us how arduous and even futile litigation can be. The plaintiffs in Erin Brockovich are looking for retribution after they’ve drunk the poison water after the deadly damage has been done. They have neither the time nor money to go to trial, so they are essentially forced to choose binding arbitration.
And arbitration is scary. There is no jury. As Erin says to Ed in disbelief, “It all comes down to what this one judge decides.” “This one judge” could have a great rating from attorneys, or their rating could be filled with reports of abuse of power and lack of knowledge. If it’s a case in federal court, it could be a political appointee, chosen for their pro-corporate or anti-regulation stance. Our resources are much better spent preventing pollution and other types of environmental harm through regulation rather than attempting to punish the polluters after the fact in court.
I’d like to think that if this film were made today that it wouldn’t stop at condemning the responsible corporation. I think many modern filmmakers would examine why a profit-motivated corporation, given a monopoly by the government, is more concerned with its profit margins than its responsibility to the community it serves. The fact is that 634 citizens (the number of plaintiffs in Erin’s case) shouldn’t be the underdogs in a lawsuit; it shouldn’t be a David v. Goliath metaphor.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go listen to 90s Sheryl Crow songs while channeling my inner Erin Brockovich, taking down the greedy corporations and protecting the rights to clean air and water.
Erin Brockovich
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Year: 2000
Trailer
Streaming free on Peacock
Baring More Than the Soul
A critical analysis of how sex scenes are shot and the way women are depicted on the screen.
Written by Alyssa Cosme
Photo Credit: Jason Laveris via Getty Images
As she promoted her new Netflix film The Last Letter from Your Lover, actress Shailene Woodley discussed her most recent roles with The Hollywood Reporter. She talked about shooting sex scenes, by critisizing the way women are depicted on the screen. Most actors know the ways they must expose their bodies in intimate scenes, but most audience members are unaware, causing some scenes to go over the heads of viewers. It made me think about how sex scenes in television shows and movies have been portrayed over the past few years. Woodley goes on to say that “Oftentimes in movies, you see two people having sex and the woman has her bra on, and in real life, I don't think I ever did that, sex with a bra — or very, very rarely.” It was more important to capture whatever the director envisioned. Woodley described the type of relationship an actor could have to successfully hit the mark when it comes to filming intimate scenes. She shares:
“I always sit down and talk with the director, the other actor. We always have conversations of, ‘Is nudity necessary? Is it going to distract from the scene, add the scene?’ We know exactly what the boundaries are. And I’ve never been in a situation where those things haven’t been honored.”
It is very important for actors to be vocal and honest with their directors, not only because it will make everyone on set more comfortable, it will ultimately convey realistic and organic storytelling. Woodley is no stranger to filming intimate movies. She is well known for her dark projects such as Big Little Lies and White Bird in A Blizzard. Although, Big Little Lies contained sexual violence, the context was important for the narrative in this particular series. I think she is the perfect person to expand upon this topic because she is very open with intimacy in her work. This comes from an actress who had her big break starring as a pregnant teenager in the ABC family drama The Secret Life of the American Teenager, a groundbreaking show when it premiered in 2008.
Photo Credit: Normal People via IMDB
Moreover, I wondered how many other people thought about the ways sex scenes in the media have taken a toll on the overall arc of the narrative. So what purpose do these scenes serve? I realized that audiences enjoy shows on streaming services that leave little to the imagination in their sex scenes, such as Normal People which aired on Hulu and Bridgerton which appeared on Netflix. I found that it was the closeness of these stories that kept the shows engaging and overall fun to watch. And by that, I mean that this kind of content can be impactful for people. It may make them look at themselves differently by how sex is represented and affect them negatively or positively, depending on the subject matter and the person. Overall, it is the way we engage with intimacy. It was the perfect feeling that many people might have felt watching dramas back in the day. It could be the ones that had us at the edge of our seats, waiting to see what happened next week. It could be the reason so many people lined up to see movies like Fifty Shades of Grey. Whatever the reason, there is definitely something to expand upon.
Photo Credit via Netflix
The idea of including sex scenes can be tricky because you wonder if the filmmakers decided upon it because they want to advance the narrative and the potential character development or for the sake of shock factor. Woodley highlights “realism over modesty” when it comes to her roles. Perhaps she wanted to convey that she values how realistic and natural these scenes are and pointing out the fact that wearing bras is just an idea that society is holding back because she says so herself that it is not something that she has done. The fact that we are having these conversations is significant because it is important to mention how realistic intimate scenes can be for actual people. Also, being able to talk about topics like these can be more accepted for mainstream purposes. For so long women were silenced when it came to discussions on sexuality and nudity in the media. And as time has gone on, we have become accustomed to intimate scenes and possible comfort in the relationships we see on screen. In some instances, it seems as though modesty is not an issue. In recent times, baring more than one’s soul is nothing out of the ordinary. It is in fact, very typical in any kind of show or movie. I’ve noticed this level of intimacy in many genres across all media platforms more than ever before. This certain kind of content has continued to to be explored and keeps the conversations open and less restrictive, which I appreciate as an avid movie/tv show watcher.
We can make up our own minds about how much intimacy we want to see, on the big or small screens. Perhaps this can make someone else think about the way they watch films or how they view people in general.
Alyssa is a recent Marymount Manhattan College graduate where she focused on script writing and media studies. She continues to write while residing in NYC.
A Letter to My Lost Elders
Thinking through queer lineage, grief, and Chantal Akerman.
Written by Jay Graham
Photo Credit via Criterion Collection
I watched Chantal Akerman’s News from Home (1977) in the belly of our Covid winter. Snow had been accumulating for a few days, its white mass swallowing tree trunks and lifting the lines from the landscape. Though I hadn’t been to mass since I was a kid, I noticed I was kneeling before the laptop screen, propped at the foot of the bed, while fat flakes flooded the window in my periphery. My legs folded beneath me so easily I wondered if they remembered the pose. The roof, arched above my head, must have been bending a little under all that weight.
Though she often acted in her movies, Akerman never appears in News from Home. Instead, she offers only her voice, which reads aloud a series of letters she has received from her mother after moving from Brussels to New York: “Write soon. I’m anxious to hear about your work, New York, everything.” The letters detail daily errands, minor illnesses, and updates about family friends, but they are also saturated with affection, anxiety, and appeals to write back. Akerman’s monotone performance only exaggerates the letters’ emotive content: “You know I live for your letters.” The intimacy of this voice-over collides with the film’s rigid frames. A fixed camera captures extended shots of New York—its sidewalks littered with newspapers, its humming subway stations, its streets washed in ambient traffic noise, its pedestrians, their faces grainy, its storefronts, their neon signs blinking on, off.
I am tempted to read these long shots as return letters: You asked me about my life, this place. Here is New York. Here is your absence on East 45th Street. I take the subway to record roads filled with bodies that aren’t yours. It sounds like light machinery, tires rolling over pavement, gravel falling in construction sites, train brakes screaming against steel beams, a mesh of voices, vehicles pushing through thick air, my voice reading over your words.
Photo Credit via Criterion Collection
To many, Akerman’s name is sacrosanct. We speak of her with a reverence that often borders on obsession, and the seismic Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles has held a place in the canon of feminist and experimental film since its release in 1975. The daughter of a Belgian survivor of the Holocaust, Akerman frequently made art about her mother, and her body of work is deeply inflected by themes related to generational trauma, gender, quotidian rituals, and alienation. She is also among the first filmmakers to display queer sex free of spectacle. In je tu il elle (1974), her first feature film, sex escapes moralism. Akerman’s character hooks up with a truck driver and listens to him speak of the obligatory marital sex he participates in out of a sense of paternal duty, then travels alone to an ex-girlfriend’s place and devours several sandwiches slathered with chocolate spread before they fuck.
To be sure, Akerman expressed ambivalence about the categorization of sexuality and preferred to eschew neat labels for the messiness of experience. Yet, I have invented her into my queer family. What does it mean that I’ve positioned Akerman as a queer elder when she never embraced the term herself? In assuming her as a gay icon of sorts, there is the danger of reproducing the linguistic and conceptual limitations she hoped to evade. There is danger in claiming her as kin at all. Put more simply, it’s a narcissistic move, netting her in these frames of reference and this particular phase of the evolving queer lexicon.
Photo Credit via Criterion Collection
I should admit now that when I first watched News from Home, I was in the midst of an epistolary fever, ripping the covers off magazines all winter to make envelopes for the letters I was sending to my own mother 2,800 miles away. I folded the edges carefully the way she taught me, bled pens dry, described my daily tasks, recited my routines, made my appeals. I wanted to tether myself to various forms of family in the same way I wanted to reinscribe distinguishing features into the land around me after the snow had softened them. That is, I wanted to place myself.
Re-watching News from Home during Pride month, I imagined those first few shots as allegory. Here is the absence of so many of our queer and trans elders, whose lives were taken by AIDS, depression, mass shootings, overdoses, bashings, homicides. Once again, I watched with my feet tucked beneath me, hip bones stacked on top of ankles, blood pooling in my knees. This time, I noticed the silence. True to her spare style, Akerman splices the narration in News from Home with voicelessness. These stretches of silence occupy the film in the same way Akerman and her mother do, the same way our lost community members inhabit our consciousness if not our cities.
Of course, I don’t mean to say that my hands are left empty every time I reach for queer and trans elders—I mean that I keep repeating the gesture. I watch News from Home again, replay Arthur Russell’s songs, email that old professor, dog-ear the same pages in Giovanni’s Room, in Stone Butch Blues, write to the distant relative, return to that lesbian bar that’s been around since 1987, mimic the aesthetics. Maybe it’s no surprise that in Akerman’s study of alienation, familial absence, longing, and guilt, I feel a sense of kinship. To call yourself lost is another way to name yourself.
Born and raised in Seattle, Jay lives in Bushwick. You can typically find them making mixes, biking around Brooklyn, or reading outside Topos.
Common Language: Lingua Franca and Auteurship
Isabel Sandoval is an auteur “staking her claim” in cinema. Sandoval’s control over her work is an important ownership, and in the film Lingua Franca, supports the film's themes of trans identity, addiction and immigration.
Written by Lex Young
Photo Credit via Lingua Franca trailer on Youtube
Isabel Sandoval is an auteur who has been creating her own home in cinema. Lingua Franca, which she wrote, directed, edited, starred in and produced, is a film where this control supports its trans identity and immigration themes. Each character is in conversation with their autonomy, home, and family. The control Sandoval exhibits over the film and its narrative is empowering, solidifying her importance in modern cinema and the vital need for trans folks and immigrants to have authorship over their narrative in cinema and life.
In Lingua Franca, each character grapples with control. The film begins with Olga, an elderly Russian immigrant who struggles with her memory. We see her in a kitchen, reminiscent of Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, women who meander through routine, domestic ritual, finding comfort in this routine, but not happiness, a forced expectation of femininity. Odes to Akerman can be seen throughout the lonely landscapes of New York beautifully captured by Sandoval. This is a marker of Akerman’s cinema as well, emphasizing a separation between self, identity and place. Two women who are looking for themselves in a vast and crowded city, a struggle to find home.
The character of Olivia, played by Sandoval herself, is bound in constraints of care, a duty to her family, her job as a caretaker for Olga, and someone she paid to marry her for a green card. Throughout the film, she speaks with a faceless mother, whose voice we only hear through the phone, and she is seen preparing care packages for her family back in the Philippines. This faceless mother is a striking absence of an image, just a distant voice, emphasizing the separation between two homes and family.
Insecurity can be found in the character of Alex, the grandson of Olga, his own identity wrought with the instabilities of addiction and toxic masculinity. This is shown by Sandoval, through the character of Olivia, displays Alex and his toxicities with an empathy that comes from desire. Sandoval plays with this idea of a savior. Alex is someone who desired Olivia without knowing her fears of deportation, her status as an immigrant, her loss of a green card marriage, and her trans identity. When he does find out it’s through deception and influence from his friends who spew transmisogynist slurs. Sandoval beautifully depicts the ongoing and never ending fight with policy, violence and fear that plague immigrants and trans folk alike.
Lingua Franca ends with Olivia’s rejection of Alex’s marriage proposal, and Olga once again struggling to remember herself and routine. It’s an open ending, not exactly a conclusion but a cycle; we’re empowered all the same with the knowledge of Olivia’s choice of a new beginning. Olivia speaks on the phone to her mother of another job and that she met someone new. Yet we’re left alone with Olga, in her bleak kitchen, wondering about our place in the world. It’s a nod to the continuous journey of finding comfort in one’s own identity, and the continuous struggles of trans folks and immigrants.
Isabel Sandoval highlights the importance of trans folk and immigrants controlling one’s narrative. Her auteurship is vital in her work, and to the empowerment of trans and immigrant voices, a pedestal formed with her own hands.
Lingua Franca
Director: Isabel Sandoval
Year: 2019
Streaming on Netflix
Lex Young is currently watching movies, writing and making things in New York. Catch more of their work on Instagram
“Here Comes the Content:” A Review of “Bo Burnham: Inside”
Bo Burnham stuns in his new Netflix special "Inside," probing us all to contemplate performativity, authenticity, and the troubled space of the Internet.
Written by Kennedy McCutchen
Photo Credit via Netflix
A disclaimer: prepare for hypocrisy. The following is an amateur review of a non-amateur comedy special about how internet-users are losing their mental health to Silicon Valley capitalists and becoming incrementally deluded in a very, very chaotic world. I am an internet-user. I am a white woman on Instagram who has certainly snapped pictures of “a simple glass of wine,” though I’ve poked fun at others for doing the same. I will happily watch YouTube compilation videos of John Mulaney on talk shows I’ve seen three times already. And now, I’m diligently going to explain to you why you should take note from Burnham, sing a song about the tragedy of our dying planet, put down the phone, and go outside. I sound like an authoritative figure on this kind of content, right?
Another imperative admission: I had never heard of Bo Burnham before watching this special (collective, pitying gasp). I knew nothing of his public upbringing on YouTube, his previous specials on Netflix, or his directorial debut Eighth Grade. I didn’t know that he used satirical ballads and pop songs to convey ever-ironic messages about culture, nor would I have fathomed my substantiated ability to watch and listen to each and every one of his specials with undivided attention. But now I know.
So where to begin with a special that encompasses the spectrum of human emotion performed by a stage persona whom we shouldn’t mistake for the real Burnham? This last note is up for debate, of course (artistic subjectivities, am I right?), but I wouldn’t take anything Burnham says or does in a moment of perceived vulnerability at face value. Afterall, a segment of Burnham playing a video-game of his projected isolationism subliminally reoccurs before the skit begins (around the fourteenth-minute), hinting that the entire show is a comedic mind-trick of the creator’s own doing, unsurprising given Burnham’s performance record.
Photo Credit via Netflix
The show is a visual-sonic masterpiece. Burnham showcases exquisite command over the song-writing, camera shots, light fixtures, and editing tempo. The latter is demonstrated in his tonal shift following the intermission. What begins as an upbeat, slightly demoralizing, white-saviour apology — cue “Comedy” and “Problematic” — becomes an unsparing, capitalism-critiquing, mental-health discussion — hello “All Time Low” and “That Funny Feeling.” Burnham reuses lyrics that take on new meaning by the end of the screening; “look who’s inside again” repeats itself with a solemnity that no longer feels mocking, and “you’re really joking at a time like this” reinforces the reality and severity of global circumstances that Burnham really doesn’t find very funny at all.
It’s increasingly hard to distinguish what in the “outside” world exists with a humbled authenticity and what exists for attention, and as I was researching for this review, the oversaturation of “Inside” opinions certainly felt like the latter. Are we (novice volunteers and salaried film critics alike) writing to truly celebrate Burnham’s achievement in accurately portraying the demise of a technologically-dependent society, or are we simply trying to be the first to over-analyze a creative venture that should be contemplated privately, introspectively, and thoughtfully? Perhaps the choices aren’t quite as binary as that, but when Burnham asks if it's necessary for every single person to express “every single opinion that they have on every single thing all at the same time,” there seems to be a pretty clear answer. He even parodies YouTube “reaction videos;” we, as public commentators, are quite literally the subject of his joke.
We’re not made fun of alone, however, because Burnham is also the butt of his joke. He mentions that, as the star of his self-directed special, he isn’t shutting up either, and he refuses to explain himself for it. Just as he sings in his infamous satire “Art is Dead,” we all just seem to be little attention attractors — and we’re lonely. Pandemic circumstances certainly haven’t made those traits any less palpable.
I think, ultimately, we’ve collectively determined that I’m not here to tell you what lessons are to be learned from “Inside,” but if I can relay one of Burnham’s most interesting suggestions, maybe, just for a second, we should all “shut the f*** up.”
Director: Bo Burnham
Running Time: 87 minutes
Available on Netflix
Stream the “Inside” album on Spotify and Apple Music
