Authors: Kathy Rong Zhou
Film Review: The Rider
Melding fact and fiction, Chloé Zhao’s second feature film, The Rider, remains on the Pine Ridge Reservation to paint an aching portrait of rodeo cowboys among Oglala Lakota Tribe (Sioux) community. … read more
Film Review: Foxtrot
Foxtrot’s three acts are tonally distinct, each bringing their own lurching plot twists, each grim or violent or (bleakly) humorous in their own ways. But the final chapter becomes oppressive in its reality, and however Maoz employs the hypnagogic and the hyperreal, he asks his audience to ponder war and borders. … read more
Film Review: Loveless
From the director of Gloria and Leviathan comes Loveless, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s bleak depiction, simultaneously brutal and measured, of a failed marriage and fractured family—a lost child and a lost society. … read more
Film Review: A Fantastic Woman
Director Sebastián Lelio crafts an empathetic and surprisingly soft portrait of Marina (Daniela Vega), a trans woman, as she pushes fiercely for a chance to carve out space for herself, a space to mourn. … read more
Personal/Public: Artist Jorge Rojas on Performance
For the last 10 years, Jorge Rojas has focused on performance art, veering between intimate moments and dramatic gestures, drawing from lived and shared experience, intercultural and contemporary identity, and much more. … read more
Film Review: Phantom Thread
In Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson’s vision is as exquisite, meticulous and fixated as that of his lead character, Reynolds Woodcock. With superb cinematography, Anderson’s is a ravishing inspection of the pursuit for aesthetic perfection, of love and power and their dizzying, sickly, perverse intimations. … read more
Sundance Film Review: Anote’s Ark
Stretching along the Central Pacific equator, the island nation of Kiribati rests, on average, only two meters above sea level. Based on the latest scientific consensus, all of Kiribati’s 33 coral isles and atolls will be completely underwater within the century. … read more
Sundance Film Review: Shirkers
Sandi Tan might’ve been a strange teenager, but it was in the very best way. Growing up in Singapore, she published a zine and scribbled hundreds of handwritten letters and postcards. Mostly, she obsessed over film. … read more
Sundance Film Review: White Rabbit
White Rabbit is a wide-eyed and heartfelt dramedy, compelling with a clever, entertaining premise before digging into its lead heroine. … read more
Slamdance Film Review: Instant Dreams
In this visual essay, Baptist mirrors the power of photography, fixating on the Polaroid as not only an artistic medium, but also a decisive technology and cultural document, a record of time that continually develops and evolves with the contemporary world. … read more