On March 30, 2024, Anna Tropnikova interviewed Ukrainian filmmaker Iryna Tsilyk about her recent film ROCK PAPER GRENADE (Я І ФЕЛІКС / YA I FELIX). This conversation took place at the Humanities Quadrangle at Yale University.
Film Quarterly’s original webinar series showcasing the best in recent film and media publications continued this spring with a conversation between Page Views editor Bruno Guaraná (Boston University) and Kartik Nair (Temple University) about his new book Seeing Things: Spectral Materialities of Bombay Horror (University of California Press, 2024). Taking the materiality of the filmic image as a starting point for investigating gaps in the historical record, Nair brings a welcome spotlight to Indian cinema’s forgotten horror wave of the 1970s and 1980s. Moderated by FQ editor-in-chief Rebecca Prime.
The Zone of Interest, A Tribute to Pema Tseden, Dosier “Lesbian Trouble” Interviews with Vitaly Mansky, Phyllis Nagy, and Paul Preciado, Busan International Film Festival, Page Views: Seeing Things in Bombay Horror
Directed by two members of family of filmmakers known as the Ramsay Brothers, pioneers of Indian horror cinema, the 1988 film Veerana (Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay) centers on the figure of the chudail, or witch, as she haunts the surroundings of a mansion. She seduces men while in womanly form, only to later reveal her horrific nature.
Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest (2023) takes an unorthodox approach to Holocaust cinema, studying the everyday life of the Commandant of Auschwitz and his family in their home just outside the wall of the camp, while never directly representing the violence inside. Voyeurism, extended takes, and unstable points of identification create an ethical crisis for the viewer, who is left questioning the mechanics, and the limits, of empathy. The film offers a sensory bounty: tactile images, pastoral greenery, and heightened sounds. These surface-rich images in particular function in dialogue with a history of Holocaust cinema, complicating already vexing questions of cultural memory and political framing. And the pointed focus on the administration of fascism within the home exposes both the domestic implementation of a “blood and soil” ideology, and the ways in which intimacy and proximity can both uphold and erode the frameworks of war.
By the time of his sudden and unexpected death in May 2023, the Tibetan filmmaker Pema Tseden had changed the face of cinema from China. He was not only China’s first ethnic Tibetan feature filmmaker, but also an internationally awarded and recognized auteur. Furthermore, his films corrected the existing cinematic imagery of Tibet by countering both Chinese and Hollywood exoticism with a cycle of realist films that articulate the view from within the Tibetan lifeworld.
Girish Shambu on the disproportionate explanatory labor that falls to Black women filmmakers, theorists and critics.
Film Quarterly’s original webinar series showcasing the best in recent film and media studies publications continued this Fall with a conversation between Page Views editor Bruno Guaraná and D. Andy Rice about his new book Political Camerawork: Documentary and the Lasting Impact of Reenacting Historical Trauma (Indiana University Press, 2023). Building on his background as a nonfiction film director, producer, cinematographer, and editor, Rice investigates the emotional toll of historical reenactments and the challenges posed to documentary. Moderated by FQ editor-in-chief Rebecca Prime.
Emma Wilson pays tribute to the recently departed Jane Birkin.
Jerrine Tan situates the trilogy within the historical and political context of Hong Kong.