Category: Festivals

All God’s Children was watched as part of Cascadia International Women’s Film Festival 2025! It has its showing on Saturday, April 26th as part of the festival.

All God’s Children is an interesting phrase with a lot of weight behind it. From a single religion’s point of view, the religion that feels that they are the most correct religion, then they can say sure, everyone is really the children of their one god, the right god! And it becomes extremely dismissive of other religions in that sense, especially when they would disagree with that point.

Some people use the phrase to refer to the three Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Because hey sure, it is known that they worship the same godlike being, and they can then use the phrase to refer to anyone in these religions, whom just worship differently. Screw the people who are Hindu or any other other plenty of religions in that regard, but at least they have an umbrella.

Now, in the United States, when you hear that phrase, for the most part, it likely is used by a Christian, in regards to Christianity and everyone in the world needing to be Christian. But this documentary wants to examine a bigger scope in that regard. But not as big as I noted.

In this documentary, we are going to have two large religious groups come together, to work out how to coexist peacefully and prop each other up, against outside influences trying to tear them down. No, unfortunately, none of these groups are Muslim. Instead these New York groups are a mostly white based Jewish congregation, and a mostly black based Christian group.

Who gets to be the bigger person? Now, this documentary (probably) wasn’t set up to try a cure racism. But it does come up quite often given the subjects. When it first started, I thought back to that old viral Rhett and Link commercial about a furniture store for people of all races to enjoy. A silly video, but the ideas behind it have nobility. You see, because both Black churches and Jewish groups have been targeted by acts of violence over the last many several years, around the United States. Shootings, bomb threats, weird protests, you name it. [Note, so have Muslim mosques, but again, unfortunately they weren’t included in this. That isn’t a fault of the documentary filmmakers, because they didn’t make this coalition themselves, they are just filming what real groups were attempting].

And that is why these two groups wanted to come together. Not just because of the outside threats against them, but because these same outside threats seem to be wanting them to fight against each other instead. There are certainly elements to Christianity and Judaism that seem incompatible, but what if they can ignore those differences, and focus on the lessons of love and community and help prop each other up?

Would be great if it can happen!

And honestly, the best parts of this documentary show that it can be incredibly hard to get this going. It takes actual effort, but different sides, and consistent effort at that. And even then, nothing is perfect, and there are points where it seems like the whole project is a waste. But again, I reiterate, this is not a perfect process, and this is just a real situation of two large religious organizations trying to do SOMETHING to maybe make the world a better place. And for that, this documentary is a real good examination of real life and worth spreading the message.

3 out of 4.

Butterflies (Perhoset) was watched as part of Cascadia International Women’s Film Festival 2025! It has its showing on Sunday, April 27th as part of the festival.

Working women never have it easy. Just ask Siiri (Aska Korttila), a working woman, and she doesn’t have it easy!

Specifically she has a government job. No, not one she was voted in, like a politician. She works for one of them, Lena-Maj (Leea Klemola), as some high level of assistant. She has to help her get from place A to B, get her in contact with people, book their hotels, book their cars, handle her meeting notices and phone calls. It is a lot of work. There is even another assistant, who is much worse at the job, but he is cool so he gets away with it.

Regardless, Siiri is now in her home town where she doesn’t want to be, because that is the next stop in the tour. And thankfully, it is a quick one. But because her boss’s husband picks that time to let her know he wants a divorce, so Lena-Maj agrees to stay in the town for their little festival all weekend to try and have fun and avoid reality. And now, Siiri can’t escape her own!

Which means dealing with her father (Jani Volanen). She doesn’t like him. He is a screw up. And he knows it. But he just wants to help her, even if he cant help himself. And it turns out that the apple doesn’t fall that far from the tree.

Also starring Alex Anton.

The fields that grow her sorrows are bountiful.

The two leads in this film are uncomfortable people to watch. They rolled low on charisma and luck, and things don’t go their way. They are not the life of the party (despite the dad being a semi successful musician or something like that)? So if you are going to watch this movie, you are going to have to be willing to deal with that uncomfortableness.

I think the situations presented in this film were decent. I think they could have escalated a bit more, and often kept staying in rather…tame situations. It never made it to the next level. And worst of all, it didn’t feel like it was worth it at the end. It reminds me of a Blink-182 lyric, “Work sucks, I know”. But this is a movie where unfortunate things happen without a great level of payoff. “Life sucks, and then you die,” another song quote reference from The Fools.

A way to describe this could be a black comedy, but usually those movies go darker and potentially include death. So a black comedy without the extreme elements? With a bit of that “British” humor behind it.

It certainly achieves that result, but I wish it went to those greater levels.

2 out of 4.

Folktales was watched as part of Cascadia International Women’s Film Festival 2025! It has its showing on Saturday, April 26th as part of the festival.

Sometimes, people take a gap year after they finish high school and before college. (Sometimes it is forced because they didn’t get in anywhere, or forgot to apply). Some people never go to college at all and go straight into the workforce. Some people choose to study abroad, in some level. Some people switch from college to college. Some people even get to study abroad while in high school!

And some people choose to “study abroad” in a folk high school in Norway!

This is a school that exists within the Arctic circle, and is a full school year type program. On my own looking it up, people from all over can attend these schools. Most of the people must live in the country itself and the EU, but they accept a small amount of people (Around 10% it seems) from other countries as well.

And for this type of folk school, survival is the goal. You are meant to learn skills to live off the land. Building and maintaining fires. Dealing with cold weather and getting out of ice. And of course, dog sled travel! You will learn to bond with the animals, to take care of them, to direct them along the path and how to fix problems as they come up, like falling over.

Will the students at these schools decide to then go and live in the Arctic circle full time, living off on their own in the wilderness? Probably not. A lot of them likely won’t use the specific skills at all. But the learning experience, the confidence gained, I am sure is one of the bigger components for students after these things are over.

And you get to be surrounded by good boys. Far better than a normal school (with bad boys)!

As like many a documentary, this one focuses on the entire program, and specifically three students. We have two native Norway students, and one from the Netherlands, (a woman and two men) amongst their many classmates. We get to see them before they head to school, why they decided to go, and the many trials and tribulations throughout the year. Including when they don’t get to have sun for a long period of time. You think your school is bad? This one takes away the sun, so maybe you should just write your essay.

The students picked are a pretty good mix of archetypes, including one student who has the ultimate of lows with having to withdraw from the program. The decisions behind that, and the pressures can really get to people. Especially when they go on excursions and actually force the students to make their own fires, melt their own ice for water, and cook their food. There isa time for hand holding, and there is a time for showing yourself, and not everyone is willing to trust their own abilities to achieve that higher level.

Now I wonder if anyone has ever died during these school trips. I am most certain that things would never get that dire, and they would intervene at that point. But there is certainly a line!

I admit, the school sounded cool, and depending on the price, it honestly sounds like an experience one would never forget, and give every life lesson possible that one might need to go into the world confident and ready to excel. I might have already looked up how my own kids could go.

The documentary itself has some incredible shots. Including shots of the drivers of the sled dog team, and aerial shots of the campers on a journey, and one particular beautiful shot of just laying up and watching the aurora borealis.

In conclusion, Folktales is a documentary that isn’t set out to push an agenda, but just inform of something rather neat out in the world that people likely didn’t know about. And that is how this documentary came across, as something rather neat!

3 out of 4.

Killing Romance was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Saturday, May 18th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film!

First, Hwang Yeo-Rae (Lee Ha-nee) gets famous! A viral person, a superstar singer, and an actress, and she is everywhere. She rises so fast, she gets put in the lead of the most expensive film of all time, and it is a dud. Her acting falls flat, she is a laughing stock. Sure, people love her for this, but she thinks this is a tragedy and her life is over.

Then she meets Jonathan Na (Lee Sun-kyun), a very rich, powerful man, who helps her out of a jam, and seems to like her. Perfect. They live away from Korea for so many years, and eventually return, Hwang now a house wife, with the world forgotten about her.

But then she meets Kim Beom-Woo (Gong Myoung). No, this is not a love thing. This is just a guy who happens to be a super fan of her work. Apparently there is a lot of them ou there. Kim is stuck in a house hold where he cannot pass the college entrance exam, and cannot go to Seoul University like everyone else in his family has ever done. He is a disappointment. But he is able to get a script to Hwang when the couple moves next door.

A script? For a musical? Can this be Hwang’s next big break? Well, no, because Jonathan says no. He cancels the whole thing. He is powerful. He is strong. He is rich. He is controlling over Hwang. He can get people killed. Hwang realizes she needs out of this relationship, it is toxic. But to do that, either Jonathan will have to die, or she will have to kill herself.

Also starring Bae Yoo-ram, Pierce Conran, and Shim Dal-gi.

Gosh, I am already in love with this guy myself. I need to of course start this section talking about Lee Sun-kyun, who tragically passed away in December. I won’t go more into the story and circumstances of his death, but they were very tragic from almost every standpoint. He was famously known as the rich dad in the Parasite movie from a few years ago. I don’t know if this is his last movie, but it is certainly now one of the last ones. And it is tragic that this is a movie where the main plotline is to actually try and kill his character.

And he destroyed this role as the toxic mean husband.

Killing Romance is certainly a movie that is indescribable in many ways. It is a BIZARRE film. It is wacky. It is strange. It is an experience.

I think the offput nature of the film, the switching aspect ratios, the switching of quality, the terrible background scenes, the zany nature of Jonathan’s character, are all just certain features that highlight the absurdity of cinema. I know this isn’t a negative of Korean cinema or anything like that. This is just a movie that wants to do its own thing, and is unapologetic in the process.

Is Killing Romance itself a good film? Honestly, hard to tell. I did enjoy my watch overall, and I appreciated the creative output. And again, if this one is Sun-kyun’s swan song, it was certainly a cherry on top.

2 out of 4.

Tenement was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Friday, May 17th as part of the festival, and it was the North American premiere of this film!

Sorya (Thanet Thorn) is a Japanese-Cambodia woman and a Manga artist, who has already hit a wall in life. She likes what she does, but it isn’t challenge, and she wants to make a horror manga. Also, her mom died. That is important. Because of the death, and wanting to make the book, Sorya wants to go back to her ancestral home in Cambodia, to the same apartment complex where her mom used to live, to help for inspiration, and her own life in general.

And heck, this place is a dumb. People seem friendly, but you can tell it has not been maintained in any level, and its just rubble. Her boyfriend Daichi (Yoshihiko Hosoda) joins her on this adventure, and she is also able to meet her Aunt Mao (Sveng Socheata), who still lives there. This surely will be a great place for inspiration.

Unfortunately, they didn’t know how apt the horror would be. With basically cults running around and rituals, it turns out their stay here as tenants might not be that long.

Also starring Sahrah Pich Manika, Rous Mony, and Touch Narady.

Exactly what I like waking up to see. All of my neighbors with candles watching me, for protection. Tenement feels almost meta in a sense. The lead couple wants to go to this complex, specifically to get a horror feel, and of course that is what they get. They get weirdly terrorized in their sleep. They have creepy kids singing songs. They get to worry if everything is just a dream.

But all of these elements just felt like regular horror staples. It was interesting that they were so up front with the horror aspects at the start. They didn’t keep things in the dark and rely entirely on jump scares or anything like that. It just failed to capture me at all on the story. It was boring, with a few interesting scenes thrown in. And, I can also say that I didn’t like the ending that much.

Now, there can be a lot more to this story that I am unaware of. Like Cambodian history, or the area, and that all might have deeper meanings, but I am just a lost American, looking for scares, and getting a movie that felt disappointing in that aspect.

Oh well. Might still be worth a watch for the visuals, but my overall disappointment in the matter is what judged this rating.

1 out of 4.

We Strangers was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Friday, May 17th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film!

Ray Martin (Kirby) has a shitty job, that frankly, she doesn’t love. She is a room/home/building cleaner. She works for a service, they provide the jobs and locations, she does the work, she gets paid. It is one of those things where she knows they obviously pay the company a lot and she only gets a fraction of the services, but at least she gets to mostly work alone and not interact with the clients.

After working on an office building that a new client bought, but needed it de-trashed, sees how she did, he wonders if he can hire her personally. Just some rich doctor guy, let her say a much higher value than she normally makes, and he said sure. He just needs his own house cleaned, and is willing to pay top dollar.

Now, during that clean? A neighbor sees her, questions her, and apparently talks to the client about it. Because now she wants a cleaner. The doctor weirdly pays for it, but hey, money is money. This leads her to suddenly more and more clients, who have their own intricacies and secrets that she is going to discover. Like, one of the clients believes in ghosts and mediums. Seems like a great time for Ray to mention she totally can do that as well, and make house calls. Talk to ghosts? For cash? Sure. Why not.

Also starring Hari Dhillon, Maria Dizzia, Paul Adelstein, Sarah Goldberg, and Tina Lifford.

Sometimes you just gotta stare off, to help find those ghost spirits. Yeah, fuck the rich. Spending lavish money on services, but treating the people in those services as lesser individuals. I think that is a big theme at SIFF this year. Fuck the rich.

Kirby does a great role as the lead. She isn’t overacting in any sense. She just seems like a normal person. It is the rich people with the eccentricities who are acting strange comparatively, even when Kirby is talking to spirits. The secrets between the rich folk are pretty obvious to discern, and not as extra as one would hope. You know, me, a movie goer, looking for drama.

Unfortunately for We Strangers, which I can say is well made enough, well acted enough, is just an okay variation of this story. No giant “fuck yous” as the end. Everything remains subtle. Everything stays chill. Just too chill for it to have higher than a 2 rating.

2 out of 4.

Resynator was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Friday, May 17th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film!

You can trip on my Synthesizer, electronic world for every boy and every girl.

The synthesizer is probably the best new instrument since…I don’t know? What was the last instrument invented after all the drums, brass, woodwinds, strings came out hundreds and hundreds of years ago? The accordion? Who knows. But the synthesizer helped transform music, and how to play music, and gave me a lot of danceable tracks and I appreciate it.

Now, for Alison Tavel, the director and theoretical subject of this documentary, she grew up hearing that her dad invented the synthesizer, and worked with all of these famous people. Her dad whom she never met, because he died when she was just ten weeks old in a car accident. She never knew what to believe, figured a lot of it was just weird lies, and never questioned it. But now that she is in her mid 20s, she wanted to know the truth, and unpacked his creation packed away in a box in their attic, the Resynator.

And this documentary is about that journey. The journey to find out what the Resynator was, why it isn’t famous, what could it do, does it still work, and what happened with her father. And you know, of course, learn a little bit more about herself along the way.

This is when she realized she shouldn’t have lost the user manual. As like any good documentary, Alison is going to find out some harsh things about her dad. Things her mom kept from her, because it wasn’t relevant. But things that were also great and accurate about things he did and accomplish.

And in the journey, she wants the good and the bad, she finds out what stories were tall truths and which ones were mostly correct. That’s how we get sections of this documentary with people like Peter Gabriel, who was said to have bought three Resynators, and he is able to confirm the accuracy of the story and be a nice win.

This is a feel good documentary overall, of a woman discovering herself, and coming to terms with things that were kept from her for good reason. And that is a fine idea for a documentary.

But real life can mimic other things, and sure enough, this just feels like a story I have heard over and over again in terms of documentaries. Someone going off to discover the truth about a relative, who died when they were young, and not liking the overall picture they find. For some reason, they also put this on camera for us all to see. It is a very common type of documentary. And Resynator, with some cool information on a synthesizer machine that did not get to the mainstream as many thought it might, was interesting for sure. And unfortunately the rest is just more of the same.

This is all very strange to say for documentary since it isn’t fiction, but like I said, see enough of these things and you can see the commonalities. Oh well. Plenty of people will watch this documentary and probably love it! So if the topic sounds interesting, it certainly will deliver on that front.

2 out of 4.

The Ride Ahead was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Saturday, May 11th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film! You can see my interview with the codirectors, here! 

Documentaries that are slices of life feature can go so many ways. They can be dreadfully boring. They can be insightful. They can make you grow as a person. What happens with them really is more so up to the viewer. The documentary is saying here I am, this is me, take it or leave it. And then the viewer has to take it, or leave it.

Sometimes the slice of life has a greater message like. Hey. Be good to people. Or. Hey. Treat me like a person. Quite reasonable asks.

The Ride Ahead is about Samuel, who at the time of the documentary is 21, and adult, and he doesn’t feel like an adult. People treat him like a child, like someone who needs delicate gloves to handle. Sure, he is confined to a chair. He has cerebral palsy. He has epilepsy. A swallowing disorder. Talking is hard and he needs caretakers to function. But that is his life, and he is just trying to live his best life possible. Just because he has caretakers that are both paid by the state, and his parents, doesn’t mean he is less deserving of having a life, or deserves to be treated like a kid.

People suck, let an adult be an adult. That was my main take away from the documentary.

Reviewing a film about someone interviewing people? Okay, I guess there is a little bit more. One of the main reasons this documentary exists is that Sam, being patronized his entire life, feels like he isn’t sure what it means to really be an adult, especially as someone with his condition. He doesn’t feel like one, not just because of how he is treated. Adults are meant to have relationships, to find love, to have sex, to gain jobs, to live alone, and more.

And so Sam seeks out others who have been in his position before, who seem to have figured things out, and just straight up get their advice. He interviews a ton of people, including Maysoon Zayid, Ali Stroker, Keith Jones, and Judith Heumann, who did pass away last year. Sam doesn’t beat around the edge, he asks hard questions and gets some hard answers. And some awkward questions!

I love how realistic this thing keeps things. Sure there are some celebrities and famous people here, and it is probably hard to book them for documentaries, no matter the project. But they felt welcoming, and helpful to the task.

As a documentary, like I noted at the start, this is a slice of life thing. If you don’t want to see about his life, you won’t like the movie. If you know people like Sam, it might not do anything for you. But for a lot of people, it is a great look at people in our country, whom have difficulties with basic things that there shouldn’t need to be difficulties with. The chair does a lot of work, but it doesn’t help if there is no drivable land around the town or sidewalks. A general search for equity is how many people should want our world to grow and be shaped. And this documentary does a good job of making some great points.

3 out of 4.

We Can Be Heroes was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Tuesday, May 14th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film!

See, I could go straight into making a reference to the David Bowie song. That is what the movie is referencing, right? Right? But we also had a film just a few years ago come out with the same title. You know, the strange sequel to The Adventures of Lavagirl and Shark Boy? A bout a bunch of kids of heroes, having to save the day because all of their parent heroes get trapped.

And that is sort of what this documentary is about too! But presumably these kids in questions are just the offspring of regular normal people. Maybe nerds! Maybe not. (Probably nerds). And these kids, these outcasts, if you will (I wouldn’t that is mean), meet up at a camp in the state of New York over the summer, where they get to create characters that they would rather be, with their own rich backstory, costumes and moves. And work together to tell an overall giant story, where they are able to live action role play together. That is right. LARPing. This is a documentary about a LARPing camp for kids.

There are quite a few kids in this documentary that get to have a small focus on them, but really our focus is on three kids in particular. We have Cloud, who loves to sword fight and is excited for her first time to go to this camp, even though she is on the younger end of the age range. She wants to fight, make a name for herself, try out the dark side, and make sure she leaves her impact on the camp.

We have Dexter, who is every stereotype notable for a kid who might go to this camp, including a slower droll and neurodivergence, but who has a strong fantasy mindset. He also is afraid of getting ticks on him, and is hoping on his return to camp his crush from the previous year returns, so he might even get to exchange numbers with her.

And finally we have Abby who is on her final year at camp. She is about to age out, and go to college, and is excited about doing something special. Another thing that has happened to her recently is she was diagnosed with a disease (I forgot which one), and she has a feeding tube that she has to carry around with her and a backpack, almost all the time. And she has the fear of real actual death, and almost couldn’t go to camp, but they found a way to make it work.

These three, along with many others who are going to discover they have bigger talents than they once knew, with oration, creativity, and finding harmony with other kids.

The kid with the horns is really holding this whole thing together.

I want to go to a LARPing camp. I imagine anyone reading this wants to go to a LARPing camp. That sounds great. Is there an adult one, or do I just need to help organize LARPing events in my community. I hate organizing…

Anyways, this documentary is of course a documentary, but they also go out of their way to tell the fictional story that is created by these kids. The camera changes aspect ratio, gets very crisp, when all of the kids are in character running around. And you get to live their experience with them. It makes what they are doing seem very badass. Probably significantly more badass than it was in reality. And it was a cool nifty feature they added to the story, to make it a more fun experience.

For our three kids, I was immediately annoyed with Cloud (although my kids liked her), and did feel justified in that way based on events of the documentary, although all of them would be defended. That is *fine*. Dexter was especially nerdy and awkward, and I am glad that the documentary didn’t show his crush at all or try to shame her in anyway for not being swept off her feet over his awkwardness.

The real stars of the documentary was of course, Abby, and also secondly another girl(I think it was Miranda, who wanted to just be a princess for once). What can we say. Uplifting people with strong personalities make documentaries good. In fact, what I think this documentary really needed the most was just a stronger focus on MORE of the people at the camp. For a few people, we returned to them a few times throughout to see where they grew and what happened for them, but it was just snippets. We could have easily fit 4-6 stars in this documentary, and lessened the main three a tad bit, to give us a bigger range of kids.

Overall, hooray for LARP camps, and a documentary that decided to showcase them in a totally on point and creative way.

3 out of 4.

Gloria! was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Sunday, May 12th as part of the festival, and it was the North American premiere of this film! You can see my interview with Margherita Vicario, the director/writer, here! 

Let’s talk about Gloria. Well, Gloria isn’t a character, so we can’t. It is however a common name/word used in religious songs, especially in Italian. You know, Gloria in Excelsis Deo? It means Glory really, but Gloria is also a nice name.

Instead we will talk about Lucia (Carlotta Gamba), who is at a school for choir music training, somewhere in Italy, in the 18th century. Like a lot of girls brought to the school, she was an orphan and so it is also an orphanage, bringing these girls to devout religion but also providing them food, shelter, and a service they can give back to their community. Lucia is also mute! That doesn’t really affect her hearing at all though, so she can still play instruments, she just cannot sing.

Oh, let me reiterate. Lucia can HEAR really well. In fact, she can imagine music all around her, in the everyday mendacity of life. Mr. Music would be so impressed. She also knows music can better than how it is currently presented, slow and dead. It can be upbeat, it can be fresh, it can have many different instruments providing different elements, and yes, even the human voice can be used to greater lengths.

But she is a woman, in a man’s world, and because this is holy music, it has to be done a SPECIFIC way. But with an upcoming visit by the Pope, yes, THE Pope, she thinks it is time to rebel, to spread new music, and to present to his greatest holiness what music could really be like.

Also starring Maria Vittoria Dallasta, Galatéa Bellugi, Veronica Lucchesi, Sara Mafodda, Paolo Rossi, and Elio.

Get up loser, we are going to pop-ify these sounds. Gloria is such a cute movie! Rahhh! And I just need that to be known.

It looks amazing, from the costumes, the set, and the cameras used. It is portraying a dull religious school, but we can still see color when its needed, even in the darkest of moments for the characters, who are going to fight to overcome whats shackling them down. Overcome what? We are going to fight the patriarchy! And hell, even fight the papacy too! Men telling women what to do, how to think, what is right and wrong, its gone now! Let them live their lives!

Okay, yes, this is a work of fiction, and Lucia herself is not based on a person from history. And it is very unlikely that the sort of songs made in this movie, would have been made 3 to 400 years ago. But that is okay, because the point really is that these women were creative, and were not able to express their creativity. And apparently, thanks to some Napoleon nonsense at some point, works that were created by these women composers became lost. At the end we find out this film is dedicated to those women, who likely had a voice, but it was silenced at some point and aren’t people in the history books as a result.

That is a good enough cause for me.

Like I said, it is a very great looking film. But also, it is just fun. It is a good time to be had, while shining light on a real unspoken part of history. It is silly, it is modern, but the cast of characters feel distinct enough and well. They just want to have fun.

Gloria! is fun.

3 out of 4.