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Melbourne International Film Festival, Reviews

Review: Enriching Connection in ‘Language Lessons’

You might be sick of video calls by now, but ‘Language Lessons’ celebrates their awkward and intimate power to connect us.

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Features, Melbourne International Film Festival

‘The Most Beautiful Boy In The World’ is a pornography of suffering

Elroy Rosenberg reflects on the troubling MIFF documentary about Björn Andrésen’s life as an object of aesthetic attraction — and then pity.

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Melbourne International Film Festival, Reviews

Review: ‘The Macaluso Sisters’ paints the slow passage of grief

Emma Dante’s unconventional Sicily-set drama poignantly captures, over decades, the mourning between sisters after a tragic accident.

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Reviews

Review: The Dematerialised Vistas of ‘Land’

Snow-capped peaks, rolling hills, pine trees, log cabin, woodchop block and axe, fire, middle-aged white woman staring pensively into the distance.

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Features

False Proximity in ‘Window Boy Would Also Like to Have a Submarine’

Alex Piperno’s surreal film is a tight synthesis of utter, lacklustre realism and dream logic that lulls one into belief in the unreal.

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Interviews

Recreating The Synergy Between Painter and Painted: An Interview with Sis Gürdal

Debbie Zhou speaks to Sis Gürdal about conveying hidden colonialism in her short film, her striking visual style, and the tensions of working as an overseas Turkish filmmaker.

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My Dinner With Cinema, Video Essays

My Dinner with Cinema: Lynne Ramsay

Ramsay’s characters, lost in their own daydreams, create worlds out of piles of food to break free from their painful realities.

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Interviews

Poetic Memory: An Interview with Shannon Murphy

Ahead of the BAFTAs, Claire White caught up with the director of ‘Babyteeth’ about the imagery of an Australian summer, young love, and depicting teenagers with care and celebration.

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My Dinner With Cinema, Video Essays

My Dinner With Cinema: Hirokazu Kore-eda

Using food, Hirokazu Kore-eda grounds his body of work within the mores of social realism, threading themes of family and memory.

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Reviews

Review: The Bright, Waxy World of ‘Minari’

Lee Isaac Chung’s gentle tale of assimilation and cultivation steeps in something universal.

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Features

I Haven’t Felt This Good in Ages: On Being Sober and Watching ‘Another Round’

Thomas Vinterberg’s boozy dark comedy explores the pleasure, pain, and ambiguities of alcohol — and challenges us to see both drinking and sobriety in a new light.

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Interviews

Prisoners of a System: An Interview with the Creators of VR Series ‘Prison X’

Annabelle Ots speaks to Prison X’s Violeta Ayala and Roly Elias about pushing the boundaries of co-authored storytelling, fighting against a techno-totalitarian future, and the irony of freedom in colonised spaces.

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My Dinner With Cinema, Video Essays

My Dinner With Cinema: Agnes Varda

The foods featured in Varda’s films reflect the simple staples of everyday life – as equally nourishing as they are sublime.

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Features

The Joys of Not Understanding ‘Tenet’

Nolan’s confusing action flick has Elroy Rosenberg thinking about the very nature of art and ambiguity.

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Features

Alight, alight, alight: On Matthew McConaughey’s ‘Greenlights’

A fellow alum of Gorokan High School, Sam Twyford-Moore breaks down the Texan Best Actor winner’s less-than-illuminating autobiography.

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Columns, Crew Cuts

CREW CUTS: Festive Edition

The Rough Cut staff’s favourite cinematic bon-bons, including the best of Nancy Meyers and Billy Wilder.

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Features

Reflection: ‘Happiest Season’

Tina Huang reacts to Clea DuVall’s lesbian Christmas romcom.

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Interviews

Be Your Own Cheerleader: An Interview with Jessica Bendinger

Eliza Janssen discusses music recommendations, screenwriting advice, and social media doom-spiralling with the writer behind teen classics ‘Bring It On’ and ‘Stick It’.

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Interviews

It’s My Job to Have Fun: An Interview with Aunty Donna’s Zach Ruane

Ivana Brehas speaks with the comedian on the surreal connection between Aunty Donna’s Netflix sketch series and ‘Twin Peaks: The Return’.

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Interviews

On Art, Cinema, Technology, and Cancel Culture: An Interview with Sandra Wollner

Michelle Wang speaks to the director of ‘The Trouble with Being Born’ about the film’s intersectional exploration of identity, relationships, sexuality, and technology.

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Columns, Crew Cuts

CREW CUTS: Noirvember

Coens, ‘neon-noir’, and Gun Crazy dominate our roundup of hardboiled faves.

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Reviews

Review: David Byrne’s ‘American Utopia’ is an Electric Ride

Spike Lee’s filmed version of David Byrne’s Broadway show captures a feeling of infectious enthusiasm and energy.

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Reviews

Review: Disney + LEGO + Lucasfilm + Christmas = ‘The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special’

Tansy Gardam unboxes this curious brand-tastic product, which is at the very least an improvement on the ‘78 special.

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Reviews

Review: ‘The Twentieth Century’ is the Most Fun You’ll Have Learning About Politics All Year

Matthew Rankin’s debut feature is a surreal quasi-biopic set in a delicious nightmare world of Canadian politics.

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My Dinner With Cinema, Video Essays

My Dinner With Cinema: Quentin Tarantino

Tarantino’s irredeemable characters find themselves in direct incongruity between food and violence.

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Reviews

Review: ‘Never Rarely Sometimes Always’ is a Softly Spoken Tale of Female Self-Determination

Eliza Hittman’s naturalistic drama is at its most tender, yet hard-hitting when it says nothing at all.

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Reviews

Review: The River Tale in ‘Voice of Siang’

In his debut documentary, Joor Baruah creates a delicate and stylised visual anthropological treat, foregrounding the controversy of dam construction with issues of frontierisation and borderlands.

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Columns, You Tried

You Tried: Nicole Kidman in ‘The Paperboy’

Kidman’s transformative role brings power and authenticity to Lee Daniels’ pulp film.

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Reviews

Review: Violence’s Aftermath in ‘Jwlwi – The Seed’

This multilingual film sheds light on the conflict between various ethnic militant groups and the state armed forces across two decades in India, but finds hope in future generations.

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Columns, Crew Cuts

CREW CUTS: Scary Movies

Cronenberg, witches, and bleak Aussie horror reign supreme this spooky season.

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