Reviews REVIEW: AZRAEL (2024) dir. E.L. Katz You read that right: Azrael takes place in a post-rapture society.
Reviews BBFF Dispatch #4: Lovable (2022) dir. Staņislavs Tokalovs / Faulty Brides (2023) dir. Ergo Kuld Staņislavs Tokalovs must have been one of the Baltics’ busiest film creatives over the past few years because he has three separate entries in this year’s Boston Baltic Film Festival...
Baltic Cinema BBFF Interview: Staņislavs Tokalovs "I started to think, 'Okay, so I can either take the money and rewrite what he wants' — but I had to overstep myself — or I say, 'Okay, you go F-yourself?' It took me a couple of days, but I decided not to write it."
Reviews BBFF Dispatch #3: Everything Will Be Alright (2023) dir. Staņislavs Tokalovs / The Poet (2022) dir. Vytautas V. Landsbergis & Giedrius Tamoševičius “I will put a mask on you just in case,” Irina tells her mother at a V-Day event during the pandemic. “Okay, but why?”
Aurora BBFF Interview: Maarja Johanna Mägi "Well, this profession depends a lot on luck. If you happen to be in the right place and someone who just needs your type of acting will see you."
Reviews BBFF Dispatch #2: Melchior the Apothecary: The Executioner's Daughter (2022) dir. Elmo Nüganen / The Invisible Fight (2023) dir. Rainer Sarnet “Prove the righteousness of your path.”
Reviews BBFF Dispatch #1: Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (2023) dir. Anna Hints / Four White Shirts (1967) dir. Rolands Kalniņš The Boston Baltic Film Festival runs in-person from 3/1 through 3/3 at the Emerson Paramount Center and will continue virtually through 3/18. Click here for the schedule and ticket info, and watch the site for Joshua Polanski’s continuing coverage! Smoke Sauna Sisterhood “Water, take the
Reviews 8 Views of Lake Biwa — Marko Raat [IFFR ’24 Review] This is Raat’s first feature film, and it’s clear he has no interest in the way of the safe commercial film, the route first-time directors so often feel compelled to take. Sometimes, his absurdist debut even approaches outright experimental terrain.
3D PӦFF (Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival ) Interview: Director Deimantas Narkevičius on Twittering Soul Very rarely does a screening of a film become an essential cinephile event.
Essays The 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PӦFF) The only International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF) A-list film festival in Northern Europe or the Baltic, Estonia’s Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival just wrapped up its 27th year and celebrated by breaking all major attendance records from the festival’s history, as PӦFF director Tiina Lokk-
Essays Year Ender: Top Ten Films of 2023 The best films of the year creatively resist the studio destruction of art and suppression of vision with bold statements of visual-sonic distinction
Reviews Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: Dark Paradise One of the most discussed Estonian films of the year, Dark Paradise is a strange beast from one of the country’s most promising and rising young talents, Triin Ruumet. The 35-year-old’s second feature doesn’t tiptoe around such complex and controversial topics like Neo-Nazism, kink,
Reviews Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: The Peasants The Welchmans formal innovations breathe new life into the seventh art, and The Peasants is a magnificent example of what it is the artform can achieve and how it can still surprise.
Reviews Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: Hada & The Writer The Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PӦFF) runs in-person in Tallinn, Estonia from November 3-19. The Boston Hassle’s Joshua Polanski will be reviewing and interviewing live from Estonia as part of his multi-outlet coverage of the festival. Be sure to check out his website for updates
Baltic Cinema Boston Baltic Film Festival Interview: Director Linda Olte on Sisters Of the 10 films I saw at the Boston Baltic Film Festival, Sisters will probably be the first I return to when it (hopefully) hits streaming one day. If my recommendation means anything to you, there are still a few days to catch it on the festival’s site. A
Reviews Boston Baltic Film Festival Dispatch #5: Mariupolis 2, Accidental Santa The Boston Baltic Film Festival ran in-person from Friday, 3/3 through Sunday, 3/5 at the Emerson Paramount Center, and will continue virtually through 3/19. Click here for the schedule and ticket info, and watch the site for Joshua Polanski’s continuing coverage! “Also, I got gas
Baltic Cinema Boston Baltic Film Festival Interview: Director Uģis Olte on <i>Upurga</i> The Boston Baltic Film Festival runs from Friday, 3/3 through Sunday, 3/5 at the Emerson Paramount Center, and through 3/19 virtually. Click here for the schedule and ticket info, and watch the site for Joshua Polanski’s continuing coverage! In one of my favorite films from the
Reviews Boston Baltic Film Festival Dispatch #4: Melchior the Apothecary, Melchior the Apothecary: The Ghost Poised detective yarns, these old-fashioned populist films are designed to maximize the emotional enjoyment of large audiences while also allowing space for virtue veneration and development.
Reviews Boston Baltic Film Festival Dispatch #3: Sisters, January Sisters is one of the festival’s most essential films.
Baltic Cinema Boston Baltic Film Festival Dispatch #2: Neon Spring, Tree of Eternal Life Fortunately for Laine, and undermining the meteorological skills of Punxsutawney Phil, winter doesn’t last forever.
Reviews Boston Baltic Film Festival Dispatch #1: Upurga, Kalev Sometimes we find memorable images in the wrong places.
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