DMovies - Your platform for thought-provoking cinema

Julia Spatuzzi Felmanas

Our favourite dirty moviegoer

Film lovers, critics and professionals have a thing or two to learn from this gimlet-eyed cinemagoer with a critical mind and a very sharp pen


As a filmgoer, what do I expect from films? They have to surprise me, transport me to a different world, make me feel and make me think, change my mind perhaps. I do not like formulaic cinema, so I tend to avoid Hollywood movies. Also, I generally don’t go for films dealing with life-defining and world-changing events such as war, or a living person’s biography – there are exceptions, of course.

I am not saying cinema should not deal with pressing topics, it should. Indeed, cinema is there to tell us about the world, but it does not necessarily have to follow reality, or chronology, and real people should not be turned into heroes. I much prefer a well-told story about the trivial and mundane to big hits with big names on big subjects in big screens.

Watching a film is also inextricably associated with atmosphere. Watching it at home is not the same as going to the cinema. Whether you go alone or with other people, there is nothing like walking into a dark theatre with stranger all around you. Making an effort to make it to the cinema is important: be it in the middle of the day with three or four strangers or with a crowd for a popular film festival.

As a linguist, I love foreign language films, whether in a language and about a country I know, where you can dig much deeper, or just to experiment the pleasure of hearing undecipherable sounds, experiencing the unknown and searching for the common humanity among different cultures.

Julia Spatuzzi Felmanas is a Brazilian filmgoer who lives in London and works as an interpreter and translator. You can contact her via email juliafelmanas@gmail.com.


Other posts by Julia Spatuzzi Felmanas
Ultraviolence
Get out of your comfort zone! Very powerful documentary about deaths under police custody in the UK challenges viewers with very real and raw violence - now on BFI Player [Read More...]

A question of identity: Brexitannia and The House on Coco Road
Our favourite dirty movie-goer Julia writes about two very different docs at the East End Film Festival, national and racial identity and what you can do in order to save a dirty gem of a movie theatre in London! [Read More...]

Less salted caramel movies, please!!!
Moviegoer Julia Spatuzzi shares her frustration about the independent and art cinema circuit in London, where frills and treats seem to prevail over film choice, and foreign language movies are still the exception [Read More...]

Ken Loach, Cathy, Crisis and I
Did you know that Ken Loach's 1966 classic Cathy Come Home led to the creation of the national homelessness charity Crisis? Julia Spatuzzi shares her experience volunteering at the organisation and ponders the connection between cinema and reality [Read More...]

Another year, another coup d’état, another film
DMovies remembers the 1993 doc Beyond Citizen Kane and the 2016 Brazilian coup d'état in an interview with the film producer John Ellis, as we make a very exciting announcement [Read More...]

DMovies Poll

Are the Oscars dirty enough for DMovies?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Most Read

Forget Friday the 13th, Paranormal Activity and the [Read More...]
Just a few years back, finding a film [Read More...]
A lot of British people would rather forget [Read More...]
Pigs might fly. And so Brexit might happen. [Read More...]
Sexual diversity is at the very heart of [Read More...]
Films quotes are very powerful not just because [Read More...]

Facebook Comment

Website Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *