Tag: DMovies

The top 10 dirtiest movies of 2023

Posted on by victorfraga

Another year has gone by and DMovies is now nearly eight years old. Since we started in February 2016, we have published more than 2,900 exclusive articles and reviews. We have attended both big and small film festivals and industry events of Europe, always digging the dirty gems of cinema firsthand and exclusively for you.

We physically five a-list festivals across Europe: Berlin, Locarno, Cannes, San Sebastian and Tallinn. Other gigs included the Turin, REC Tarragona, Transylvania and the Red Sea Film Festival, in Saudi Arabia, plus the usual suspects across the UK (the BFI London Film Festival and our indie favourite Raindance). We have published in excess of 400 articles and reviews and renewed our biggest partnerships.

We decided to pull together a little list of the 10 dirtiest films of 2022. And what better way to do it than asking our most prolific writers and also our audience for their dirty pick of the year? This is a truly diverse and international list, containing very different films from every corner of the planet, some big, some small, some you can still catch in cinemas, some on VoD and some you will just have to keep an eye for, at least for now!

Don’t forget to click on the film title in order to accede to the our dirty review of the movie (not necessarily written by the same person who picked it as their dirty film of the year). The movies are listed alphabetically…

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1. All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh):

Chosen by Daniel Theophanous

Loosely based on the 1987 novel Strangers by Taichi Yamada, All of Us Strangers is the story of Adam, in his 40s, a scriptwriter living a lonely existence working and living at home with an inability to connect with others. His life is marked by the tragic death of his parents, killed in a car accident just before his 12th birthday. The day after his encounter with Harry, in an elaborate trip down memory lane he makes his way to his suburban childhood home in Croydon. Finding himself at his local park, a place which initially gives the impression of a cruising spot, enhanced by the presence of an attractive moustached man in a leather jacket signalling him into the bushes. Adam follows him into an unexpected opening and upon close inspection it is revealed the man is his dad, looking just like before he died. A subtle and playful use of a gay trope nods to Haigh’s signature understated directorial approach.

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2. Asteroid City (Wes Anderson):

Chosen by Anton Bittel

It may come with Anderson’s typical whimsy and familiar cartoonish stylisations, but this formally challenging, hermeneutically convoluted work is focused on a deep, deep grief that no amount of narrative embedding can truly, permanently bury. Anderson’s retro-futurist small-town ’50s setting, the picture-book production design and dead-on cinematography, all the overt artifice and metatheatrical play, and even a story involving a visiting alien (and an incursion of Brechtian alienation effects) cannot quite contain the sense of loss that his eccentric ensemble of characters struggles to suppress as they look away from the grave towards the heavens – and so Asteroid Cityproves a richly layered, constantly diverting study in melancholy. It is beautiful, funny, sad, wise and humane.

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3. Barbie (Greta Gerwig):

Chosen by readership (most read review of the year)

Never before in your life have you seen as much pink. Costumes, houses, cars, streets and even the sky. Your eyes might suffer inflammation or photophobia. You might become pink-blind. This is a luminescent movie that exudes not just colour, flair and vigour, but also some very bright and gleaming messages. At a duration of nearly two hours, Greta Gerwig’s third feature film (after 2018’s Lady Bird and 2020’s Little Women) is her most expensive and commercial one, but this does not mean that the 39-year-old director has waived her auteurial sensibilities, her audacity, and her ability to touch and move even the most cynical and hardened of hearts..

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4. The Eight Mountains (Felix Van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch):

Chosen by John McDonald

Belgian filmmaker Felix van Groeningen, known for the heart-breaking 2019 film Beautiful Boy , is joined by his actress wife Charlotte Vandermeersch for this latest project, an adaptation of the award-winning 2016 novel of the same name by Italian author Paolo Cognetti. It’s a film that has been described as a “straight Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)” which kind of says a lot about it – but this is far from being just a one-dimensional retelling. It explores a simple friendship with complicated edges, a combination of two isolated souls in dire need of this concept, and how it can cultivate into something significant and extremely poignant over time.

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5. Full Time (Eric Gravel):

Chosen by Jeremy Clarke

A single mum with two young kids struggles to hold her working life together in a Paris where the transport network in and out of the city is paralysed by strikes. The brief moment of calm at the start of the movie gives little indication of the relentless nature of what is to follow. Julie Roy (Laure Calamy) sleeps deeply, a figure at rest, as we watch parts of her face in close-ups. Suddenly, this tranquillity is shattered by the aural violation of the quiet by an alarm clock. As she gets the kids up, the radio blares out something about an increase in working hours and something else about the welfare state. The impression is of the microcosm of her life and the macrocosm of the wider world (France) in a state of crisis. She bundles her kids off to the child-minder’s and boards a pre-dawn train to Paris. The train is terminated because of an unwell passenger, so she has to switch to a bus to get to St. Lazare, and as she is trying to get to The Churchill, the luxury hotel where she works as a head chambermaid, she must fend off a mobile phone call about her mortgage repayments.

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6. Faceless After Dark (Raymond Wood):

Chosen by Paul Risker

This is a damn fine genre picture. Responses to the toxicity of social media have revealed that it’s a trickery little devil – concealing its true meaning. One suspects society might be terrified if it knew what an honest exploration the film is of a common, but ignored and misunderstood rage bubbling beneath the surface all around us – in part, how we create our own monsters. All of this is presented with subtlety. Director Raymond Wood, writers Todd Jacobs and Jenna Kanell, who plays the lead character, Bowie, ensure that first and foremost it’s a rollicking good genre picture with plenty of carnage and blood. And, in a time when references and influences aren’t discreet, here, the unhinged artist delicately evokes the spirit of a famous ‘fallen’ female character of 1950s cinema.

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7. Falling into Place (Aylin Tezel):

Chosen by Eoghan Lyng

A German lady and a Scottish man live out their memories on the streets of London, in this highly accomplished German film. Falling into Place avoids the most everyday clichés to demonstrate a love story based on guilt and unfulfilled desire. The audience knows more about the characters than they do, which might explain why they spend so much of the film apart. When Kira returns to London, she catches up with her Irish ex-boyfriend, hoping to rekindle the memories they shared. She’s open and honest in all the ways Ian – a struggling musician desperate to catch a break – is not. His seclusion likely stems from his father’s ill health – not forgetting his sister, who is situated in a hospital to cure her manic depression. They find other loves, but none of their partners seem to reignite the spark they enjoyed on that cold night in Skye. The question remains: Is it better to confine love to memory, or should you break free from the shackles of convention, and “take a risk”?

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8. In the Rearview (Maciek Hamela):

Chosen by Louis Roberts

Premiering at Sheffield DocFest last week, where it went on to win the Grand Jury Award in the International Competition, In the Rearview is a co-production of Ukraine, France and Hamela’s native Poland. Set almost entirely in the filmmaker’s own minibus as he takes thousands of refugees to safety, the film’s intimate yet non-intrusive approach is the very definition of ‘less is more’. Despite the extraordinary circumstances in which its subjects find themselves, the film is incredibly effective as a slice-of-life documentary, a testament to the resilience and courage of the normal people this conflict has affected, as well as Hamela’s determination to tell their stories as truthfully as possible.

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9. Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese):

Chosen by Victoria Luxford

After nearly 60 years of filmmaking, Martin Scorsese is still capable of making films that keep you glued to your seat. Teaming up with regular collaborators Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro, Killers of The Flower Moon is both a complex power struggle and a howl of rage from America’s ugly past. Lily Gladstone is the heart and soul of the piece, with DiCaprio as ever excelling as a man torn between light and dark. At 81, there are more films behind the Oscar-winner than ahead, but he shows no sign of slowing with one of the most gripping films of the year.

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10. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer):

Chosen by DMovies’ editor Victor Fraga

Jonathan Glazer’s latest creation hits your head so hard that it keeps it spinning vertiginously. It throws your set of inner values and principles into disarray, and make you question the very nature of your humanity. It’s a necessary and urgent film, relevant to people of all nationalities and with a topic as current as it was 80 years ago, when the Third Reich was at its height.

The movie depicts the routine of Rudolf Hoess (Christian Friedel), the longest-serving commandant of Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp, his wife Hedwig Hensel (Sandra Hueller) and their five children (ranging from babyhood to 11 years of age) around 1943 in a large country house. The facilities are very comfortable, however not particularly extravagant. The dining room and lounge are elegant and spacious, the medium-size garden is populated with gingerly pruned plants, a table and a few chairs. This is where Rudolf welcomes other Nazi officers. A guest casually describes how the gas chambers work, with a factory plant to hand: “load, burn, cool, unload, then start all over again”. It sounds as if they are talking about a food manufacturing procedure. This is also where the children play. Where Rudolf and Hedwig enjoy their intimacy, sharing the friendly banter and occasional joke. A quiet lake nearby provides the family with rural entertainment, reflection and a connection with nature. This could be any German family. It is such casualness that is most jarring. These people lead a hair-raisingly mundane existence.

The Zone of Interest is pictured at the top of this article.

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And here goes one last-minute addition:

The Beast (Bertrand Bonello):

Chosen by Nick Kouhi

One of contemporary French Cinema’s most exciting provocateurs, Bertrand Bonello has cultivated a knack for confidently melding potentially incongruous genres into a recognizably pervasive strain of dread. His new film The Beast is possibly his boldest work yet, as intellectually rigorous as it is stylistically dazzling in its three historically discrete but thematically linked tales of l’amour fou between a couple spanning across a century and two continents.

The would-be lovers bear the same names in their separate lives: Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) and Louis (George MacKay), whose paths first cross in early 20th Century Europe. Their chance encounter in Paris sparks a kinship where she confides in him a latent fear of some unknown catastrophe that will befall her. The central premise, inspired by Henry James’ 1903 novella The Beast in the Jungle, extends to 2014 where Gabrielle is now a struggling actress in Los Angeles and Louis is the thinly veiled double of Elliot Rodger, whose misogynist social media vlogs culminated in six murders near the University of California.

Suited and booted on a Basque beach!

Posted on by victorfraga

My first year in San Sebastian was nothing short of spectacular! A arrived a day before the Festival started so I could breathe and see some of the sights before the filmic marathon began. The Donostia Zinemaldia, as they call themselves in their native Basque language, is one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world, and also one of the very few to hold A-category Fiapf accreditation. I was extremely excited and wanted to devote as much time as possible to their impressive film selection.

I stayed at the fabulous San Sebastian Ilunion Hotel, a 40-minute walk from the Kursaal, where most of the screenings are held. This is one of the most pleasant work commutes anyone could wish for, with virtually the entire journey taking place on the magnificent Concha Beach. I walked booted and suited two to four times a day, feet firmly on the sand, while locals and tourists (there is no shortage of those) sunbathed, or took a dip in the Bay of Biscay.

The only problem with working so hard is that I barely had time to taste the local cuisine, one of the most sophisticated on this planet. The countless pintxo bars were teeming with customers every single day of the week.

Zhang Yimou’s eagerly-anticipated “love letter to cinema” ONE SECOND opened the Competition strand. The movie was due to premiere two years ago in Berlin, and it was withdrawn last minute due to “technical reasons” (most people believe there were censorship issues).

The big winner this year was Alina Grigore’s Blue Moon, which received the Golden Shell for Best Film. In a year when all the Oscars, Cannes, Berlin and Venice all gave their biggest awards to female directors, it was only natural that San Sebastian should do the same, with a Romanian movie. In fact, the top five prizes all went to female directors and actresses. The Best Director and Best Leading Performance Ex-Aequo (Flora Ofelia Hofman) prizes went to Tea Lindeburg’s slow burn Danish drama As In Heaven. The other Best Leading Performance Shell went to Jessica Chastain in Michael Showalter’s The Eyes of Tammy Faye, probably the biopic of the year, and also an Oscar favourite. French-Bosnian director Lucie Hadzihalilovic’s Earwig won the Special Jury Award. Best Supporting Performance went to the entire crew of the dirtylicious blend of fiction and documentary Who’s Stopping Us, the most deserving prize in the event. The Spanish film follows a group of inspiring Spanish adolescents, with a refreshing message of hope. Terence Davies’s Benediction, the biopic of British writer Siegfried Sassoon snatched Best Screenplay, while the laborious French political drama Undercover received Best Cinematography.

My personal favourites to leave empty-handed include Paco Plaza’s elegant and terrifying horror The Grandmother, as well as the Argentinean fiery youth/political drama Camila Will Come Out Tonight.

But San Sebastian isn’t just about the movies in Competition. It gives you the opportunity to catch the dirtiest films from Cannes, Venice and San Sebastian. I was devastated I missed Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta, but at least I did catch Francois Ozon’s quietly tragic Everything Went Fine and Joanna Hogg’s utterly British The Souvenir: Part II (boasting one of the best indie soundtracks in recent years).

Other highlights include Charlotte Gainsbourg’s intimate portrait of her mother Jane by Charlotte and the event’s closing film, the scrumptious French drama Delicious, about revolution on the dinner table (in fact, the Festival has an entire section devoted to culinary movies, in line with the city’s gastronomic tradition.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Click on our review archive in order to read our 22 exclusive film reviews from the 69th San Sebastian International Film Festival.

Cinema and fashion: a graphic and vivid partnership

Posted on by victorfraga

Fashion has never moved this fast before. At 24 frames per second, to be more precise.

Doesn’t Exist is a publication that merges cinematic elements with a fashion landscape. They become are translated into intricate fashion stories, pictorial written pieces, interviews and filmic illustrations. The objective of the publication is to create a new space to be used by both fashion and film industries, and a mutual feeding of references in all their aesthetic and intellectual fields. The magazine seeks to develop a visual dialogue between the two industries, thereby generating a fully cinematic fashion content.

The first issue is a tribute to the iconic Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo, and the impressive work for the her fashion brand Comme des Garçons. Our writer Redmond Bacon has drawn parallels between the fashion artist and the late Greek filmmaker Theodoros Angelopoulos, arguing that both embrace austerity and reject the mainstream in very assertive and yet different ways.

There is a visual fashion story stylised with archive pieces from Kawakubo’s Paris debut, complementing the words by Redmond. The minimal, groundbreaking collections from the 1980s and 1990s are all there to be savoured.

The first print edition of Doesn’t Exist also features an article about the elusive and mysterious American-born and London based filmmakers the Quay Brothers, and their connection with the fashion world through the means of fragrance. The words were penned by our journalist Jeremy Clarke, and the piece is also embroidered with a set of stylised images, once again straddling between the wondrous world of cinema and clothes.

Two pieces are available exclusively online for readers of DMovies: an article on twisted motherhood, and an interview with the magnificent actress Izabél Zuaa.

The shiny first edition of Doesn’t Exist has 244 pages, and it is available to purchase in four different front covers from various stockists across the UK, Portugal and Italy, both on the high street (once the lockdown is over) and online. You can see the full list by clicking here, or by visiting their Instagram.

In order to celebrate the partnership between DMovies and Doesn’t Exist, and the enduring connection between the movie and the fashion worlds, we are giving away five copies of the magazine entirely for free posted to you. Just send us an email to info@dirtymovies.org, and let us know the title of your favourite movie by Theodoros Angelopoulos. The promotion is valid for readers anywhere in the world!

All images in this piece are taken from the first print edition of Doesn’t Exist. Find out more on their website by clicking here.

Top 10 films about Brexit… and why it should have never happened

Posted on by victorfraga

At DMovies, we are proudly European. We believe in the values of internationalism, diversity and tolerance. We also believe that cinema should not be confined to the borders of one nation, and that we all benefit from the plurality of cultures, visions and perspectives. The characteristics commonly associated with Brexit – nationalism, intolerance, cultural and political arrogance – are an affront to the very essence of a dirty movie. A dirty movie is a movie that brings people together, that celebrates the universality of cinema in novel and thought-provoking ways.

None of our writers support Brexit. In fact, very few people in the film industry do, except perhaps for poor multimillionaire Michael Caine. Some of our recent interviewees have expressed their reservations about the Brexit, too. An elated Mike Newell told us a few months ago: “People like me are infuriated by Brexit. Brexit’s a very bad thing. Not just culturally, turning our backs on Beethoven, but where’s the money gonna come from?”. A more magnanimous Ken Loach stated, also in an exclusive interview a few months ago: “there’s a lot of fake patriotism, xenophobia, chauvinism. I think that cinema and the left in general should communicate that people are of equal value, whatever their origin, religion, the language they speak. Everyone is our neighbour. Our working class people have more in common with the working class of other European countries than with our ruling class.”

So we came up with a list of 10 dirty movies that investigate – at times directly and other times poetically and obliquely – the various phenomena that triggered Brexit, from overt and rabid racism to a general discontentment with the establishment and the feeling neglect in the more rural and impoverished parts of the country. We hope that these films will help viewers to reflect on the mistakes made, understand how unscrupulous politicians capitalised on these problems and sentiments, and restore our trust in a diverse, tolerant and inclusive Britain. We believe that the UK will eventually heal these wounds and rejoin the EU.

These films are listed in alphabetical order. Click on the film title in order to accede to each individual review.

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1. Bait (Mark Jenkin, 2019):

Like a modern-day A Day in the Country (Jean Renoir, 1936), Bait observes the tension between rural and city folk and sees the darkness that misunderstanding can lead to. Edward Rowe’s increasingly desperate fisherman takes us along with him, as he lives hand to mouth and dreams of buying a boat to improve his catch. The tourists he was forced to sell his family home to, who repeatedly refer to themselves as a part of the community, keep trying to make his life even harder, though of course its all within their legal rights.

Bait is also great Brexit movie. But that’s not to say that it’s a single issue movie. This film will still be relevant long after we’ve got our blue passports, because these are battles that have always taken place, probably always will. But the way Jenkin relates past and present, generational and class divide, allows the film to take on mythic qualities.

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2. Brexitannia (Timothy George Kelly, 2017):

The interviewees within this documentary are mostly in scrublands, council estates, broken down factories or a workingman’s club in areas such as the North-East of England, Northern Ireland, Clapton in Essex or the South West, describing their fears and what made them vote Brexit. The movie is was divided in two parts. We knew this was so because we were helpfully given the title “Part One: The People”, before the participants started talking. It was all vaguely interesting and amusing. The audience sometimes laughed out loud at some of the views held by this strange bunch, living somewhere outside the M25.

But there came a point when I was positively looking forward to what else we were going to get after ‘the people’, hoping that there would not be too much of it and that it was not going to go on for too long. Indeed, after “Part One: The People”, came “Part Two: The Experts. A group of half a dozen or so prominent individuals chosen to give their educated views on Brexit – one of them being Noam Chomsky.

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3. The Brink (Alison Clayman, 2019):

Stephen Bannon is largely credited with the election of Donald Trump, which he describes as “a divine intervention”. Bannon remained his chief strategist until August 2017, when the two men fell out. It’s not entirely clear how close the two are right now. Nevertheless, Bannon remains very loyal to Trump’s cause and ideology. He works closely to the Republican Party. He was devastated when the GOP lost control of the House of Representatives, after the 2018 midterm elections.

The controversial political figure has made very good friends in Europe, with whom she shares many affinities. We see him meet up with Nigel Farage. They a passionate conversation about nationalism. Bannon believes that Trump’s election was a direct consequence of the Brexit referendum. “Victory begets victory”, he sums it up. We also watch him meet up with smaller and less significant leaders from the European far-right, including countries such as Belgium and Sweden.

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4. Democracy (David Bernet, 2016):

This documentary does what the British media generally fails to do: it highlights the importance of personal privacy. In fact the UK seems to be moving precisely in the opposite direction. The highly controversial Investigatory Powers Act was passed last November with barely any objections from the political establishment, and very limited exposure in the media. The UK government now has unprecedented powers to snoop on our Internet history. While the film doesn’t highlight the UK context, if you are vaguely familiar with Tory privacy policy (or lack thereof) you might immediately realise the stark contrast.

It’s vital to note that, with Brexit, the UK may no longer be subjected to these laws, which could make the country extremely vulnerable to US corporate interests. Data privacy laws are very relaxed in the US, where an individual’s criminal and even health records are often publicly available or stored in databases with little to no protection.

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5. Eaten by Lions (Jason Wingard, 2018):

This is not a film that overtly deals with Brexit. The film delves into the topics of infidelity and paternal abandonment with the thickest tongue-in-cheek, darkly flippant and ironic tone. “She had those eyes, almost as if something was wrong with her” Irfan (Asim Chaudry) tells Omar (Antonio Aakeel) about meeting Omar’s mother. Aakeel and Chaudry are on fine form, but Jack Carroll, playing the disabled Pete, is the real scene-stealer. Simply watching him trying to act anything but impish in a seduction scene (across from the sultry Natalie Davies) shows a comedic talent that stands beside the decided discomfiture of Peter Sellers and Stan Laurel.

Kevin Eldon, Johnny Vegas and Hayley Tammaddon punch up the supporting cast with strong supporting performances, with the right hint of subtle xenophobia. Despite his background, Omar’s foster mother suggests that he belong with “his own” (pointing to his Indian father), a particularly potent and shocking moment and one that supports an exclusivist England that voted for Brexit and one that touches on an all too potent nerve.

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2. Hurricane (David Blair, 2018):

It’s too easy to take most British WW2 movies (e.g. Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan, 2017) and claim they bolster the idea of Brexit – Britain alone against the world, defeating the dastardly Germans and so on. Hurricane is different. Its Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots are refugees from the Polish Air Force, wiped out by the Luftwaffe in a mere three days and kept on ice by Britain’s xenophobic War Office following their arrival in England. When they’re finally allowed into the air, these Poles turn out to be much better fighter pilots than the majority of Brits who are being slaughtered by the enemy at an alarming rate. Indeed, it’s the Polish pilots that turn the Battle of Britain around.

Hurricane is named after the RAF’s most widely used fighter aircraft and those portrayed here, at least when flying, are computer generated. Much of the CG work has been carried out in India (nothing wrong with that) on the cheap. The aircraft looks like computer models partly because no-one’s bothered to dirty them up and partly because there’s no attempt at reflecting the weather on their metal surfaces as real flying aircraft surfaces would do. Consequently, the flying sequences have an air of unreality about them which a little more budgetary spending in the right places could easily have fixed.

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7. I Love my Mum (Alberto Sciamma, 2018):

This British comedy about haggling mother and son accidentally shipped to Morocco humanises refugees and also functions as a trope for Brexit.The essential misunderstanding between our heroes and their Spanish and French counterparts has overtones of Brexit negotiations, in which none of the countries can seemingly surmise what the other wants. While these later scenes meander at times, and rely on just a little too much flat sexual humour, they do get at the heart of why Britain and the rest of Europe seemingly can never properly get on.

Complemented by handsome photography of the Mediterranean Coastline and the Pyrenees, the rugged beauty of both Spain and France shows us what we are missing out!

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8. Memento Amare (Lavinia Simina, 2017):

Mihai (Cristanel Hogas) is an immigrant. And as such he is divided between two nations. His beautiful wife and his young daughter dwell in Romania. Mihai is in London, where he toils as a construction worker, presumably in order to save money and provide a better future for his family. His relationship with his family is vibrant and colourful, while his life in the UK is sombre and colourless.

Because the movie is not entirely chronological, there are hints of the disclosure in the very opening sequence. The outcome looks bleak yet inevitable. And it raises a number of questions: Could the psychological wounds of Brexit could stay open for decades? How will the “orphaned” generations react to having their king (and their kingdom) taken away from them? Is it possible that the young may seek justice with their hands? Is warring the only road towards redemption? One thing looks certain: solidarity has collapsed (perhaps to the point of no return), and the future is not bright.

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9. Postcards from the 48% (David Wilkinson, 2018):

It’s time to look back and evaluate what has been achieved since the referendum in 2016. Postcards from the 48%, as the title suggests, is a proud Remainer of a film. It lays out solid reasons as to why Brexit is insane, and the UK has been mis-sold a fantasy. It’s also a call to action: there’s still time to reverse a catastrophe. It’s mandatory viewing for those looking to consolidate their Remain views and opinions, and also for those in doubt.

A very pertinent analogy is made at the end of the movie. If you buy a house and find out it sits on a sinkhole, you should be able to to challenge your purchase. That’s why Britain should be given a second referendum and the opportunity to challenge the 2016 vote, which was heavily influenced by fallacies and lies.

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10. The Street (Zed Nelson, 2019):

The devastating effects of gentrification are meticulously observed in documentary The Street, a scathing indictment of Tory austerity over the past four years. An empathetic portrait of a community in flux, it doubles up as a wide-spanning lament for a country that has seemingly lost its way.

As the double infliction of Brexit and Grenfell Tower impose even greater mental and physical harm upon the local population, the tragedy of Hoxton Street over the past four years becomes the tragedy of London, and by extension, the UK itself. Do the government care about working class people at all? Judging from this film, all evidence points to the contrary. While pointedly didactic (it may as well have said “Vote Labour” at the end) it earns the right to be, caring deeply for its subjects and begging for an empathetic solution.

Ken Loach’s lucid indictment on free market capitalism

Posted on by victorfraga

Ken Loach remains the most prominent and virtually unchallenged voice of the working class in British cinema. His latest movie Sorry We Missed You is an extremely powerful statement about eroding working conditions in modern-day Britain. Our editor Victor Fraga believes that it is even more excruciatingly painful to watch (and therefore even more effective) than its companion piece from three years ago I, Daniel Blake, which won the Palme d’Or in Cannes. That’s because audiences are forced to walk in the shoes of the oppressed working man.

In Sorry We Missed You, Ricky (Kris Hitchen) is a building worker with an impeccable CV, living with his family somewhere in suburban Newcastle. He persuades his wife Abbie (Debbie Honeywood) to sell off her car so that he can buy a van and move into the delivery industry. A franchise owner promises Ricky that he’ll be independent and “own his own business”, and earn up to £1,200 a week. The reality couldn’t be more different. Ricky ends up working up to 14 hours a day six days a week. His draconian delivery targets turn him into a delivery robot. Ricky has been conned. His “independence” is but an illusion. Click here in order to read the review of the movie.

Our editor sat down with Ken in order to understand the challenges that Ricky and the working class in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world face, and what we can do in order to overcome their apparently insurmountable barriers. They also discussed modern-day slavery, Jeremy Corbyn, Brexit, free movement and how British movies have helped the far-right to disseminate prejudices and fake patriotism!

Sorry We Missed You is in cinemas on Friday, November 1st!

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Victor Fraga – Four million working people are currently living in poverty in the UK. That’s four million Rickies and Abbies? How have we failed so many people?

Ken Loach – That’s actually 14 million. One-four [in reality, this is the total number of people living in poverty, not just workers living in poverty]. Four million of those are children. And 1.5 million are in dire poverty. That means that they don’t have the means to the essentials of life.

It’s a process that began with Margaret Thatcher. She destroyed communities in the old working-class areas, with mines and factories being closed. Those were the old days of the secure job, with the eight-hour day and the 40-hour week, a wage on which you could bring up a family and have somewhere to live, have a holiday without losing money. Those working conditions were gradually eroded under the pressures of harsh competition from big companies, because they have to compete on both quality and price, so those who get the trade will be cheaper. They have to cut their labour costs. And they do that by finding new ways to employ people. They don’t pay holiday pay, they don’t pay sick pay. They have no responsibility for the worker beyond their day’s work. They can hire and fire them very easily. So they work through agencies, which also have no responsibility for the worker. They are so called self-employed. The bogus self-employment.

The work in this case, he [Ricky from Sorry We Missed You] is simply providing a service. He’s just a worker providing a service. Therefore they don’t need to obey trade unions rules, they don’t need to pay the minimum wage. It’s just a contract to supply a service. That of course isn’t true, because the driver is entirely contracted to this one company, and they are to all effects and purposes one worker. But this new form of words for the same job means the employer has no responsibility.

VF – Who changed the words?

KL – Employers found clever new strategies. They are market-orientated people who find their way around the rules. The minimum wage doesn’t apply to someone who’s providing a service. So a driver might work 12 hours a day or more and still struggle to make a decent living. The eight-hour day, the minimum wage and the guaranteed working week have been swept away by the gig economy.

It’s a logic. If you are committed to the free market, that’s based on competition. Firms compete on price, therefore they must continue that exploitation, otherwise they are going to lose trade.

VF – We’re seeing far-right and ultra neo-liberal governments destroy working rights around the world. I’m from Brazil, where the phenomenon is more pronounced yet not entirely dissimilar to the UK. Is the erosion of working rights the natural and inevitable consequence of capitalism, or is this just a perverse subversion of capitalism?

KL – I think it’s an inevitable consequence of free market capitalism. Because, as I say, it’s based on competition and therefore they will try to cut their labour costs and increase exploitation. That’s the only way they can do it. And now they use technology in order to do it. So Ricky as a driver, he doesn’t have someone over him telling him he has to work harder. He’s got a machine in the car which knows where he is every two minutes. It beeps if he’s out of the car for more than two minutes. It allows him no time to go to the lavatory. No time for a break. He’s driven by a piece of electronic equipment. He’s forced to exploit himself. And when the worker has to exploit himself, that’s the ideal situation for the employer.

VF – I would argue that we saw improvements in working conditions in the 20th century. And we’re now going back to Victorian times, or even the industrial revolution. Do you agree?

KL – Absolutely. I think that there was a real change in consciousness after WW2, the public good was something that we all subscribed to. Trade unions grew stronger, and therefore workers’ rights grew stronger. The trade unions had the negotiating strength to get the eight-hour day, to get a decent wage. Collective bargaining is the strength of the working class. And that’s what Thatcher aimed to destroy. And to a large extent she succeeded. Partly because the labour movement itself, and the Labour Party, didn’t put up a good enough fight.

What’s much remarkable about this time right now is that with Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, it’s the first time in 100-year history that the Labour Party has a leader of the left. And that leadership will stand for the interests of the working class. Blair stood with business. Corbyn will stand with workers, and that’s why he’s so attacked.

VF – The working conditions in Sorry We Missed You are comparable to slavery. The British Empire was built upon slavery. Have we found a surrogate for old-fashioned colonialism whereby we oppress our very own workforce?

KL – I wouldn’t use the work slavery. It’s too glib. Colonialism has been replaced by the working class of countries were the wages are even lower than they are here. Getting clothes from Bangladesh is a form of colonialism, because we are using their very exploited working class for goods to sell here. When capitalism goes global, the trade goes to those on starvation wages. It’s a race to the bottom. And we know that the working conditions in some Eastern countries are atrocious.

VF – Abbie knows unfettered solidarity and devotion to her job. But she pays a price for that. Has solidarity become unfeasible or even illegal?

KL – They have tried to nullify it, and that’s a challenge for the left. Solidarity needs political intervention. And obviously we need strong trade unions. But in order to get strong trade unions we need a party in power that will restore their powers, which Thatcher took away. A party that will make zero-hour contracts illegal. There has to be some commitment to the working week. Otherwise the minimum wage is meaningless. There also has to be an end to bogus self-employment. And there’s yet another change that we must deliver. Not long ago our post office was nationalised. And was always a public service. We owned it. Then the Tories privatised it, and now we need to bring it back into public ownership, so that parcels are delivered by the postman. That cuts out this need to rip-off delivery companies.

The system pits people against each other. The fastest driver gets the best route, which means they will earn more money. They consciously put one driver against another. That’s what Paul Laverty’s [Loach’s screenwriter for nearly three decades] found in his research. And that’s another reason why this bogus self-employment should end.

VF – Will Ricky be better off in post-Brexit Britain? Will he enjoy more or will he enjoy less labour protections?

KL – This bogus self-employment is happening while we are in the European Union, and it will get worse if Boris Johnson and the Tories are in power when we leave. Brexit is a distraction. Because the big issues – poverty, exploitation and failing public services – are being neglected. For the left, it’s a tactical question.

VF – Let’s say Jeremy Corbyn gets to power. Do you think Ricky will be better off -in a post-Brexit Jeremy Corbyn government?

KL – That depends on the deal. They haven’t negotiated the deal yet. I would hope that a Labour government under Corbyn would negotiate a deal whereby we have control over our fisheries, so that we can protect the fish stock, and we have control over agriculture, so we can control the ecological side. And we would improve on workers’ rights by ending zero-hour contracts and bogus self-employment. We would bring public services entirely back into public ownership. Not outsourced. That might be against EU policies of competitive industry, their rules of what the state can do in terms of intervention. They think that’s against competition.

VF – But aren’t some public services nationalised in the largest EU countries, such as the trains in France and Germany?

KL – Yes, they are, but that’s a tension within the European Union. The European Union’s founding document is based on the free market. So those examples are an anomaly in the practice and in the rules. If you look at the rules, they oppose state intervention if it interferes with competition. I would argue that a Labour government needs to intervene in competition in order to provide a better service and protect workers’ rights. It depends on the deal that Corbyn gets, if he gets elected. If the deal is a good deal Ricky would be better off outside the EU. If the Corbyn deal is not a good deal, he’d be better off inside the EU. It’s a judgement you can only make once you see the deal Labour has negotiated.

VF – What about free movement and diversity? If we close our borders and no EU people can come in, would that have a positive impact on Ricky’s life?

KL – In principle, you have to be in favour of free movement. But I think that in order for free movement to be really free – not a means of an employer getting cheap labour – the economies have to be roughly equal. Because if the wages are lower in one group of countries, people will migrate to where the wages are higher. And that’s what happened. And that can produce problems of racism, because the local people feel undermined in their income. In order to avoid that, there should be a conscious move to equalise the economies. People can travel, freely, but they can have a good living in their own country. Free movement has to go alongside equalising the economies.

VF – But that’s going to take a long time. Wages in Romania won’t be on the same level as Britain in 10 or 20 years. Does that mean we should close our gates for now?

KL – No, I think that we need to work with poorer countries so that their young talent don’t go abroad to work in coffee shops because the wages are higher. But equally, that’s got to be done with planning and agreement, not with one country putting up barriers.

VF – Fake patriotism and nostalgia of imperialism are more rabid than ever, with the ultra-nationalistic Brexit Party coming first in the latest EU elections. How can cinema help to fend off this dangerous and reactionary threat?

KL – Yes, I agree with you that there’s a lot of fake patriotism, xenophobia, chauvinism. I think that cinema and the left in general should communicate that people are of equal value, whatever their origin, religion, the language they speak. Everyone is our neighbour. Our working class people have more in common with the working class of other European countries than with our ruling class. We’ve taken Sorry We Missed You to Spain, France, Germany and Ireland so far, and everywhere it’s the same story. When you show it to an audience in France you realise that delivery drivers here have exactly the same situation as delivery drivers in the rest of Europe, and they have nothing in common with Boris Johnson’s ruling class.

VF – I think that a lot of mainstream cinema has helped to stir fake patriotism and anti-European resentment, and some films are Brexit’s BFF, such as Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan, 2017) and Darkest Hour (Joe Wright, 2018). They are a manna from heaven for people like Farage. Do you share my view?

KL – Very much so. We had so many war films after the War where all the Germans were bad, except there was one nice German. That’s where the phrase “the good German” passed into common usage. The message of these films was: “Germans are bad”. The German language became associated with Nazis, even though the British governments were happy to support the fascists in Spain under Franco. Churchill was a rabid imperialist. We supported dictators and the far-right around the world. Same with the States. So came the phrase: “he might be a bastard, but he’s our bastard”. So let’s not take any lessons from the far-right and their patriotism, because the interests of the working people are the same anywhere in the world.

VF – Does mainstream cinema tend to have a subliminal far-right message?

KL – Yes, absolutely. The classic message of the American cinema is: “one man with a gun will sort your problems”. It’s not about solidarity.

VF – What about British cinema?

KL – I don’t know much about British cinema, to be honest. It may seem strange.

VF – It does seem very strange!!!

KL – That’s true. The British war films that I grew up with were always about the “good Brit” versus the “bad German”. Or the coward Italian. They were all stereotypes.

VF – You made a documentary entitled In Conversation with Jeremy Corbyn (2016), yet there doesn’t seem to be much positive coverage of the Labour leader elsewhere. Do you believe that the British media – even the left-leaning papers such as The Guardian – are biased against Jeremy Corbyn, is there a smear campaign, and has that impacted how your documentary was received?

KL – It was a just short film, it never really had a major presence, so I wouldn’t say I encountered resistance.

I spoke to Jeremy very little about this. So this is just my opinion. The right wing and the centre press – the Guardian included (which I don’t see it as a left wing newspaper) the BBC, ITV and so on – certainly have to varying degrees opposed Corbyn. The only paper that supports him is The Morning Star, but the others won’t even acknowledge its existence. There is a smear campaign against him, there is a campaign to undermine and to ridicule him. And key to that are the Labour MPs, the majority of which came to power when Blair was the leader, so they are right wing Labour MPs and their task is to undermine Corbyn. They are the biggest danger we face.

The picture at the top and at the bottom and of this article are of Ken Loach and Victor Fraga on the the day this interview was conducted. The other images are stills from Ken Loach’s latest film Sorry We Missed You.

We’ve walked a long, long way together!

Posted on by victorfraga

DMovies first joined forces with Under the Milky Way and The Film Agency in 2017. Our objective to reclaim the hidden gems of European film often overlooked. These movies are part of the Walk This Way project, which is funded by EU Media (a sub-programme of Creative Europe) and is aimed at fostering and promoting straight-to-VoD European cinema. The Film Agency is handling the PR and communications of the initiative.

According to Walk This Way coordinator Nolwenn Luca “Walk this Way defends the diversity of European documentary works. The public thanks to the programme have the chance to have access to films that they would not have been able to discover otherwise if they were not available in VoD”.

We renewed our partnership in 2018, helping to promote and take a different, refreshing look at cinema make in all corners of Europe. The 18 films this year ranged from Latvia to Spain, from the Netherlands to Italy, touching on topics as varied as painting (The Key to Dali), serial killers, (Profilers: Gaze into the Abyss), cooking (Step Up the Plate), disability (Life Feels Good), grieving (Tonio) and even a very dirty and twisted Santa Claus (Le Pere Noel). Check out all the details, exclusive reviews and how to watch these films by scrolling down.

And that’s not all. On October 26th, DMovies, Walk This Way and Infinita Productions held a very successful industry event in the heart of London, at the prestigious May Fair Hotel (which is also home to the London Critics’ Award). The event was entitled An Evening of Straight-to-VoD, and it included the screening of VoD hit Home (Fien Troch, 2016), a debate about the future of Straight-to-VoD and networking drinks. Find out the event’s key messages and learning curves by watching the video below:

Walk This Way, the Creative Europe MEDIA programme supported project, now closes 4th edition. Along the way, 39 right-holders have trusted the initiative to give visibility to a wealth of 156 European films, reaching audiences in 48 countries around the world. You can find out more about Walk This Way, key facts and figures in the infographic below:

And there’s more information in the video below:

And here is the full list of dirty gems released in 2018. Just click on the film title in order to accede to our exclusive film review!

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1. 10 Billion (Valentin Thurn, 2015):

What will happen when the food runs out of food? Well, in his 2015 documentary Valentin Thurn places this very notion front and centre! Exploring the scientific, agricultural and environmental ways we can prevent global food shortages, all due to global warming, it’s not a feature filled with bias but educated solutions to an impending world problem. Globe jumping from India to England then Germany, the multifaceted nature of its tone makes the issues it is dealing with a tangible reality for the viewer.

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2. A Symphony of Summits: The Alps from Above (Peter Bardehle and Sebastian Lindemann, 2016):

Part of Europe’s natural beauty, The Alps are towering force over every country they touch. Approaching the scope of the natural phenomena in a highly cinematic manner, directors Peter Bardehle and Sebastian Lindemann deploy a cineflex camera to capture every inch of its beauty in filmic splendour. Telling the tale of its history, socio-political and geographical story, the sweeping shots of the snow-tipped mountains interpolate you into its vistas. Accompanied by the Germanic tones of Emily Clarke-Brandt, man and nature are combined into one form.

3. The Key to Dali (David Fernández, 2016):

This Spanish documentary explores Tomeu L’Amo’s maverick purchase of surrealist artist, Salvador Dali’s, first work for a cut-price 25,000 Spanish pesetas in 1988 (£132 in today’s money). Scratching away at the persona of L’Amo, scenes from the documentary allude towards a recent trend of re-creating history or pastness through a post-modern reimagination. Though the elaborate nature of the man could shadow the work, what emerges is a contemporary discussion on elitism, to which is unearthed in many aspects of society. Unlike the recent retelling of the life of Van Gough in Loving Vincent (Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, 2017) it is undeniable that The Key to Dali is grounded in the real world, opening pathways for art fans or not into the world of painting.

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4. Profilers: Gaze into the Abyss (Barbara Eder, 2015):

Adopting the same global view as 10 Billion (Valentin Thurn, 2015), Barbara Eder’s hard-hitting work on the men and women whose job it is to investigate killers does not any soft punches. Intertextually referencing The Silence Of The Lambs, (Jonathan Demme, 1991) in numerous conversations, the grotesque nature of the classic is expressed as a means of the verbal descriptions. Not venturing into sadistic footage of murders etc, this doc holds respect for the victims. A natural intuition, we as humans constantly seek to explain the un-explainable and Eder’s film elicits this notion poignantly..

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5. Free Lunch Society (Christian Tod, 2017):

The concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been around in some form or another for over half a century, but in recent years it has grown so much in prominence that even entire countries are considering implementing it. Spanning both the hard left and the libertarian right, UBI is an Utopian idea that threatens the very ideals of what most consider to be the economic ordering of society. The latest film from Christian Tod considers the possibility of such a scheme, amassing a wide variety of politicians, activities and businessman to discuss its potential revolutionary aspects. The result is both a fine primer on the history of the scheme and a look forward towards how it may change the world we live in.

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6. Home (Fien Troch, 2016):

17-year-old Kevin, sentenced for violent behaviour, is just let out of prison. To start anew, he moves in with his aunt and her family and begins an apprenticeship at her store. Quickly he adapts to his new home and gets along well with his cousin Sammy, in his last year of high school. Through Sammy and his friends, Kevin meets John. Upon discovering John’s unbearable situation with his mother, Kevin feels the urge to help his new friend. One evening fate intervenes and questions of betrayal, trust and loyalty start to direct their daily lives more than ever.

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7. Mellow Mud (Renars Vimba, 2016):

Loneliness, disillusionment and the experience of first love reveal the character of Raya, a 17-year-old living in rural Latvia with her grandmother and her little brother Robis. A staggering turn of events shakes up their lives, and the young girl must come to decisions that even a grown woman would find difficult to make.

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8. Bobbi Jene (Elira Lund, 2018):

Elvira Lind’s documentary profile of contemporary dancer Bobbi Jene Smith captures new beginnings, endings, and everything in between, and faces the fact that you can switch your life around at just about any time. Having left Guillard at 21 to join Israeli dance troupe Batsheva, we meet Bobbi in a state of arrested development, but about to change things. As a dancer her accomplishments are unparalleled, but she’s now 31 with a Kanken Backpack, a decade younger boyfriend, and little of her own agency.

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9. Fair Play (Andrea Sedlácková, 2014):

Set set for both a personal and a political journey. From the moment we enter Irene (Anna Gieslerova) and Anna’s (Judit Bardos) apartment, we are clearly in Eastern Europe during the Communist era. The evocatively decorated surroundings with ‘pull out bed’ and utilitarian furnishings, the drab clothing and simple bread and cheese breakfast immerse us immediately in this world. The country is Czechoslovakia, and the decade is the 1980s. As Irene switches on the ‘Free Europe’ radio channel, we meet a woman who is willing to risk listening to forbidden news, glimpsing her position on the political system under which she is forced to exist. Mother and daughter share the extraordinary ability of elite athletes, giving them opportunities not afforded to most citizens.

Not available in the UK.

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10. Fukushima, A Nuclear Story (Matteo Gagliardi, 2015):

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster on March 11th 2011 marked a turning point in the history of the Japan, when an earthquake followed by a tsunami hit the Tepco Nuclear Power Plant on the country’s Pacific coast. It was the first time in history that the Japanese government declared a nuclear emergency. It was also the first time ever Emperor Akihito spoke on television directly to his people. The last time an emperor broadcast a message live to his people was when his father Hirohito announced the end of WW2.

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11. I Can Quit Whenever I Want (Sydney Sibilia, 2014):

This film is a clash between the “rise-and-fall” gangster genre and a traditional fish-out-of-water comedy. Director Sydney Sibilia does a great job of depicting his group of oddballs adapting to their new life. Plot-wise, comparisons to the TV series Breaking Bad are inevitable, but while the acclaimed TV series carefully built up its world block by block, I Can Quit Whenever I Want is a much looser affair. In fact, with all its hyper-specific nerd jokes, it is closer in tone to The Big Bang Theory. The mileage of these jokes will vary with how much you understand each subject.

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12. One Wild Moment (Jean-François Richet, 2015):

It all starts like a conventional French comedy. Laurent (Vincent Cassel) and Antoine (François Cluzet) are old friends going on holiday with their daughters, Louna (Lola Le Lann) and Marie (Alice Isaaz). But initial appearances can be deceiving, as director Jean-François Richet has something far deeper on his mind. A remake of the 1977 film with the same title, One Wild Moment exploits the limits of male desire, offering up a queasy moral play with no easy answers. As the title suggests, the film is structured around one key incident; the seduction of Laurent by Louna by the beach during a party. She may be the one who has started it, but she is only 17 and his best friend’s daughter, making Laurent’s willingness to go along with it all that more problematic.

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13. Heart of Glass (Jérôme de Gerlache, 2016):

They’ve chosen to name this work Heart of Glass, which evokes the existence of two widely-rcognised projects, the first typified from Joseph Conrad’s prose detailing the descent from maddening stance to madness, the other Blondie’s greatest song, one of the few New Wave records that sounds more contemporary with age. This Heart of Glass, on the other hand, shows how passionate work can saves lives and challenge the human experience in entirely novel ways, in the hands glass artist Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert.

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14. Step Up to the Plate (Paul Lacoste, 2012):

An ensemble piece that combines fly-on-the-wall observation with lyrical reflections on the Bras family and food, plus a warm work that expertly depicts the passing of the baton– that’s probably the most succinct and accurate way of describing the documentary Step Up The Plate. The French title Entre Les Bras has a double meaning that’s impossible to translate: it means both “in your arms” and “amongst the Bras”.

It stars Michel Bras, owner of the the world-acclaimed three Michelin-star rated Bras restaurant in Laguiole, Southern France, and his son, Sebastien, who has worked in the restaurant for over 15 years and is being prepped to take over.

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15. Life Feels Good (Maciek Piepryca, 2013):

Getting the disability biopic right can be a difficult task. Lean too hard on the struggle and it can feel exploitative, lead too hard on the sentimentality and it can feel mawkish. Life Feels Good, directed by Maciej Pieprzyca, manages to avoid these pitfalls to discover the deeply human story underneath. Depicting one Polish man’s struggle with cerebral palsy from 1987 to almost the present day, Life Feels Good is a heartwarming and uplifting tale that never softens the edges and is that much stronger for it.

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16. Tonio (Paula Van Der Oest, 2016):

There is much to be made from death leading to life. Tonio (Chris Peters) is a 21-year-old finding joy through photography. His ambitious father, novel writer Adri (Pierre Bokma), has a differing view on life, while his wife Mirjam (Rifka Lodeizen) plays the peacekeeper in what still appears to be a functional family unit. The film cuts quickly to the untimely death Tonio undergoes and the grief his parents have to endure from now on. At times the film tries to find answers to grief, an unanswerable commotion, and the performances are stellar. A cutback to the past shows two new parents finding joy sleeping with their new baby.

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17. Father-Son Bootcamp (Emile Gaugreault, 2015):

Being a good father to a son is not an easy task. And neither is being a good son to a father. The bizarre and grotesque societal connotations of masculinity will often stand on the way of what should be a beautiful and tender relationship. As a result, fatherly love is often murky, sons are traumatised and whole notion of affection is mired in mud. Thankfully someone in France invented a father-son bootcamp where the two generations can reconnect through group therapy and bizarre activities. Well, actually the outcome isn’t as rosy as many would hope!

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18. Santa Claus (Alexandre Coffre, 2014):

Nailing both the comic and sentimental sides of the festive farce, Le Père Noël is the perfect kind of holiday film to settle down to after a few mulled wines. Fun and tender in equal measure, it makes the most of its inspired conceit, cleverly pairing a career criminal with a young child slowly coming into contact with the cruel ways of the adult world. Key to the film’s mischievous sense of misdirection is its opening, layering different children’s Christmas wishes on top of each other. It lulls us into a false sense of security, thinking that this will be a very run-of-the-mill Christmas tale.

NINE movies empowering Afro-Americans RIGHT NOW

Posted on by victorfraga

Few sane people would disagree that the unexpected election of Donald Trump represents a social and political regression for the US and the world. Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief isn’t just a dangerous egomaniac warmonger and a misogynist; he’s also an outspoken xenophobe and racist. His ambiguous and grudging condemnation of the Charlottesville neo-Nazi is the icing in the cake for white supremacists. They are feeling very empowered right now, having the most powerful man in the world on their side.

But there’s also bad news for these white supremacists and racists altogether: cinema hasn’t and it will not cower to bigotry. DMovies has seen a very large number of powerful films coming from the US in the past 12 months or so and denouncing racism loud and clear. In fact, the majority of these films were being made before Trump was elected, suggesting that this might be just the tip of the iceberg of a much bigger movement to follow.

There are fiery documentaries about Civil Rights activists, the Ferguson riots and the Lovings, a blockbuster about the Algiers incident, two racially-charged horror movies and much more! The nine dirty gems below are listed alphabetically. Don’t forget to click on each individual film title in order to accede to our exclusive film review!

* The image at the top of the article is from an Afro-American woman yelling ‘Freedom’ when asked to shout so loud it could be heard all over the world during a Civil Rights March on Washington in August 1963. And the image just above if from the doc Whose Streets? (which is on the list below). Films can also send out screams across the planet!

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1. Chi-raq (Spike Lee, 2016):

person is shot every two hours and 45 minutes in Chicago. The rate is higher than the American soldiers death toll in Afghanistan and Iraq altogether. The title of Spike Lee’s new feature, Chi-raq, is a portmanteau of Chicago and Iraq, and a rapper’s nickname for the windy city. It is an artistic attempt to raise awareness of the tragedy in parts of the city, particularly the South Side. Afro-Americans are of course the most affected.

Spike Lee is a champion in the fight against racism towards black people. His films helped to catapult black rights in the United States decades ahead of other many other countries in the world.

2. Detroit (Kathryn Bigelow, 2017):

The movie portrays the 1967 race riots of Detroit, focusing particularly on the Algiers Motel Incident in the evening of July 26th. The Incident should have been described as the “Massacre” instead. Following the report of a gunshot (which in reality came from a toy gun), the police invade the premises and hold the black guests plus two white females hostage for several hours. They consistently humiliate and sadistically torture the young men and women, and finally the succeed to kill some of them. They are convinced that Black people are criminals and therefore deserving of such treatment; they hardly hesitate before carrying out the horrendous actions.

You would hardly guess that this blockbuster was directed by a white woman, as Bigelow does wear the shoes of the “negroes”. Detroit does feel like a punch in the face of reactionary Americans, and a raging denunciation of an extremely brutal chapter in US history.

3. Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017):

She’s white, he’s black, they’re urban, he needs to meet her parents who live in a house on a huge estate out of town. They find a pleasant white couple with black servants. The black servants appear to under some sort of mind control to make them more palatable to white people. The question now is: are they racist? This more or less sums up the plot of this racially-charged horror. Just be prepared for a major ugly twist at the end. Ugly as racism.

4. I’m not your Negro (Raoul Peck, 2017):

That inconvenient nigger is here to wreak havoc to your shady American freedom – I am not your Negro is a very provocative piece that uses incendiary language in order to inflame a deeply unequal, biased, hypocritical and racist society: the United States of America. The film will burst every myth of racial equality and democracy in the most powerful country in the world, and it’s an indispensable watch to all nationalities, races and creeds.

This documentary film by Raoul Peck is based on James Baldwin’s (pictured above) unfinished manuscript Remember This House and narrated by actor Samuel L. Jackson. It explores the history of racism in the US through Baldwin’s memories of civil rights leaders Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr, as well as their tragic and untimely death.

Also watch DMovies‘ editor Victor Fraga’s interview on Russia Today about I am not your Negro and racism:

5. Loving (Jeff Nichols, 2017):

At the age of 18, Mildred (Ruth Negga) fell in love and became pregnant with Richard Loving (Joel Edgerton) in Caroline County, Virginia. Mildred was a person “of colour”, while Richard was white. In June 1958, the couple traveled to Washington, D.C. in order to get married, thereby evading Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which made marriage between whites and non-whites a crime punishable by law.

hey were eventually arrested and sentenced to one year in prison, suspended for 25 years under the condition that they abandoned the state immediately. So they left their families behind and promptly moved to Washington DC. They were arrested again when they returned to Virginia so that Mildred could give birth to her first child at home. This real story is certain to move you profoundly.

6. Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016):

Moonlight tells the story of a black male named Chiron at three stages of his life: childhood, adolescence and adulthood (played by a different actor at each stage). He is constantly seeking maternal love and affection, but his mother constantly shuns him in favour of her drug addiction. He ironically finds solace with a local drug dealer, who becomes a provisional father figure to the young black boy. He learns from him that his mother is his client and also, more significantly, the meaning of the word “faggot”. “It is a word to make gay people feel bad about themselves”, the unexpectedly gentle and caring man explains.

Moonlight isn’t just about racism, but also about homophobia and intersectionality. Having snatched the Best Picture Oscar, the film has become a landmark in the fight against bigotry for both Blacks and LGBT people.

7. Quest (Jonathan Olshefski, 2017):

Quest is a touching and sobering Dogwoof doc about Christopher “Quest” Rainey, his wife Christine’a “Ma Quest”, their daughter Patricia “PJ” and other relatives, friends and associates who live in North Philadelphia. They host a music studio at home, voicing local artists and providing a sense of identity to the community. Along their way, they have to face up a number of crises, including extreme violence, cancer and addiction. Very significantly, the documentarist Jonathan Olshefski follows the footsteps of the family roughly during the eight Obama years.

Sadly, the average Afro-American family faces problems, to which many white people are either alien or oblivious. A rapper in the movie rhymes it succinctly: “Racism still lives in the days, just in different ways”.

8. The Transfiguration (Michael O’Shea, 2017):

This is the perhaos least explosive film on the list, with a far more gentle and subtle – and yet conspicuous – anti-racist message. Milo (Eric Ruffin) is a young teenager living at a bottom of the social ladder on a housing estate in New York. He’s obsessed with vampires. He kills people and drinks their blood. He’s also a loner taunted by a gang of bullies. Sizing up likely prey, he makes friends with potential victim, a white girl named Sophie (Chloe Levine). At home, Milo lives with his former soldier elder brother Lewis (Aaron Clifton Moten), their mother having committed suicide some time previously.

The film deals with race in the sense that many of the housing estate residents including Milo and his family are black, and white people visit thinking they can buy drugs off dealers on the estate. But equally, Sophie is white: perhaps this is a consideration when Milo first stalks her, but it quickly becomes apparent to both him and us that she’s just as much an unloved and struggling teenager as he is.

9. Whose Streets? (Sabaah Folayan, 2017):

This energetic documentary by the activist and filmmaker Sabaah Folayan shows the inconvenient truth behind the dramatic scenes that took place in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. An African American unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, was killed by police and left lying on the street for hours, despite the many witnesses and a CCTV camera just around the the corner.

The Black vigilantes decide to become their own keepers, since the police was not doing their work, plus often disrespecting the Constitution. The protests include riots, arson and speaking up words of anger in front of troops armed with tear gas grenades, guns and sniffing dogs.

The most extreme physical reactions to a film EVER!

Posted on by victorfraga

Next time you go to the cinema be careful. The outcome could be far from rosy. Some films are just so powerful that they can trigger the most violent and unexpected physical reactions from viewers. That apparently innocent and innocuous movie could have a devastating impact on your mortal body. And I’m not talking about sobbing and crying: that’s very vanilla. These films have made people vomit, urinate, ejaculate, have a heart attack, commit suicide and much more. Cinema can have incendiary and deadly implications to your health.

Of course we are not asking you to stop going to the cinema or to shudder in fear every time you press “Play” on your DVD or Blu-ray. We just want you to be aware that it’s never “just a film”! And sometimes your body has very strange ways of telling you something just isn’t right! So be prepared!

By the way, the picture at the top of this article at the top is not from a hysterical and bedazzled moviegoer reacting to a film. That’s instead Isabelle Adjani in the dirty 1981 classic Possession (Andrzej Żuławski). She’s expelling bodily fluids from pretty much every orifice of her body, as she has an alien miscarriage in a Berlin subway. Her reaction is not very different from some you are about read, so we thought this was a good way to start our discussion!

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1. Vomiting during Raw (Julia Ducounau, 2017)

Raw tells the story of 16-year-old Justine (Garance Marillier), who arrives for her first year in veterinary school somewhere in provincial France. She comes from a family of strict vegetarians, and she has never eaten meat herself, but she’s then forced to consume rabbits kidneys during an initiation ritual. She’s goaded by her upperclass sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) to engage in the bizarre procedure for sake of acceptance. Soon after, a very bizarre accident happens, causing Justine to have her first contact with raw human flesh and to develop a taste for cannibalism. Click here for our review of the film.

Hailed as one of the most disgusting horror movies ever made, Raw saw people faint and vomit in all corners of the planet. In fact, audiences found it so grim that they were provided with sick bags in various cinemas across LA, it was reported by the Metro.

2. Explosion of bodily fluids during 50 Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015):

The infamous 2015 American erotic romantic drama stirred a lot of controversy, churned plenty of stomachs and also, of course, aroused many viewers. Despite receiving generally negative reviews as well as winning six nominations at the 36th Golden Raspberry Awards, it was an immediate box office hit. The film is based on the eponymous 2011 novel by British writer E. L. James and stars Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele, a college graduate who begins a sadomasochistic relationship with young business magnate Christian Grey, played by Jamie Dornan.

A female at a packed showing of the film at the Cineworld Milton Keynes caused the entire audience to be evacuated after losing control of her bodily fluids. The woman, believed to be under the influence of alcohol, started vomiting. But then things got even worse when she lost control of all her bodily fluids, including her bladder and bowels. It’s not entirely clear which part of the film triggered such extreme physical reactions. She certain to make Isabelle Adjani jealous, and would be at the front of the queue for a remake of Possession!

3. Mass ejaculation, also during 50 Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015)*:

In New Zealand, Matthew Garelli, general manager of Hoyts Cinemas New Zealand, told media today that he “understands fully” just how exciting the film will be “for some,” but asked viewers to please respect cinemas’ private property, and try not to leave “too much of a mess”. Moviegoers were kindly requested not to ejaculate on their seats or on each other, and instead to use specially designated cups handed out with their tickets.

4. Seizures while watching Twilight: Breaking Dawn (Bill Condon, 2011)

This apparently harmless romantic fantasy film is based on the eponymous novel by Stephenie Meyer, and it is the first part of a two-part film, and it also forms the fourth and penultimate installment in The Twilight Saga film series. All three main cast members, Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner, reprised their roles.

The unexpected problem with this film is a birthing scene, which could have triggered episodes of photosensitive epilepsy, according to medical experts in the US. A California man named Brandon Gephart, was reportedly rushed to hospital after getting sick while watching the sequence. He started convulsing, snorting and trying to breathe, and the screening had to be stopped when the paramedics arrived. Not quite the jolly experience you’d expect from a fantasy movie!

5. Heart attack while watching porn:

Be thrilled: we’re now back on British soil! Back in 2010, authorities found the seminaked body of Nicola Paginton with a sex toy and porn. The nanny was found in her bed by her employer after she did not turn up for work and police were called to investigate. She was without pants and had a pornographic movie on her laptop. A sex toy was found under the covers near her body. A subsequent pathologist’s report determined that she likely suffered a heart attack as a result of sexual arousal. Gloucestershire coroner Alan Crickmore had determined that her “sexual activity” triggered a heart attack.

6. Miscarriage during Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932):

Carnival sideshow performers with real deformities and medical conditions are the stars of the controversial Freaks. They includesthe Bearded Lady, the Stork Woman, the Half-Boy Johnny Eck, the conjoined twins Daisy and Violet, the Human Torso, the Armless Wonder as well as various sufferers of the Virchow-Seckel Syndrome (which gives humans a bird-like appearance with a narrow face and pointy nose). The central plot is around an able-bodied trapeze artist called Cleopatra, who deduces and marries the sideshow midget Hans upon finding out about his large inheritance.

The film was so shocking that it was heavily edited down to just 62 minutes (from the original 98 minutes). Still, viewers convulsed, vomited and left the cinema in droves. And a woman allegedly had a miscarriage while watching it. Just click here in order to find out more about Freaks and its impact on the people’s lives and the cinema industry as a whole.

7. Suicide after watching Stroszek (Werner Herzog, 1977):

Ok, we’ve cheated. Suicide isn’t exactly a physical reaction. But the implications for your body are immediate, and so we decided that it was just too closely associated.

A lot of people know that Joy Division’s lead singer Ian Curtis listened to Iggy Pop’s album The Idiot shortly before he committed suicide in 1980. But what a lot people don’t know is that he also watched the bleak Stroszek, by the German enfant terrible Werner Herzog.

The film follows the footsteps of Bruno Stroszek, an alcoholic recently released from prison in Berlin. He joins his elderly friend and a prostitute in a determined dream to leave Germany and seek a better life in Wisconsin. This is some sort of twisted American Dream, which obviously never comes to fruition. In fact, the characters excel in aimlessness, selfishness and scrupulousness. So much that Curtis decided it was no longer worth being part of this world!

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This is not the first time that we’ve discussed the effects of cinema on people. Last year we wrote about the top 10 films in which the character eventually found their way into the real world, often to catastrophic results. Real life imitates fiction, quite literally. Don’t be scared, click here for our very dirty list of films that became a tragic reality.

* Since the publication of this article, we have been reliably informed by a reader with a sharp eye for detail that the “mass ejaculation” source was a satire website. Blimey, why did it have to be the most fun of the physical reactions on the list?

Wrapping up Pride Month with the dirtiest LGBT films

Posted on by victorfraga

First and foremost: cinema is universal. This means that you don’t have to be LGBT in order to appreciate and be impact by an LGBT movie. That’s why we have decided to ask some of our dirty writers and contributors – regardless of their gender and sexuality – to pick they favourite LGBT film of all times. Film sensibility transcends all barriers.

The label LGBT can, of course be problematic. First of all, there is a flirting “Q” for “queer” and sometimes a flirting “I” for intersex”, which some people like to add to the end of the acronym, making it very difficult to memorise and borderline impossible to pronounce. But the biggest issue is in the fact that many LGBT(Q)(I) peopl prefer to shun the label in its entirety because they find it too limiting. They believe that distinguishing LGBT films from non-LGBT films can tokenise gay culture. We can see the rationale behind that.

Yet, at a time when discrimination and even criminalisation of LGBT people still prevails in many parts of the globe, it still makes sense to fly the flag, and to classify films as such. Hopefully this won’t be necessary in 50 years, but sadly right it is very much so. LGBT identity is still a major issue, and you need to break some eggs in order to make an equality omelette. Thankfully these dirty movies are here in order to help us in the fight against bigotry and intolerance.

These films have touched and moved our dirty boys and girls in more than one way. They have helped to change their lives, personality and, in some cases, revisit their identity. Maybe they could do the same to you! So read our heartfelt list of LGBT films and watch their respective trailers with an open mind. You too might become surprised!

Our dirty team has been sorted alphabetically (click on their names in order to accede to their dirty profile). We acknowledge that there is a shortage of ladies! Women – gay and straight, trans and cis, plus everything in between – please get in touch with us and make your dirty thoughts known. We need you on board!

1. Almiro Andrade (actor and writer; dirty boy since February 2016)

His favourite dirty LGBT movie is Women in Revolt (Andy Warhol, 1972):

“A deliciously filthy 1972 satire still extremely current at present days. Jackie Curtis is superb but Candy Darling stole the scene with her arrogant yet adorable posh housewife living in Central Park West : ‘Coming to me for money? Go out and earn it!’ ”

2. Francesco Bacci (journalist and translator; LGBT; dirty boy since May 2017)

His favourite dirty LGBT film is Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005):

“A movie that changed my life. Not only the cast is incredible – Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Williams are outstandin – but also the direction is very impressive. It’s such an emotional and gripping story. The bond between the protagonists is both tender and complex connection. Love here is equal and universal, a timely achievement for LGBTQI rights. A film impossible to forget.”

3. Alasdair Bayman (film critic; dirty boy since June 2017)

His favourite dirty LGBT movie is Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015):

“After becoming an admirer of Todd Haynes’ work through Poison (1991) and his Douglas Sirk homage, Far From Heaven (2002) I became a true lover of his work through Carol. Capturing love in a form that very few can on screen, Haynes and his two female leads, Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett, evoke all forms of this deeply human emotion in their relationship that the 1950s’ society seeks to reject. Melancholy, desire, longing and solace are all exhibited. Adapting the Patricia Highsmith The Price of Salt, Haynes’ film captures the era of Highsmith in steamy 1950s’ New York streets and a distorted 35mm print. Lastly, the lulling score of Carter Burwell adds a deeper compassionate edge to the piece.”

4. Angelo Boccato (journalist and blogger; dirty boy since December 2016)

His favourite dirty LGBT film is Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016):

“Intense and intimate, strong, tough but also delicate. The movie explores the major challenge of being gay and part of a minority that so many face, and it also shows some of the brutal aspects of patriarchal masculinity. The influence of Wong Kar Wai’ s work can be strongly seen, and the cast shines in leading the viewer through a complicated story. Moonlight is a pure jewel on black male identity, homosexuality and about love and how much we all need it.“

5. Jeremy Clarke (writer; dirty boy since December 2016)

His favourite dirty LGBT movie is Happy Together (Wong Kar Wai, 1997):

“A study of an on-off relationship of two Chinese men travelling in Buenos Aires, which is as far away on the planet from their Hong Kong hometown as you can get. The relationship functions as an uneasy metaphor for the then British Crown dependency Hong Kong’s uneasy relationship to mainland China. Hong Kong was handed back from British to Chinese rule in 1997.”

6. Victor Fraga (film critic and promoter; dirty papa since February 2016)

His favourite dirty LGBT movie is The Bitters Tears of Petra von Kant (RW Fassbinder, 1972)

“Fassbinder’s Lesbian love triangle isn’t just my favourite LGBT movie; it’s also my favourite movie of all times. The film title is even tattooed across my chest. Petra von Kant (Margit Carstensen) is a domineering fashion designer who preaches free love, and yet is unable to do as she says. She demands TLC from her lover Karen (Hannah Schygullah), and yet humiliates her sycophantic maid Marlene (Irm Hermann), who is profoundly infatuated with her boss.

I love The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant because it’s subversive on so many levels. Petra is the epitome of emotional incongruity, and she fully deserves the crocodile tears that she sheds. The film is based on a gay love triangle between Fassbinder and two of his associates, translated into a lesbian story. The controversial director had an amorous relationship with most people he worked with (men and women), and so the boundaries between fiction and reality and deeply twisted, just like Petra’s sentiments. Fassbinder is Petra. I am Petra. And this film is bigger than life.”

The image at the top of this article is also taken from The Bitters Tears of Petra von Kant.

7. Linda Marric (journalist and interviewer; dirty girl since January 2017)

Her favourite LGBT dirty movie is My Beautiful Laundrette (Stephen Frears, 1985):

“Easily one of the most iconic British films of the 1980s, set against the background of Thatcherite greed and race riots, My Beautiful Launderette came crashing onto our screen with a bang. Adapted from Hanif Kureishi’s book of the same name, and directed by the great Stephen Frears, the films mixes poetic realism with gritty social drama to bring B. Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis) and Omar (Gordon Warnecke) are the two star crossed lovers from either side of the divide who must overcome their insurmountable differences in the hope that love will one day conquer all.”

8. Pedro Miguel (multimedia artists, filmmaker and writer; dirty boy since August 2016)

His favourite dirty LGBT film is To Die Like a Man (João Pedro Rodrigues, 2009):

“One of those movies I need to revisit every other year, as painful as the experience might be. Like a fist to the heart, everything is very grim and violent (if not borderline depressing). And yet, these characters have led me to their world, and have given me much needed perspective in times of fear of becoming too deeply aware of myself – something crushingly familiar to any member of the LGBT community.

It was Tónia’s (Fernando Santos) loneliness that made fall in love with this jarringly beautiful portrait. She finds solace in the midst of her daily turmoil by doing mundane tasks like feeding her dog. A veteran drag queen at a Lisbon gay club during the 1980s, clouded with a well-known fear of growing old in an unforgiving scene, she rolls with the punches of a toxic relationship with a much younger lover named Rosário (Alexander David) and an estranged son (Chandra Malatitch) who, like all the other men in her life, takes advantage of her.

She’s extremely devoted to her faith, and has learned to dismiss her desire to go through gender reassignment surgery. Suspended in space and time, the film drastically changes its pace to a dreamlike state: an unexpected red saturates the scene now, as they wander in the shade of the flora of their backyard, and chant. A funeral march, one might even say.”

9. Maysa Monção (writer; not LGBT; dirty girl since February 2016)

Her favourite dirty LGBT movie is The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland, 2014)

“This is a tender and strong story about two women that express their love for each other in a way that only females can do. In reality, it is the oppressed partner that wears the trousers. The title also refers to a butterfly, a animal that represents change. Every girl becomes a woman, just like a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. Your body changes, and then you must fly!

Plus the cinematography is absolutely mesmerising! The details and the research for the right lenses to reveal each colour is fantastic. I wish every man I ever loved had the same sensibility that Peter has it.”

10. Steve Naish (writer, dirty boy since April 2017)

His favourite dirty LGBT film is Point Break (Kathryn Bigelow, 1991):

“It may not appear, at least on the surface that Point Break offers a homoerotic experience. But as Anthony Manzi discusses in his excellent essay ‘Point “Heart” Break, or: Why Bodhi and Johnny Utah Just Want to Bang Each Other’ you have to peel back the layers to reveal a sexual chemistry that is always on the verge of boiling over. Manzi explains that ‘The relationship between Johnny Utah and Bodhi is full of complexity and passion. They excite each other, they infuriate each other, and they respect each other. But most of all… they love each other.’ This chemistry drives the entire plot of the movie to its conclusion.

Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves), the hotshot rookie FBI agent is sent undercover to investigate a gang of bank robbers, known as the Ex-Presidents, whom the bureau believe might be surfers. When Utah befriends the cool and enigmatic Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) he finds his spiritual partner, a free and easy soul who compliments Utah’s more conservative drive. It’s Utah who sees Bodhi first and stops in his tracks as he watches him glide and strut across the waves. The film eases into slow motion. Are we lead to believe that time has also slowed for Utah as well? They become friends, and Bodhi allows Utah into his circle, he even gives permission for Utah to hook-up with an old girlfriend.

When it’s later discovered Bodhi is leader of the Ex-Presidents, Utah is torn between his duty as a law officer and his desires that have been awakened by Bodhi. In the mid-point of the film, Bodhi makes Utah chase him. Even though he has Bodhi in his sights, Utah can’t bring himself to shoot him, and instead, as Manzi puts is, ejaculates “his rounds into the air in frustration. His sexual desire has reached a tipping point, and his repressed frustration is released through firing his weapon.” During the final moments of the film, as Bodhi is about to jump from an airplane and finally escape, he screams at Utah “I know you want me Johnny. You want be so bad it’s like acid in your mouth.” And he does, Utah wants Bodhi so bad that he jumps out of the plane after him, with no parachute.

The more obvious this unspoken desire becomes the more it bubbles to the surface of the film itself. Both Reeves and Swayze had entered into their physical peak in terms of looks, bone structure and chiseled pecks. This wasn’t the hideous mutated form of Stallone or Schwarzenegger, which was popular among male audiences of the 1980s. Reeves and Swayze’s were both thin, muscular for sure, but soft and hairless, their faces almost feminine. Schwarzenegger might have referred to them as “girly men”. It’s not just Reeves and Swayze, Point Break offers a phantasmagoria of male Adonis bodies that are just as toned and tanned. As the slow motion surfer porn fills the frame these bodies barely ripple, it’s as if they are all made of stone. Thus, the scenes in which Reeves and Swayze stand shirtless and wet in close proximity become revealing of a suppressed sexual longing for one another.”

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11. Lucas Pistilli (film journalist; dirty boy since May 2017)

His favourite dirty LGBT movie is Priscilla Queen of the Desert (Stephan Elliott, 1994):

“Priscilla is the type of film that seems to please older and younger generations. It’s got Terrence Stamp in drag and, if that’s not enough reason for you to watch it, it’s got Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce in the same fashion. It introduced CeCe Penninston’s Finally to a lot of people during one of the best lip-sync performances ever filmed.

It put three very different people in the LGBT spectrum in an adventure through the Australian landscape in which they feel hurt and joy, as in life. Priscilla Queen of the Desert is the rare film dealing with these subject that allows its characters the will to be happy. Finally, indeed”

12. Paul Risker (film critic and editor; dirty boy since March 2016)

His favourite dirty LGBT film is Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti, 1971):

“The experience of Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice has remained with me. From the self-sufficient image to the intertwined voyeuristic gaze of Dirk Bogarde and Visconti’s camera, the film is a beguiling example of sensory filmmaking. And any film that introduces one to the symphonic genius of Gustav Mahler should be remembered with emotional affection.”

13. Petra von Kant (filmmaker, critic and performance artist; dirty girl since March 2016)

Her favourite dirty LGBT movie is The Misandrists (Bruce LaBruce, 2017):

“As a trans woman it’s very refreshing to see another trans woman on the silver screen, particularly if she’s in a large group of cis women without being singled out. Nevermind that this was directed by a cis and pendulous human being. The transcendent sensitivity is there, with plenty of wit and humour. Plus a splash or blood, a dash of sex and a squeeze of violence. This is visceral cinema.”

Passport to Pimlico is the ultimate anti-Brexit movie

Posted on by victorfraga

Pigs might fly. And so Brexit might happen. Soon we will be getting our milk from hoses hanging down from helicopters, our potatoes thrown out of moving trains, and we will have to steal our potable water from the neighbouring countries, plus rely on international solidarity for tinned food. Sounds bizarre? Well, Brexit is bizarre. And this is my very own personal analogy between post-Brexit Britain and an independent Pimlico.

Ok, let me explain myself. This may sound a little confusing if you haven’t seen the 1949 Ealing Studios comedy Passport to Pimlico (directed by Henry Cornelius, at a time the director wasn’t too prominent). In this classic movie, a mixture of slapstick and sociopolitical satire, a street of Pimlico (now a posh London neighbourhood, not far from Buckingham Palace) becomes an independent state following the discovery of a medieval document buried underground.

The newly-formed sovereign state calls itself Burgundy, and soon “Burgundians” are basking in the perks of independence. They shun unwanted British laws (such as drinking regulations) and establish themselves as a smuggler’s paradise where “foreigners” can buy rationed goods without restrictions. A jolly good future lies ahead, it seems.

Well, not quite. Almighty Britain retaliates by shutting the frontiers and establishing border control, with passport et al. They also embargo the new sovereign state, which in turn runs out of food and water. It’s a sultry summer and a heatwave castigates Burgundians, and so they soon have to rob British water. The various London districts (Camden, Ealing and so on) join forces with the international community in order to demonstrate their solidarity with Burgundy. They literally throw and fly goods into the new state. Burgundians collect their milk from a hose hanging down from a helicopter (pictured above), a pig is flown in (below) and so on. The bizarre world that I described in the first paragraph of this article materialises.

And so the penny began to drop: Burgundy is but an illusion.

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The “independence” that never was

Passport to Pimlico isn’t just a hilarious movie. It’s the greatest mockery of independence ever made on film. It’s the perfect allegory of how enticing and yet deceitful rushed “sovereignty” can be. The lesson learnt is that a chop-chop separation is both unfeasible and undesirable. Particularly because there was never a requirement for a breakaway, and the whole process was short-sighted, driven by whimsical personal ambitions and a delusional notion of self-sufficiency. Just like Brexit.

At first, “Burgundexiteers” wallow in their newfound citizenship. “Blimey, I’m a foreigner”, cries out one of them. They can drink as much as they wish, they can eat whatever they like, they can trade as they wish, they can live as they desire, plus they can proudly boast their new national identity. But not for long. They are about to find out that such “freedom” is, in reality, a handicap. Once open borders and free movement cease the country begins to collapse. Does this sound prescient?

Very Brexit problems

The 1949 movie illustrates a very modern issue: how do you stop your “independent” country from becoming a deregulated paradise and trading mess? Brits flock to Burgundy in search of cheap rationed goods. Is this a harbinger of the post-Brexit risks? Could the UK become a fiscal paradise where foreigners come in search of lax regulations?

Just like with Brexit, the national newspapers help to drive the narrative of Burgundian independence. The headlines will ring bells to anyone vaguely familiar with the vocabulary used to describe the Brexit talks taking place right now with the EU: “door not yet closed”, “door still open, no quarrel with Britain” “talks: deadlock complete”, “Burgundy issue splits Britain” and “Burgundy bullied into submission” (see carousel above for these headlines and more). There’s even a touch of xenophobia, as the Daily Express mandates that its readers “stay out of Burgundy”. The flames of division are towering high into the air. The heat is on.

Burgundy finally realises that they are not in the position to call the shots. Instead they are vulnerable, and they have become the laughing stock of the world. A Home Office envoy warns them: “I trust you understand that the alternative is complete isolation. I do hope that moderation will prevail”. And so they begin to crush under the weight of the real decider. The final outcome is inevitable: Burgundy rejoins the UK. Is this an augury of Brexit?

Passport to Pimlico is available for viewing online on Google Play and YouTube.

Just HOW HOT can you handle it?

Posted on by victorfraga

Turn on the fan on and grab yourself an ice-cold drink. As they always say: “if you can’t handle the heat, get out of the cinema!” Oh, isn’t that what they say? Well, nevermind, my brains are frying and I can’t think straight.

Regardless of how the saying goes, we have picked 10 films set during very hot weather (mostly heatwaves) across all parts of the world for you to enjoy with a big jar of Pimm’s. Or perhaps just wait until the weather has cooled down so you can reminisce about the scorching good moments while looking at these people loving, fighting and also being tortured under the heat!

There are rabid rodents on fire in Brazil, Austrians running amok, separatist Brits dying with thirst, black New Yorkers sizzling on the pavement and even a sadist German torturing his spouse who’s suffering from insolation. These are the top 10 heatwave movies, exclusive for the June 2017 UK heatwave!

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1. Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)

How do you add a touch of tension to one of the biggest murder movies of all times, which spawned an entirely new voyeur/binoculars subgenre? What about turning the temperature up by a notch or two? Jeff (James Stewart) is very nervous at having juggle a likely murder across the street with his stormy relationship to Lisa (Grace Kelly). Hitchcock suddenly cuts to a close-up shot of a thermometer revealing a very hot temperature, which is backed up by the sweat on the face of Stewart’s character.

2. Passport to Pimlico (Henry Cornelius, 1949)

This Ealing comedy is probably one of funniest films you will see in your life. The residents of Pimlico find an ancient parchment revealing that their London district has been ceded to the Duchy of Burgundy in the 15th century. As a consequence, they become a sovereign state. Independence occurs in the middle of an unseasonably hot summer, and the former subjects of the King immediately indulge in late night drinking and eating – as they ditch rationing and pub closing hours. The problem is that the British soon begin to boycott them, and they have to rely on international cooperation so they don’t die of thirst or starvation.

3. Dog Days (Ulrich Seidl, 2001)

Historically, the title of this extremely disturbing Austrian film refers to the period of Greek and Roman astrology connected with heat, drought, lethargy, fever, mad dogs and bad luck. In Europe, these days are now taken to be the hottest, most uncomfortable part of summer. Ulrich Seidl, one of DMovies’ favourite directors alive, translated this into euphoria strangely blended with insanity. Vienna is the backdrop to six anecdotal tales of twisted sexuality, scorching obsession and bizarre compulsion. The picture illustrating this article at the top is also a still from Dog Days.

4. Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)

Both temperature and racial tensions quickly rise in what’s widely considered Spike Lee’s most iconic and emblematic movie. Salvadore (Danny Aiello) is the Italian owner of a very traditional pizza restaurant in Brooklyn. One day he is confronted by the local Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito) because his Wall of Fame does not include any black actors. The sweltering sun is the perfect catalyst for this incendiary racial argument, which incenses the entire neighbourhood.

5. Rio 40C (Nelson Pereira dos Santos, 1955)

This highly neglected dirty gem of Brazilian cinema is a semi-documentary of the people of Rio de Janeiro, particularly the poor boys selling peanuts on the sultry beaches of the city. The movie doesn’t have a protagonist, but instead a number of subplots that are sometimes intertwined. The oppressive heat is the common theme across the movie: it both connects and sustains the characters. Significantly, Brazil’s former president Lula used to sell peanuts as a child.

6. Rat Fever (Cláudio Assis, 2011)

It’s not just Europeans that go mad under the heat of the sun. Similarly to the expression “dog days”, “rat fever” here denotes a delirious state of mind exuding hedonism. This also Brazilian movie depicts the lifestyle of an artistic community living in tropical city of Recife. The small group lives without laws, without rules and yet there’s no shortage of hot sex, poetry and inebriation.

7. Martha (RW Fassbinder, 1974)

During holidays in Italy, Martha (Margit Carstensen) falls asleep on the beach while sunbathing, despite asking her husband Helmut (Karlheiz Böhm, who British eyes might recognise from Michael Powell’s 1960’s classic Peeping Tom) to prevent her from doing so. In reality, Helmut is a sadist, and he forces himself upon Martha while he’s fully clothed with a suit (pictured below) and she is in profound agony from likely insolation or sun stroke. Will make you want to avoid the beach for the rest of your days.

8. Coup de Chaud (Raphaël Jacoulot, 2015)

Life ain’t easy in a small village in the south of France struck by a heatwave, and where water becomes increasingly scarce. Residents and farmers begin to quarrel over the precious liquid, and their conviviality quickly flies out of the window. Nothing can calm them down, and even a mentally disabled man is soon victim of the hostility. Is water indeed the only way of cooling these people down?

9. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)

This historical epic was nominated for 10 Oscars in 1963, and it snatched seven in total. It’s often considered the greatest British movie of all times, if not a very dirty one. It depicts Lawrence’s predicament in the Arabian peninsula during WWI, dealing with inflammatory and fiery themes such British imperialism, national identity and split allegiances at war. The scorching sun is central to the movie, particularly as Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) crosses the Nefud Desert in search of water.

10. My Summer of Love (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2004)

Enough doom and gloom. We have decided to wrap up our list with a bright and glistening Lesbian love story set in the idyllic Yorkshire countryside, and directed by Polish-British filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski. Working-class Mona (Natalie Press) meets the wealthy Tamsin, who’s far more used to a mollycoddled lifestyle. Their romance is soon ignited, in a feelgood and yet realistic enough picture which will not fade away from your mind, unlike your summer bronze glow.