Tag: Raindance Film Festival

Another Body

Posted on by Paul Risker

A reflection of a face in a pornographic video reflects in the eye at the beginning of directors, Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn’s unsettling documentary, Another Body. The face is of the film’s subject, Taylor. It doesn’t feel like an appropriate adjective to describe the film, reductive more than enhancing its importance, and the experience it offers audiences. It’s an arresting image, and the first in a film whose visual aesthetic of jarring video diaries, computer screen shots and animation, evokes the feeling of the horror that has been thrust upon the many victims of this new breed of cowardly online abuse.

The movie explores the personal story of engineering college student Taylor, who discovers her identity has been used for deepfake pornography. Sharing her personal story, there are other women from her college whose identities have been stolen, their faces placed onto pornographic content and uploaded to mainstream sites. Taylor connects with other victims and outlines her experience with law enforcement. Through the striking aesthetic that feels as though it has one foot in reality, the other in the digital space, the directors reconstruct Taylor’s pursuit of the person responsible for appropriating her image, and the image of other women for nonconsensual pornography.

It feels relevant to reference David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network (2010), specifically how the social media giant, Facebook, was born of a frustrated and angry man’s intent to dehumanise women.

The deepfake videos are made by manipulating AI technology, using images shared or posted by the person on their social media channels. Compton and Hamlyn use their documentary to discuss social media’s history of being weaponised against women, direct and indirectly. What we’re witnessing in this age of digital appropriation of identity, is an escalation of misogyny. While we talk about progress towards treating women with equality, dignity and respect, that 90% of deepfakes are nonconsensual pornography of women, suggests a seething and thriving hostility towards women. This has been empowered by a reactive legal system, that has been reluctant and slow to respond.

Another Body is vitally important because it’s at the vanguard of pushing to create a conversation about deepfake pornography. Victims will encounter hostility when they try to speak out, and the film presents glimpses into this toxic indifference, void of either empathy or sympathy.

Taylor tells us that’s not her real name and an actor’s face has been deepfaked over her own. It’s the only way she could feel safe to tell her story. It gives us an insight into the sophistication of deepfake technology, and despite knowing it’s the face of an actor, our mind is tricked into thinking otherwise. It speaks about the authenticity of the technology and the seamlessness by which a person’s identity can be appropriated.

Compton and Hamlyn effectively take us inside the experience of their subject, first by how a young person striding towards a career in engineering is abruptly halted by the shocking revelation. Then, they allow the film to empower Taylor and her friend Julia, whose identity is also protected, to speak about their experiences. Taylor talks about the anonymity of the person behind the deepfakes and how not knowing the reason why, leaves victims not able to feel safe anywhere. She also discusses how her obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety and being a people pleaser, escalate the trauma. From behind a deepfaked face and using a pseudonym, she intimately opens up about her experience and the ways in which it has impacted her. If her online assailant has dehumanised her, speaking up humanises her, and the many victims of deepfake pornography.

Another Body is part of a wider and necessary conversation. There should be a call to action to fight the weaponisation of social media and technology against women. If we’re serious about equality for women, then it’s imperative that women shouldn’t have to live in fear in our digital future. The history of women has been one of dehumanisation, fear and oppression, and the inability to legislate technology risks a cyclical experience, especially when the film’s closing text tells us: “Deepfakes are doubling every six months. Researchers predict there will be over 5.2 million in 2024. 90% are nonconsensual porn of women.”

Another Body shows at the 31st Raindance Film Festival, and also at the Science360 section of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. In cinemas on Friday, November 24th.

Catching Dust

Posted on by Paul Risker

A colourful sunset fills the Texas desert sky at the beginning of director Stuart Gatt’s directorial feature debut, Catching Dust. We can see the silhouetted trees and hear the dust blowing in the wind. Slowly, the montage sequence arrives at the abandoned Karl Madison commune, where a modern-day cowboy, armed with a rifle, runs his fingertips against a painting on the side of a cabin. He enters, and the window is lit up by the flashpoint of a gunshot.

The atmospheric and visually striking opening establishes the theme of isolation that runs throughout the story. Following the violence, there’s a deescalation as we’re introduced to Geena (Erin Moriarty) and her husband Clyde (Jai Courtney), a couple hiding out in a rundown trailer. They’re coy as to why they’re lying low, but Clyde is paranoid about anyone finding them. He refuses to let Geena accompany him into town, and while he disappears for hours on end, hunting and doing whatever else he does, she paints and draws.

She feels trapped, as though her life and any meaning have been stripped away in their hideout. She tells Clyde, “I need things that the desert can’t give me.” Her desire to return to the city is a source of tension and when New York couple Andy (Ryan Corr) and Amaya (Dina Shihabi), looking to hit the reset, arrive unexpectedly, the tension begins to escalate. Clyde’s paranoia and stubborn belief that nothing good can come of his new neighbours being there, threatens his own marriage and the commune’s peace.

The observational gaze of the film’s opening introduces the director’s observant eye. Gatt has a penchant for homing in on subtle and suggestive details, such as Amaya sharing a box of cakes, fresh from New York. It represents a stirring temptation and longing for something lost for Geena, who enjoys the rare, tasty treat. Clyde walks off, refusing a cake. It’s a reminder, that unlike her husband she doesn’t belong in the desert. Even the shots of the birds circling above the commune, increasing in number as the tensions escalate, serve as a metaphor.

Gatt has an eye for storytelling through these visual details. It shows his appreciation for visual language and its connotations, that elevates the film above its rudimentary origins of a familiar story told well. While Catching Dust is a meticulously crafted film, there’s an occasional scene where the symbolism feels laboured and intrusive, albeit this is a minor quibble.

There’s a welcome playfulness in the film, that teases familiar narrative patterns, and ultimately creates a messier take on relationships. Geena and Clyde’s marriage is not without a sensitivity and romance, but it’s suffocated by Clyde’s masculine dominance and strength. He’s a stubborn man, who fails to listen to Geena, believing he can convince her that they can be happy in the desert. He even begins building a new place for them, which emphasises, to the audience what Clyde fails to realise – Geena is like a pretty bird cooped up in a cage.

When Andy arrives, he and Geena unsurprisingly begin to bond. He says he hates his job in finance and teaches art classes two nights a week to stay sane. Aside from their shared passion for art, they can identify with one another’s incarceration – she in the desert, he in his workplace.

Early on, their affair feels set to be the driving narrative force of the film; two souls lost in their respective relationships who find a connection with another person. From a gentle love story set against a harsh physical and human landscape, Gatt pivots instead to a story that’s not dominated by the affair, instead focusing on the dynamic between the two couples and their individual relationships.

Throughout, Gatt leads us to misunderstand his characters. It’s not deceitful on his part, because the story encourages us to use our cineliterate minds to jump the gun and anticipate who they are, and what will happen. Catching Dust moves at a steady pace, allowing the relationships and tensions to develop towards its eventual climactic finale. As the characters are stripped back, we see the contradictions and Gatt’s intent to create a messier take on human nature. In the end, is it Gatt that’s manipulating us, or is it our assumptions? Either way, it’s an entertaining and engaging film.

Thematically, Catching Dust is about the failure of masculinity, and for its women, it’s a story of extremes where everything is too much – Geena is suffocated and Amaya is not loved enough. Gatt presents us with two flawed men, who in different ways hurt the women they claim to love. While one character feels more redeemable than the other, the end of the film leaves us feeling that we’ve witnessed a dramatic fallout.

Striking is we see what happens, but it’s a film that requires us to dig down into how we feel about these emotionally complicated characters. Themes and ideas about gender politics, freedom, fate and marital compromise are dredged up during their isolated ordeal, and tangled up in the messy interactions, they need to be untangled.

Catching Dust premieres at the 31st Raindance Film Festival.

Parachute

Posted on by Paul Risker

Aactor-turned-director Brittany Snow, tackles the heavy issues of eating disorders and mental health in her thoughtful feature debut, Parachute (2023).

The New York City set story takes place over seven years, and begins with Riley (Courtney Eaton), sitting outside an eating disorder clinic. Her best friend Casey (Francesca Reale) picks her up and persuades her to go out that night to a karaoke bar, where she meets stranger, Ethan (Thomas Mann). The attraction is immediate, but Riley explains that she shouldn’t enter into a relationship during her first twelve months of recovery. An awkward encounter back at her apartment temporarily extinguishes their lust. However, unable to deny the attraction for long, they decide against a romantic relationship only after sleeping together.

Snow and co-writer Becca Gleason play on our perception that two things are exclusive, or that romance is a deeper bond than friendship. They create the illusion that the platonic offers a boundary to co-dependency. We’re happy Riley finds a connection, but it quickly becomes apparent that this beautiful friendship, in the context of her circumstances, is a perilous one.

Parachute is set up as Riley’s story, but Snow and Gleason expand the focus to include Ethan, who becomes the film’s supporting subject. They refrain from psychoanalysing their characters any more than is necessary, but from the glimpse we’re given into their private lives, it’s unsurprising they are drawn to one another.

Ethan’s alcoholic father, who he drives home from bars, seems the significant nurturing figure. It might, however, be his tolerant mother. Riley is an extension of these two relationships, that sees him drawn to someone who needs help, jeopardising his own wellbeing.

Nor is it surprising given Riley is someone who struggles with self-compassion, and seeks validation from others. In contrast, however, Riley’s mother is absent. A later scene suggests that her mum might have a portion of blame – the daughter’s struggles to know how to love herself are mirrored in a mother uncertain how to love her daughter, compensating instead with financial support Neither of these characters can be so neatly critiqued. Snow and Gleason invite us to consider their protagonists. It’s not particularly audacious, instead it’s thoughtful and assured filmmaking.

We don’t recall the film in its totality, instead, it resembles a series of polaroid images. Like in life, bad memories are easier to remember, but there are pleasant scenes, such as Riley and Ethan’s trips to the hardware store. It becomes a metaphor for Riley needing to take charge of her life, to manage her disorder and to trust herself. The filmmakers take these lighter scenes and transform them into something, if not profound, then meaningful – a collection of scenes that become a microcosm of the film itself.

Parachute is a reminder that someone can appear to be okay, even if they’re not. A person like Riley experiences life as a perpetual rollercoaster of emotions, and there’s an authenticity about what moments of despair and self-loathing look and feel like. For those in the audience that have experienced such emotions, these scenes will provoke uncomfortable feelings, with Riley becoming their warped reflection.

To their credit, Snow and Gleason do not dramatise, patronise or diminish the raw emotions of these moments. They attempt to treat them with dignity, nor do they excuse Riley. There’s a reason why she acts the way she does, and maybe she’s still only capable of hurting others. This is not an attempt to offer excuses, only reasons, and the filmmakers are sympathetic to both Riley and those who are affected by her suffering. As her therapist tells her, there’s no good or bad food, like she’s neither a good nor bad person. This nuance is brought to bear in a film that asks its audience to move beyond simple determinants.

Snow uses the cinematography and editing to communicate Riley’s internal thoughts and point-of-view, specifically the impulsive self-criticism she can’t escape. The camera is always respectful of her dignity, and even in her most vulnerable moments, it’s never exploitative. Yet it draws attention to the toxic nature of comparing ourselves to others, and our own self-critical gaze. The film subtly infers how social media is a means for connection, but also an enabler for the negative behavioural patterns of vulnerable persons. Parachute doesn’t condemn social media, instead it tries to explore how someone like Riley needs to manage stimuli, and to create a balance between an introverted and extraverted lifestyle.

The directing, writing and performances suggest Parachute comes from personal understanding, or intimate research. Either way, it’s an impressive first feature, and Snow and her collaborators should be commended for digging down into its subject. If there is a flaw, it’s the limitations of the narrative structure to tidy up messy life experiences, but that aside, this is an empathetic and thoughtful film.

Parachute premieres at the 31st Raindance Film Festival.

Don’t forget to read our exclusive interview with actor-turned-director Brittany Snow!

How do you live with ghosts?

Posted on by Paul Risker

Director Ben Charles Edwards’s Father of Flies, is centred on Michael (Keaton Tetlo), a young boy frightened of his stepmother, Coral (Camilla Rutherford), discovers a supernatural presence lurking in the house.

Following his creative feature début Set The Thames on Fire (2015), Edwards combines naturalism and a surreal style in his visually striking sophomore feature.

In conversation with DMovies, Edwards discussed his haunted childhood home and the need to own the responsibility of being the storyteller.

…..

Paul Risker – I’ve read that the story is partly based on childhood experiences, is that correct?

Ben Charles Edwards – Partly, yeah. A good friend of mine Dominic Wells, was the editor of Time Out when he was very young. He’s a terrific writer and he wrote some of my first films. When I told him I wanted to write something I could in a sense own myself, he said, “Ben, make it about something you know.” I love horror, and so it was the connection of how I draw from something I can relate to, and feed into the horror genre.

I was on a train in Morocco, going from Fez to Marrakesh, and I sat there and turned out all of the beats for the story on this six hour train trip. I thought that’s actually quite good, I’ll probably invest a bit more time into it.

It’s like everything, I never set out to make films; I started out as a portrait painter and then a photographer. I’ve just done what feels right, and this story did. It’s about a family that has gone through a divorce and the children are at the centre of it. While that’s not a huge part of my life, it just so happens to be an interesting beat that I thought I could draw off.

PR – Was the experience of divorce the only personal beat you drew from?

BCE – … I grew up in what I believed to be an incredibly haunted house. It was on the edge of Woking and it was built on the old cemetery, on some unmarked graves we later found out. It was old marshland that was sold off, and I know it sounds a bit nutty, but I do believe it was a haunted house. There were certainly unexplained and quite terrifying things going on there.

I had five brothers and sisters, many of them were teenagers at the same time. There’s a lot of tension and emotion running through a house like that, so sometimes you wonder if it’s something we manifest and create ourselves, or if there is another entity in the house?

PR – What we’re talking about here is the question Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1960) asks – is the house or are the characters the ones that are haunted?

BCE – Perhaps it’s both, and we feed into the machine, or into that emotion, and that’s how we manifest the emotions from past lives lived in those houses. We always think of it as our house, and it’s really not. This is England, and the majority of homes that people live in, certainly outside of London, will be houses that many people have lived in before. They’re little vessels of time and we’re just one little moment, a little part of its story, not the other way around. So it doesn’t surprise me that we feel the other stories that have lived their before us.

PR – There’s the idea amongst filmmakers that there are three versions of the film – the film that’s written, the film that’s shot and the film that’s edited. I recall Pablo Larraín telling me that the film is discovered in the final cut. Would you agree, and was Father of Flies a journey of discovery?

BCE – Films do take on three stages and a great editor is a storyteller, or certainly a great problem solver and storyteller. Of course you aim to get what’s on the page, and you hope what’s on the page will work perfectly well in the edit suite. Sometimes it doesn’t and there are adjustments that have to be made.

With this film, the concept was quite strong in my mind from the beginning, and all of the beats felt strong. Without giving too much away to the reader, those beats needed to be precise, otherwise the twists wouldn’t work. You couldn’t veer off the script within it’s structure, and like any film, the foundation that you lay at script stage is everything. An old friend of mine tweaked it and padded out the characters, and that was vital. It brought something to it the actors enjoyed, and to be honest, many of the performances were improvised.

The actors knew where they were going with the scene, they knew how the script had to hang together in its beats, so I just let them go with it. I’m not someone that over-directs. It takes longer to go through improvised scenes in the edit, but you do find some natural magic and that’s something I wanted to bring to this horror film. Hopefully the performances demonstrate that.

I went through three different editors [laughs]. They were all talking to one another, so it was part of the plan, and each editor brought something new. We had someone that looked over the dailies and pulled out the best options, and then we had someone that pulled together the structure in accordance with the script. We then had someone who said, “Ben you’re wrong, give it to me and I’ll clean it up.”

PR – Does improvisation create a space for the audience to enter the film, and can the naturalistic performances that support this?

BCE – It depends on the movie. Some directors and some scripts lend themselves to sticking to those step aged elements. When you look at a movie by Wes Anderson, it would be hard to assume that any of that’s improvised. Then you look at the kitchen sink dramas by Mike Leigh, and you assume that a lot of that is improvised. They’re different approaches to different types of filmmaking and emotions. It depends on what you’re trying to achieve.

I’ve only made four movies and I’m still learning, and rightfully so. We should all be on that journey to continuously learn and find out what works best for us, the story we’re trying to tell and how we’re going to tell it. I enjoyed the approach to Father of Flies. I let the actors have a little freedom because unless I am the best bloody writer, which I’m not, you’re going to get a more natural performance, and something more interesting and human.

When you’re trying to create a horror, you want to connect with the naturalism, and especially in a film like Father of Flies because there are elements that are quite stylised. It was a worry about keeping it grounded to some degree, so the audience can relate, be scared, and believe the scenes, the characters and the emotion. For a film like this it helps to improvise and keep that natural, giving the actors the freedom to create the play ground, by giving them the stage and saying, “Knock yourselves out.”

PR – Does the collaborative nature of filmmaking, and if you say the editor is a storyteller, challenge the validity of the auteur theory?

BCE – … I’ve never considered the auteur question too much. When one is the writer and director, it’s pretty clear who the author is. When a director is executing someone else’s script, they can take a script where they want, so in that sense they’re the auteur because they’re inspired by the script.

I’ve watched movies by great directors, and when I’ve met them and looked over the original screenplays, you realise how they went off script. In that sense, it’s their vision to execute the story.

In answer to your question, the director is the auteur, providing they’ve taken on the responsibility and grabbed it by the balls, and made it theirs.

Father of Flies has just premiered at Grimmfest and played at the Raindance Film Festival.

Hostile

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

The saddest part about Hostile is how little it shocks. The UK’s immigration policy — turning sour ever since Enoch Powell spouted nonsense about rivers of blood in 1968 — has been deliberately designed to make people who come to this country feel like they don’t belong.

Whatever supposedly makes Britain “great” — a moniker blasted upon countless placards when you arrive into a port of entry — it is not our approach to our migrant population, which must be one of the cruellest on the planet. Hostile, set during the boiling point of the coronavirus pandemic, shows how successive governments are slowing destroying British hospitality from the inside, creating an environment of fear and loathing amongst its most valued citizens.

Combining testimony — featuring immigration experts and Labour politicians — with stories from the ground, Hostile is a heartfelt and bitter exploration of policies that are downright evil. It does a fine job of explaining the context of empire and how it relates to crises ranging from the EU referendum to the Windrush scandal. At the heart of this unique mixture of callousness and incompetence is the Home Office, who charge thousands of pounds for leave-to-remain applications, only to brutally dismiss them on a technicality. And while people wait, many are not allowed to claim benefits, apply for furlough, take on full-time work, or make use of the National Health Service.

The great irony here is the massive contribution of BAME people our healthcare system. On the frontline of the crisis, they were more likely to get sick and die while receiving very little in return. In response, communities have returned to mass action organising, whether it’s handing out food parcels or protesting outside Westminster. In lieu of a government strategy — or a functioning opposition — it is up to the people themselves to take direct action.

The government can easily make a difference — look at the swiftness with which we received Hong Kongers — most of the time they simply choose not to. The hypocrisy of our own current Home Secretary, Priti Patel, is briefly referenced in her infamous interview with LBC host Nick Ferrari, when he probes her about whether her own parents, Indian refugees from Uganda, would be allowed into the country under current rules. It would’ve been interesting to hear deeper thoughts about how POC are elevated into government positions or work for the British border force while doing nothing to further the interests of immigrants who resemble their own parents. Or learning why a significant amount of British-Indians supported Brexit.

Racist government structures are rarely straightforward, with underhand ways of pitting different people against each other in a race for power. Hostile does a great job of explaining how direct white supremacy works, but doesn’t explain the phenomenon of racism between communities or how it intersects across class, status and party affiliation. The film also goes to great lengths to explain how much its put-upon subjects have contributed to British society. While their contributions are to be celebrated, you shouldn’t have to do anything to be treated with a basic level of respect. Refugee voices are sorely missing here, especially those poor people coming across the channel in dinghies while “commentators” advocate for their drowning on daytime television. The current political tone in Britain is deeply sickening, with no remedy in sight… short of demolishing the Home Office completely.

With that said, any documentary that wants to cover the full extent of British racism and the miserable conditions anyone without the right passport faces, would probably run for hundreds of hours. Stretching a short 97 minutes, this is Sonita Gale’s first film. I got the sense that she’s just warming up.

Hostile premieres at Raindance, which takes place between October 27th and November 6th. In cinemas on Friday, January 21st. On BFI Player on Thursday, July 14th.