Seventh Row is a nonprofit Canadian film criticism publication and publishing house. We're dedicated to helping you expand your horizons by curating the best socially progressive films from around the world and helping you think deeply about them. This newsletter is run by Seventh Row (http://seventh-row.com) but features exclusive content not found on the website.
A quick thing to try
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You might be wondering what it's actually like to step into The Deep Focus. So here's a little taste. The first thing I always do is point you to a moment worth looking at. Below is one from the beginning of Sentimental Value. Take a sec to see what you spot in the image. Everything counts — even (and especially) the obvious. You might have noticed: ✨ We're looking through a window (which takes up most of the frame). ✨ We're watching someone through glass. ✨ Someone is leaving. ✨ It's a bright, sunny day. ✨ The subtitles say: "When her father left for good, the house grew lighter." ✨ Or something else entirely. Most of the time, we don't slow down enough to look like this. We're too busy thinking about what happens next. But so much of what a film is doing happens in the details. What you just did is where we begin inside The Deep Focus. From there, I'll help you figure out what it means, why it matters, and what it opens up. (We'll follow a process that makes that easier.) 👉 Keep going inside The Deep Focus We start April 9. Doors close when we begin. Only 20 seats available (some already taken). Alex P.S. We won't go this deep on every frame — just a few scenes that can shift what you see in the whole film. I’ve chosen them carefully. Not interested in The Deep Focus? You can skip emails about it here. |
Seventh Row
Seventh Row is a nonprofit Canadian film criticism publication and publishing house. We're dedicated to helping you expand your horizons by curating the best socially progressive films from around the world and helping you think deeply about them. This newsletter is run by Seventh Row (http://seventh-row.com) but features exclusive content not found on the website.
What do Mad Men, The Good Wife, Gossip Girl, and Looking have in common? Aside from being four of the best TV series of this century? (I said what I said.) On the surface, they look very different. Mad Men is about advertising creatives in 1960s New York. The Good Wife is about a Chicago lawyer rebuilding her career after years spent raising children. Gossip Girl (the OG one) is Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth — if it were about teenagers with smartphones. And Looking is about three gay...
On Sunday night at 9:15 pm, I filed into the InsideOut screening of Allan Deberton’s Gugu’s World, a Brazilian film about an 11-year-old queer boy growing up with his doting but ailing grandmother — after his father couldn’t accept him as he is. Earlier this year, the film premiered in the Berlinale’s Generation section — dedicated to films about young people, for young audiences — where it won the Crystal Bear for Best Film for audiences under 12. So why was it screening at 9:15 pm? And why...
There's a moment at the beginning of Lean on Pete that seems so naturalistic and incidental, it hadn't even occurred to me it might reveal a lot about the central character, Charley. On his way out for his morning run, Charley picks up a moving box lying on the ground in front of his house and puts it in a recycling bin. When I talked to writer-director Andrew Haigh about the film, I discovered that this moment was actually written into the script. As Haigh put it, "He’s leaving the house,...