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.
Beyond the Oscars: Your gateway to world cinema begins in March
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Hello Reader, Contrary to popular belief, when Oscar season ends, good movie season begins. The 3-4 month window after the Oscars and before summer movie season is when 90% of the year’s best movies get released. Today on the podcast, film critic C.J. Prince of Acquired Cinema joins Alex to look back on the wide variety of excellent international movies that have been released right after the Oscars during this window. We explain some of the attributes that define these films, which are diverse demographically (e.g., women, LGBTQ+, Indigenous), as well as diverse in content and form. We discover that it’s a challenge to package these films into neat categories for listeners because what makes these films so interesting is that they don’t fit neatly into pre-defined genres and categories. E.g., they’re period pieces that aren’t conventional period pieces. They’re quiet, contemplative films that may be ambitious but low-budget. Episode 160: How the Oscars affect the international films you hear aboutHappy watching/listening! Alex
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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.
Hello Reader, Earlier this week, I sent out a note about how most of us haven't seen as many films from Africa as we have from any other country... ...but I only briefly mentioned why that's the case. It's not because we're bad international movie lovers. It concerns how the film industry works, how African films go from festival circuit to arthouse cinemas to VOD, and how movies make it onto our radar. Episode 170: Why is it so hard to see African films? So today on the podcast, I go deep...
Hello Reader, Hit reply to let me know where you sit on Cronenberg (including, who on earth is Cronenberg anyway?)! As I talk about on today's podcast on Cronenberg's The Shrouds, I started out as a Cronenberg skeptic. What had trickled down to me about Cronenberg was that he made horror movies, often body horror movies, often about psycho-sexual things. Although I've liked plenty of films that fit into each of these categories, none of them are my go-to favourite genres. I pretty much...
Hello Reader, Last weekend, I went to see Andrew Ahn's new film The Wedding Banquet (2025) which updates and reimagines Ang Lee's 1993 queer classic for a 2025 audience. Admittedly, I was a little skeptical. Much as I liked Lee's film and Ahn's feature debut Spa Night, I wondered...do we really need to revive this rather dated story 30 years later? But I went to see it because, if nothing else, I will watch anything with Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon, Certain Women, and Lockdown...