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,
This is the free version of our weekly newsletter. The premium version has 20 excellent recommendations, on top of these, of what to watch at festivals, virtual cinemas, VOD, and via streaming. We also spotlight several virtual film festivals worth catching worldwide, featuring films we love that have yet to secure distribution (so this may be your only chance to see them!).
In our premium newsletter for members this week, we recommend more virtual film festival screenings, plus additional VOD, virtual cinema, and streaming recommendations. If you become a member now, shoot us an email, and we'll be happy to send you these recommendations, too!
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Wherever you are in the world, this week, you can watch the wonderful short Correspondencia on Mubi and stream Kelly Reichardt's Night Moves.
In Canada, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers has programmed a series of Indigenous films FREE on TIFF digital (all weekend) to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day. Some of these films are available in other parts of hte world, too, via VOD.
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The great triple-threat Elle Máijá Tailfeathers has programmed a mini-Indigenous film festival at TIFF for National Indigenous History Month. The films are free from June 18-20 while tickets last, so get your tickets now! Many of the films are available on VOD or other streaming services worldwide.
Here's an excerpt from the intro to my interview with the co-directors of the film:
From the producers of Waru, a film with eight vignettes about how the community copes with the death of a young Maori boy, comes a similar project, Vai, set in the Pacific Islands surrounding New Zealand. Once again, eight women each direct one of eight single-take shorts, shot handheld, and following the protagonist’s perspective. But while Waru looked at a single community on a single day, Vai looks at multiple communities in multiple countries with multiple languages. Here, the connective tissue is that each of the protagonists are named Vai, and each is about ten years apart in age; the film starts with the youngest character and ends with the eldest.
Because the subject matter is lighter, Vai is brighter and more vibrant, rich in the landscape’s natural colours: greens, blues, and reds. Each of the shorts tends to centre around cultural rituals — a birthday party, a ceremony — and features women who are torn between the opportunity offered abroad, usually in New Zealand, and their ties to their family and the land of their remote island nations. Taken together, the films paint a picture of the dominating influence of New Zealand — the biggest country in a sea of small ones, all far from the rest of the world — and the importance of local culture and ritual, but also the increasing importance of education and the precarity of life on the land (one of the shorts is about collecting drinking water). Life isn’t easy for any of the Vais in this film, but they persevere and offer hope for the future.
Almost a year ago, Orla reviewed this short from Summer 1993 director Carla Simón and her friend, filmmaker Domingo Sotomayor. It's now streaming on Mubi worldwide.
Here's an excerpt from Orla's review:
Before the milk heist in First Cow, Kelly Reichardt tackled crime via environmental terrorism in Night Moves.
Here's an excerpt from my essay comparing Reichardt's approach to the crime genre in First Cow and Night Moves from our ebook Roads to nowhere: Kelly Reichardt's broken American dreams:
Purchase Roads to nowhere here to read the full essay.
Stream free on Plex in the US.
Best,
Alex Heeney, Editor-in-Chief
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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.
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