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.
Must stream in 🇺🇸 THIS WEEK ONLY: I'm Not Everything I Want to Be (until September 30)
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Hello Reader, Treat yourself to one of the best documentaries of 2024....which you might not be able to see again! That film is the remarkable I'm Not Everything I Want to Be, a film about a photographer coming into her own, a portrait of a queer female artist, her search for identity amidst oppression, and life under European totalitarian regimes throughout the latter half of 20th century. It was one of the best films at the Berlinale this year, and I've been disappointed by how few festivals it's played, despite being a queer film (which would usually get more play!). If you're in the US, get your virtual ticket this week only (details below). This may be your only chance to see the film EVER. So many great films from festivals around the world vanish, or vanish for many years. About I'm Not Everything I Want to Be:Here's an excerpt from my review: At the heart of Klára Tasovská’s decades-spanning documentary portrait of Czech photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková, I’m Not Everything I Want to Be, is a simple but elusive existential question: How do you become “everything [you] want to be” amidst political and capitalistic oppression? It isn’t easy, but bit by bit, Jarcovjáková finds herself in this thoughtful, heartrending film. Her work as a photographer has only recently been recognized internationally. Tasovská’s film is formally ambitious and accomplished — creative nonfiction at its best. She crafts a dynamic narrative through clever sound and pacing despite being built solely on still photographs. Told through a montage of still photographs from Jarcovjáková’s archive set to narration pulled from Jarcovjáková’s diaries, the film recounts Jarcovjáková’s personal and political struggles of being an artist and a queer woman in 1960s normalization-era Czechoslovakia, in Tokyo in the 1970s and 1980s, and in West Berlin before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, from the 1980s to 1990s. The film’s use of sound and montage is similar to how animated documentaries (I delved deep into animated documentaries in our ebook Subjective Realities), wherein Tasovská effectively animates the photographs from Jarcovjáková’s archives in how she paces the montage and by adding an immersive sound design to the narration. ​Read the full review​ How to watch I'm Not Everything I Want to BeCamden International Film Festival in the US is screening the film online (along with several other creative nonfiction films on my To Watch list). The screening is geo-locked to the US. Tickets are $15 USD. ​Book your ticket here. ​ Not in the US?Watch this space for updates on future screenings of the film. In the meantime, please tell us where you are so we can better tailor your recommendations! ​Click here if you're in Canada​ ​Click here if you're in the US​ ​Click here if you're in Australia​ ​Click here if you're in Ireland​ ​Click here if you're elsewhere.​ Did somebody forward this newsletter to you?
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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, I didn't expect to watch Jane Austen Wrecked My Life three times last week. But I did. I couldn't help myself. The first time was to jog my memory so I could record this week's podcast. The second was because it brought me such ecstatic joy that I wanted to relive it. The third was to obsess over the details in writer-director Laura Piani's exquisite filmmaking. Why does this film fill me with glee and laughter? (It's definitely the verbal wit. But it's the visual wit, too.) How...
Hello Reader, It can be easy for some of us to forget how recent the “bad old days” were — when queer couples were still jumping through hoops to be seen, recognized, allowed. Alice Douard’s debut feature, Love Letters, just premiered in Critics’ Week — one of the lesser-publicized sidebars at Cannes (which I broke down on Ep. 171 of the podcast). It’s not available to watch yet — but it’s one to keep an eye out for. And if you’re curious about how it captures a very recent chapter of queer...
Hello Reader, We’re midway through this year’s Cannes Film Festival — and while it hasn’t made many headlines, seven women directors are in Competition this year. That’s the most in the festival’s history. It’s progress — but it’s also a reminder of how far we still are from gender parity. And most of those seven are white women. Many of the best women directors working today are still relegated to sidebars… or left out entirely. In Episode 1 of our Women at Cannes series on the Seventh Row...