— by BEV QUESTAD — In the ’80s, when his girls were about 2 and 3 years old, Dad brought home a video camera. His precocious little girls with fuzzy blond hair and his beautiful wife were his subjects. They were bundles of energy, happiness and cuteness. Soon, the youngest girl, Ja[...]
Author Archive
Review: Who We Are
— by BEV QUESTAD — My best friend and I thought we knew what needed to be known. We really weren’t enthused about the title or the short blurb describing this film, but we decided to give it 10 minutes. I turned on “Who We Are” and we forgot about our timing. When Jeffery Robinson [...]
Review: Elemental: Reimagine Wildfire
— by BEV QUESTAD — With 413 active spring fires raging in cool springtime Canada, of all places, and cutting visibility and breathable air in a good chunk of northeastern America, something has got to be done about the growing fire epidemic. What was once thought an isolated plague in Ca[...]
Review: Users
— by BEV QUESTAD — I’m a documentary fan. I love learning and, as long as it is well-substantiated, I love viewing an in-depth, non-fiction perspective on something. However, there are several types of docs and, in my opinion, they are not equally entertaining or informative. So, I don[...]
Review: Afghan Dreamers
— by BEV QUESTAD — On Fridays, when the men aren’t around, Lida’s father takes her to the mechanic shop to work on cars. She demonstrates her skill at changing a tire, spinning the socket wrench like a pro. Rare for women in her country, she also drives. But her primary focus is work[...]
Review: A Handful of Water
— by BEV QUESTAD — A 12-year-old Yemeni refugee and an 85-year-old German man, once a refugee himself, meet in Germany. The old widower, Konrad (Jürgen Prochnow – “Das Boot”), and the 12-year old fugitive, Thurba (Milena Pribak), are adversaries at first, but their separate battle[...]
Review: The Human Trial
— by BEV QUESTAD — Lisa Hepner takes us through what it’s like to be a human rodent in a high stakes trial. The pressure is hot. This particular test trial is the first one using humans after a success on mice, but only180 days are left of Viacyte’s funding. Everyone wants the scient[...]
Review: The Last of the Winthrops
— by BEV QUESTAD — I know of four women who decided not to tell their children who their real father was. Lo and behold, when their children got older and needed birth certificates to apply for their respective passports, they saw a new name. Deceit, even with kind intentions, has reperc[...]
Review: Champions
— by BEV QUESTAD — Marcus Marakovich (Woody Harrelson) has a temper and an ambition to be a basketball coach in the NBA. After a televised altercation with a minor-league head coach during a game, he gets drunk, plows into a police car and loses his job. He is given a choice of jail time[...]
Exclusive: Filmmaker’s Solution for Lebanon
Exclusive Interview Part Three: The Solution Daizy Gedeon with Ramez Tomeh, Beirut transcribed and introduced by Bev Questad, IJM writer What is going to happen to Lebanon? Its political and economic systems have collapsed. People can’t get their own money out of the banks and inflation has made t[...]
Exclusive: Filmmaker Exposes Corruption
Exclusive Interview Part Two: The Politicians Daizy Gedeon with Ramez Tomeh, Beirut transcribed and introduced by Bev Questad, IJM writer Daizy Gedeon, an ex-pat in Australia who has returned to Lebanon amidst its political chaos and economic fall, has created a film, “Enough! Lebanon’s Darkest [...]
Review: Refuge
— by BEV QUESTAD — When Chris took over the Security of Georgia for the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, he was told he needed to brand himself. So, he fashioned a tattoo with a fat X because each part makes a K. The white inside signified that white is right. The red […][...]
Exclusive: Filmmaker at Risk
Exclusive Interview Part One: The Film Daizy Gedeon with Ramez Tomeh, Beirut transcribed and introduced by Bev Questad, IJM writer Lebanon has free-fallen from a robust bastion of capitalism and visionary democracy to a corrupt failed state incapable of maintaining a banking system or stable electri[...]
New Daniela Repas film in pre-production
— by BEV QUESTAD — It was a dark, rainy night as I walked into the hollow exhibition building on Portland Oregon’s Eastside, just steps from the cold Willamette River. Hung on repeated clotheslines were notebook-sized hand-drawn pencil sketches, hundreds meticulously crafted in testimo[...]