— by BEV QUESTAD — Alison Klayman, a progressive Jewish granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, consented to produce/direct a film on a man with whose ideas she does not agree. As a filmmaker and journalist, she has won recognition for her work on the Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei, and on Nobel Prize-winner and human […][...]
Trailer: Sir
— by BEV QUESTAD — I loved every minute of this delicate story of a young village woman who was widowed at 19. She leaves her husband’s family and becomes a servant in Mumbai with dreams to educate herself as a dress designer. Her employer is in despair as his dreams have been dashed. Through […][...]
Review: Amateurs (aka Amatörer)
— by BEV QUESTAD — A younger generation has taken over the 2019 Portland International Film Festival (PIFF) with the theme: Empathy has no Ethnicity. “Amateurs” was their brave choice to open the festival. Filmed liked a documentary about two sets of filmmakers making a marketing film about their town, the experimental Swedish film breaks […][...]
Trailer: What is Democracy?
— by BEV QUESTAD — “…until political power and wisdom unite… there can be no rest from troubles” (Plato, The Republic, Book V). From the brave art of Ambrogio Lorenzetti in 1338 to the always insightful challenges of Cornel West, Astra Taylor investigates ideas of democracy. What do ordinary Americans think? Refugees? What was Plato’s […][...]
Review: The Hummingbird Project
— by RON WILKINSON — A fiber optic data transmission line from Kansas to New York would allow the transmission and execution of millions of securities orders a millisecond faster than everybody else. Not a big time difference, about the time of one cycle of a hummingbird’s wing. But enough that since “first come first […][...]
Review: Auggie
— by BEV QUESTAD — Well, I’m going to tell you one thing — Richard Kind, the star of “Auggie,” is going to be teased unmercifully about his role in this film. What will his good friend (and best man at his wedding), George Clooney, have to say about it? In “Auggie,” the newly-retired Felix […][...]
Review: Sophia Antipolis
— by RON WILKINSON — “Sophia Antipolis,” the name suggests something very central and mysteriously feminine. The “Antipolis” part, for you Americans who are not familiar, is a technology center. The Sophia lends the vision of a virtual assistant, or perhaps a virtual lover. The park is not just a center of power, radiating the […][...]