The Tree – André Gil Mata (2018)
Tarkovskian. Tarr-esque. Filmind. André Gil Mata’s The Tree had me thinking a lot, had me admire what I saw and had me marvel over the future of Slow Cinema. Mata is part of a growing…
observation
Vitalina Varela – Pedro Costa (2019)
It is difficult, if not impossible, to think of a woman in film, who has such a magical, such an overpowering aura around her as does Pedro Costa’s Vitalina Varela. The minute she appears, stepping…
Walden – Daniel Zimmermann (2018)
Not so long ago, I picked up Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden. Published in the middle of the 19th century, it is now something of an iconic book about nature, about the woods, about the…
Closing Time – Nicole Vögele (2018)
The beauty of Slow Cinema is that directors welcome you to their world and let you explore it in your own way. If you follow one director in particular and have seen all of his/her…
Taste of Cement – Ziad Kalthoum (2017)
My father’s hand was the city of Beirut. I came to Ziad Kalthoum’s Taste of Cement by accident and it’s one of those accidents that you’re grateful for. Not so long ago, I read a long article on the Guardian about our obsession with…
Century of Smoke – Nicolas Graux (2019)
There is one aspect of my work in the field of Slow Cinema, which I like more than anything else: the opportunity to travel the world via the eyes of filmmakers who listen to marginalised…
Til madness do us part – Wang Bing (2013)
It was difficult to find time for writing another review. I have been asked to write an essay on Wang Bing for Thessaloniki International Film Festival, which programmed an artist focus on the Chinese director….
Elsewhere – Nikolaus Geyrhalter (2000)
I have one specific sequence in my head, and what it shows and what is said doesn’t get any weaker with time. An elderly tribes man from Indonesia, sitting in his tree house, tells us…
Pripyat – Nikolaus Geyrhalter (1999)
A woman is walking through a dead landscape. Nature has taken over what Man has built. It’s wilderness we see. “These wild apples grew after the accident. There weren’t apples here before,” she says while…
Abendland – Nikolaus Geyrhalter (2011)
The first time I came across the work of Nikolaus Geyrhalter was when I watched his absolutely superb Homo Sapiens, which was so rich, so affective and so beautiful that I had always wanted to explore…