Josephine Decker had to have known what she was doing when she named the protagonist of her latest film Madeline, a homophone of the small French sponge cake central to Marcel Proust’s sprawling moder…
Christopher Robin Truly Doesn’t Care If You’re Too Jaded to Enjoy It
“Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once y…
The Guardian Boasts Beautiful Art and Brave Politics, But Also An Unfollowable Story
Partially funded through Kickstarter and largely banned throughout its native China, Busifan’s The Guardian is an ambitious animated fairy tale equal parts high fantasy, wuxia, and Western. Set in a p…
Blank 13 is the Most Original and Moving Film on Death, Mourning, and Grief in Years
Charlie Kaufman once wrote that death comes faster than you think, and this is true but it also leaves slower than you’d want, for with a passing comes the flood of memories leaving a you-sized …
NYAFF 2018: Dante Lam Mini-Retrospective
Despite having already premiered in New York earlier this year in a smattering of local cinemas, the screening of Dante Lam’s latest film, the Chinese mega-blockbuster Operation Red Sea, was one of th…
What Happened to the New York Asian Film Festival’s Main Slate? — A Bewildered Retrospective
What happened to this year’s New York Asian Film Festival main competition slate? For the last 17 years, the NYAFF has prided itself on being one of the most unusual, unpredictable, and daring festiva…
NYAFF 2018: On Happiness Road and the Cost of Cultural Fluidity
[Warning: Spoilers Ahead] When Lin Shu-Chi returns to her childhood home in Taiwan, she finds everything changed. The fetid, canal running through her neighborhood is now a tidy town park and the buil…