by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Fantasia 2017 Review: ANIMALS, A Mind-Bending Journey in Limbo

What is the temporal geography of pain and regret? If we remove ourselves from the physical space where something bad happened, do we distance ourselves from the pain? Or is that pain carried within, embuing each space a person enters?...
by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Review: THE UNTAMED, Riveting and Shocking, It Needs to Be Watched to Be Believed

One of the reasons that I love fantastic genre film is that it can often find the most relevant and interesting metaphors for dealing with issues of social life, be they cultural, political, or sexual. The Untamed, which won the...
by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

A WRINKLE IN TIME Trailer: Faster than Light

Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time was my favourite book as a child. While not a science nerd, I related to lead character Meg's isolation, intelligence, and determination. And with the first trailer, director Ava DuVernay seems to have deftly...
by Kurt Halfyard

Fantasia 2017 Curtain Raiser: We Cherrypick Montreal's Mammoth Genre Fest

The Fantasia International Film Festival begins its 21st Edition in Montreal today, and a good number of Screen Anarchists plan on being there. But the question of the hour is: How to cull down the three week genre extravaganza, featuring...
by Pierce Conran

BiFan 2017 Preview: Recommendations and Anticipated Delights

As we pack our bags before the start of this year's Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, ScreenAnarchy has come up with a few recommendations to watch out for at this year's edition, as well as some new films we're personally...
by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Review: THE BEGUILED, Sofia Coppola's Gorgeous and Campy Romp

Sofia Coppola is a filmmaker whose work I've appreciated from a distance. I know she's a great director, but apart from Marie Antoinette, her stories of rich white people and their troubles has held little interest for me. But as...
by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Review: MAUDIE, Art and Beauty in the Smallest Places

Biopics of visual artists are (or can be) some of the more interesting of that mode of film: it's fairly simple to show a painter creating their work, or show the inspiration for that work. Too often, artists who are...
by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Review: THE WEDDING INVITATION, Clichéd but Charming Romcom

Comedies centred around women who are less than elegant, who can swear as well as any sailor, or whose ineptitude in matters of the heart and the body are gaining more traction these days (see Bridesmaids and Rough Night). Rainy...
by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Attention Filmmakers! Submit to Trieste Science+Fiction Film Festival

Calling all filmmakers with new science fiction, horror, and fantasy films, feature and short! Italy's premiere genre film festival will be taking place in Trieste, October 31st - November 5th, and they want your films. I was honoured to serve...
by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Lighthouse Film Festival to Feature FITS AND STARTS, KING OF PEKING, MAN UNDERGROUND & More

People of New Jersey and surrounding environs: the wonderful Lighthouse FIlm Festival is coming your way, and it's got a stellar lineup to keep you well occupied next weekend. Running Thursday June 8th - Sunday June 11th, in and around...
by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Review: SAMI BLOOD, An Eye-Opening and Disquieting Tale

I doubt there is a country in the world that doesn't have (or has had) an indigenous population, and a population that has been sevrely mistreated, either by genocide, the confiscation of lands, exposure to disease, or forced assimilation. In...
by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Cannes 2017 Review: THE BEGUILED, A Campy Anatomy of Lust

Sofia Coppola is a filmmaker whose work I've appreciated from a distance. I know she's a great director, but apart from Marie Antoinette, her stories of rich white people and their troubles has held little interest for me. But as...
by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Cannes 2017 Review: THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER, Love Can Make Us Cruel

Human beings can be kind, generous, and loving. But they can also be self-indulgent, vicious, and cruel. We all want to believe that, under certain circumstances, we would sacrifice and fight for the lives of our loved ones. But would...
by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Cannes 2017 Review: FACES PLACES, A Delightful and Poignant Capture of Working Life

The Grand Dame of French cinema, Agnès Varda's work has ranged from the New Wave in Cleo from 5 to 7, to feminism and friendship in One Sings, The Other Doesn't, to documenting the life of the poor in The...
by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Cannes 2017 Review: THE RIDER, Elegaic and Intimate Portrait of Suffering and Cure

Chloé Zhao's first feature film, Songs My Brothers Taught Me, showed the beautiful and difficult life of a young man on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota; his relationship with his family, his clashes with white men, and...
by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

THE LIMEHOUSE GOLEM Trailer Takes Us to Theatre of Blood

One of my favourite films at TIFF 2016, The Limehouse Golem, directed by Juan Carlos Medina and written by Jane Goldman, takes us to the bloody streets and raunchy theatre halls of late 19th century London. Rich in detail and...
by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

LOEV Releases New Poster for Netflix Launch

Loev, Sudhanshu Saria's debut feature film about two men who move between friends and lovers in India, has been making the festival rounds for the past 18 months, including winning Audience Awards at Frameline and TLVFest. In my review from...
by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

THE DARK TOWER Trailer: The Gunslinger Chases...

While perhaps not as widely known as many of the big blockbuster movies coming out this summer, the big-screen adaptation of Stephen King's epic novel series has its fandom who are finally being awarded the first trailer. You can count...
by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

THE ENDLESS, COLOSSAL, THE BAR and More at Neuchâtel 2017

In the early days of summer, on the shores of a beautiful Swiss lake, comes one of the best genre festivals in Europe. Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival has become a premiere destination for the cream of the crop of...
by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Review: THE HANDMAID'S TALE, Powerful and Terrifying Television

I doubt (or at least I hope) that Bruce Miller, Reed Morano, and the rest of the team behind the new adaptation The Handmaid's Tale were unaware of how close the possibility of this scenario would be in contemporary America....