Director Germán Kral’s fine “Adiós Buenos Aires” is a realistic and sensitive look at the lives of working-class Argentines desperately trying to survive and even prosper in the face of a government that does little for their welfare and, to top that, suddenly in 2001 limits withdrawals from their own bank accounts. All true. But the film is not depressing. It’s warm and appealing.
“Phantom Parrot’ is an alarming film about a repressive UK law aimed at individuals the UK government doesn’t like because they support victims of repression by countries the UK does like. It was directed by Kate Stonehill and produced by Steven Lake and presented by The Double Exposure film festival in Washington in November.
I visited Russia twice, before and after the collapse of Communism and even attempted to learn Russian, not getting much beyond waiter and taxi talk, though I can pick up film and political speakers with the help of subtitles. So as an investigative reporter, not a film critic, to understand this film about a Russian editor who won a Nobel Prize, I sent a screening of this film to world-class Russia expert, Richard Sakwa. He is Emeritus Professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent (England). He was also the head of the University’s Politics and International Relations department, has lived and taught in Russia and has published sixteen books on Soviet, Russian and post-communist affairs.
“All Static and Noise” is what its title says, lots of static and noise, not much clarity, an anti-China propaganda film about claimed repression of the Uyghurs, Muslims living in Xinjiang in the northwest of China.
Feb 22, 2023 – How do you make a good propaganda film? How do you expose it before it wins a truth-telling award and embarrasses the prizegivers — before they discover it’s a propaganda pseudo-documentary that has been nominated for an “Oscar” – before the white envelopes are opened before millions of people on Oscar night, March 12th?
