‘The Mole Agent’ (Maite Alberdi, Chile, 2020), in UK cinemas and on-demand form Friday 11th December 2020, distributed by Dogwoof Khalid Ali’s selection for the best documentary film in 2020 Documentary film is a genre that a regular film viewer might find difficult to enjoy on a Saturday film-night out. Maite Alberdi challenges those prejudices […]
Category: Film and Media
Blurred Lines: “Preparations to be together for an unknown period of time” (Film Review)
‘Preparations to be together for an unknown period of time’ (Lili Horvát, Hungary 2020) Khalid Ali’s selection for the best feature film in 2020, and Hungary’s submission for the ‘Best International Feature Film’ for 2021 Oscars by Khalid Ali The opening credits for Lili Horvat’s film are lines from a Sylvia Plath’s poem pondering on […]
Love and Insight in a Time of Plague (Film Review)
‘The Sixth Day’ (Al-Youm Al-Sades) (Youssef Chahine, Egypt, 1986, produced by Misr International Films) Review by Professor Robert Abrams, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York Based on the novel of the same name by Andrée Chedid, ‘The Sixth Day’ portrays the raging epidemic of cholera in Egypt in 1947. With its inescapable relevance to the current […]
Film Review: Unnatural disasters, a look at ‘Cooked: Survival by Zip Code’
Review by Neil Singh, a primary care physician and senior teaching fellow in the Department of Primary Care and Public Health at Brighton and Sussex Medical School ‘Cooked: Survival by Zip Code’ (Judith Helfand, USA, 2018, distributed by Bullfrog Films) (Streaming free on PBS, also available on Amazon) “What’s the best way to prepare for […]
A woman on the verge of suicide
‘The Human Voice’ directed by Pedro Almodovar (Spain 2020) shown at the London Film Festival 2020 and due for UK wide release on 7th November Review by Khalid Ali, Film and Media Correspondent ‘The Human Voice’ takes back esteemed Spanish Film auteur, Pedro Almodovar to the narratives he cherishes the most; stories of embittered women […]
Rap Back in Anger
‘Mogul Mowgli’ directed by Bassam Tariq (UK, 2020) Showing at the London Film Festival on Saturday 10th October and Tuesday 13th October. Review by Khalid Ali, film, and Media Correspondent Professor Marshall Marinker argues that there are significant differences between ‘disease’, ‘illness’ and ‘sickness.’ Disease signifies a pathology that is often physical and is an […]
Remembering Lives
‘The Forgotten C’ (UK, 2020) produced and co-written by Jessi Gutch, directed by Molly Manning Walker, is available to stream free from 10am BST 24 September on The Uncertain Kingdom YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdK4RoVAJx94Ni_2zG5HVnQ Film Review by Khalid Ali, film, and media correspondent The impact of COVID-19 on cancer patients has been substantial; most cancer screening […]
Their theatre: stories of redemption, hope, and reform
Zeina Daccache, a Lebanese film maker, discusses her strategic reform campaign in Lebanese prisons and lobbying for other disadvantaged populations Interview by Khalid Ali, film, and media correspondent Zeina Daccache has been advocating for marginalized groups in Lebanese prisons since 2006. Her calling followed the realisation that ‘mainstream theatre’ excludes and marginalises further society’s outcasts. […]
Beyond Remedy
Film Review by Professor Robert Abrams, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York. Review of Skin (2018), directed by Guy Nattiv, USA. “You have to be taught …to hate and fear…before you are six or seven or eight …you have to be carefully taught” Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II for the musical ‘South Pacific’ (1958).[1] These wise, […]
‘Born to be’ (Tania Cypriano, USA, 2019)
Film Review by Keerthi Gondy, B.S., a fourth-year medical student at the University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Mi. Born to Be is Tania Cypriano’s remarkably moving documentary about New York’s Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, where for the first time, transgender patients have access to transition-related health and surgical care. […]