The neighbourhood has gone global (and a little eclectic) this week. It’s a week to sink into thoughtful, clever, demanding and (almost too) perfect cinema or pick up a cracking Australian feminist western debut or sample. And after last week’s celebration of women in country music, this week we’re recommending some Belgian hip-hop electronic tunes. Thanks for dropping by, and don’t forget to follow us on Instagram (other social media, including Letterboxd, are coming soon)!
Film review: Naza
On the rooftops of Tel Aviv, Israeli filmmaker Yuval Abraham talks with IDF whistleblowers whose faces are covered by shadows, and their voices, a title card tells us, have been digitally altered. The rooftops provide two important functions. They offer security to the men who are about to reveal undeniable proof of genocide in Gaza.
Why we love Stromae
In June, international sensation Tove Lo (”Too-ve-loo”) paired up with a dance music icon for the single “des fleurs”. That icon, Stromae, boasts more than a decade’s worth of albums, remixes, and live performances that the curious ear ought to seek out.
Film review: Whalefall
Brian Duffield’s claustrophobic thriller starts and ends with the very simple proposition of how a man can survive inside a sperm whale. Everything else surrounding it could’ve been inconsequential, but Duffield has the intelligence to give its outlandish setup a
Book review: Billie King
Mastering the voice of a twelve-year-old girl is the first thing Shannon Kelly-White gets right in her debut novel, Billie King. So often in books a child carries inside them a preternatural wisdom, necessary to be imparted on all adults who encounter them. They speak with the experience and occasional weariness of middle or even elderly age and appear …
Film review: La Bola Negra
A Spanish queer epic, inspired by the work and life of poet Federico García Lorca, the gay and socialist icon who potentially succumbed to Franco’s firing squad, is the kind of distinguished award bait that every American producer would be fighting for were this script in English, and Lorca a household name in British literature. I don’t use “bait” here…