The Descent
Outside of the occasional action blockbuster or turgid documentary about the history of women’s sports, there are few spaces for female athletes in film. For every Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2, there are 500 other films where lithe actresses stick to running in heels and/or catsuits; sometimes they get to shoot a gun instead of just holding the male lead’s hand while doing some cardio.
The Substance
The Substance opens with its simplest, most natural image: a raw chicken’s egg, the yolk yellow and dewy, lying flat on a white background. A long needle full of an unnaturally green fluid enters the frame and is injected into the yolk by a gloved hand, causing the egg to jitter and duplicate itself. This successful test immediately demonstrates the film’s premise—a substance that can create another version of an extant being—but also references fertility.
The Origin of Evil
It’s often said that you can pick your friends but not your family. Yet in an age of mass communication, it’s never been easier to track down an absentee dad or quietly unfriend a despicable relative on Facebook.
The Fly
It’s an unfortunate fact of life: even super-smart women sometimes end up with terrible boyfriends. This, along with a very different tragic, universal reality—everyone’s body radically changes and deteriorates with illness and/or age—forms the basis of David Cronenberg’s The Fly.
Lucile Hadžihalilović
Tooth fairy: the director of Earwig discusses her distinctive treatment of adolescence, narrative, and silence.
You Are Not My Mother
Stories told within the framework of family drama can sometimes resemble folklore—digressive, dark, suspiciously elliptical, patent fabrications that only bear hints of an ancient truth that has since been lost to time.
Brad Anderson
On the occasion of a 20th-anniversary screening at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, the director of Session 9 recalls the filmic inspirations for the project, and how it probes sides of life that are uncomfortable and unseen.