Beware Of Dog (2020) Slamdance (2020)

A woman in Moscow with OCD tries to find a way to have normal relationship. Her cousin in Berlin tries to start a relationship despite being bi-polar. Meanwhile in New York a boxer deals with addiction, anxiety and the feeling he is just no good.

When I started BEWARE OF DOG I was very confused, not because it was bad, rather because for a long while I thought it was a documentary. Never mind there is an early scene where an attempt at love making is interrupted by the need to fold towels, this was way to raw and real not to be a documentary.

All hail writer director Nadia Bedzhanova for she has made one of the best films at Slamdance.  While I can quibble about some of the storytelling, I can not quibble with the fact that she has made a narrative film that feels real. Watching sequences I stopped seeing actors but instead felt I was watching real life instead. I've seen some of the things that happen in the film. I have had conversations with people about what it's like to deal with depression, addiction and bipolar swings and this film seems to have it.

More importantly Bedzhanova has not only written a script that gets it right, and filmed it in differing styles that brings it all home, she has found a cast to sell it. Marina Vasileva, Buddy Duress) and Paula Knüpling sell their stories perfectly. They are not even remotely characters but they are actual people and we are watching them deal with their very real problem.

As I said above I could quibble about the story telling, particularly some choppiness in how we move from story to telling, it's a quibble, what is on screen is choice and needs to be seen by a wide audience.

Recommended

Majnuni (2019) Slamdance 2020

Adnan drifts in and out of madness as he stalks a long ago love and her new family.

Dreamlike and hypnotic MAJNUNI is a film that is for anyone who wants to see a one of a kind portrait of a man lost in obsession. Dark moody and in your face watching the film you are definitely all in to the head space of out main character. It is a trip to the darkside of one man's psyche. One has to applaud director Kouros Alaghband for making a film that truly makes us see, and perhaps understand, the world in way different from our own.

The film works largely because of the performance Adnan Omerović, whose haunted eyes and searching expression draws us into trying to sort out what is going on behind his eyes.

A  word of warning, this film is not for everyone. It is very much an art film. There are long passages where nothing is said, we are left to ponder what is going on and make our own conclusions. This is a film you have to work with and not  be spoon fed by. If you are up for that and willing to see something with its own look and feel than MAJNUNI is worth seeing. If you want giant robots and explosions stay away.

An Ordinary People (2020) Slamdance 2020

Spinning is a sport that grew out of South African gangster culture. Years ago when a gangster died his friends would steal a car, “spin it” (do circle burn outs and some crazy stunts) then set the car on fire as a means of respect. The spinning of cars grew out of that into a dangerous but truly awesome dance between man (or men) and machines. There are now competitions held across South Africa where teams compete to find out who is the best spinner.

An Ordinary People is both one of the coolest films I’ve seen this year and one of the most frustrating.

This is just a really cool looking film. The images of the spinning cars are absolutely mind blowing. More to the point what the drivers and their crews are doing is absolutely amazing on so many levels. Director Ernest Nkosi and his crew have assembled a visual masterpiece- a grand cinematic dance fil of the highest order. This film is going to stay with me for a very long time. How do I know- because I was half way through the film and I was emailing friends and relatives that they had to see the film.

The problem with the film is that it takes a while before you really have a sense of what you are looking at or what this film is about. As someone who knew nothing about the sport except from a couple of brief clips I came into the film blind and was slightly taken aback. As the film opens we are watching clips of several crews spinning cars from either inside the car or from cameras attached to one of the spinners. It is very POV and it is almost 10 minutes before we actually see what is going on outside the cars or have anyone explain to us what we are seeing. The film then slowly winds it’s way into explaining the sport, the drivers and the fans. It’s a set up that requires the audience to be patient and willing to work with the film. Even though it is clear the filmmakers know their subject backwards and forwards they should have had someone outside the sport take a look so that we outsiders have an easier path into the sport.

Reservations aside, An Ordinary People is a must see for anyone who loves motorsports and who is willing to work with the film. It is a film that will make you talking out loud to the screen as people do the most amazing things.

FLC and African Film Fest, Inc. announce the complete lineup for New York African Film Festival, May 23 – June 9

New York, NY (May 6, 2019) –The citywide New York African Film Festival (NYAFF) reaches backward into time and forward into the unknown for its 26th edition to center audiences in the present, with cutting-edge films from throughout the ages, films that regale with resplendent tales of all things African. Under the theme “Beyond Borders: Storytelling Across Time,” this year the event launches at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s BAMcinématek in May, heads to Film at Lincoln Center (FLC) from May 30 through June 4, and closes at Maysles Cinema. The popular festival includes 68 films of multiple genres from 31 countries across the diaspora, and is presented by FLC and African Film Festival, Inc. (AFF).

“These films help us to celebrate our vibrant cultures, as well as confront the issues that affect our societies, said AFF Executive Director and NYAFF Founder Mahen Bonetti. “The stories challenge us to continue thinking about ways to improve our situation and build for the future and that is the magic and power of the cinema.”

Opening Night at Film at Lincoln Center at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 30 is the U.S. premiere of Frances-Anne Solomon’s triumphant feature HERO: Inspired by the Extraordinary Life and Times of Mr. Ulric Cross. The film, which won the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival People’s Choice Award in the narrative feature category, tells the story of Cross, the Royal Air Force’s most decorated West Indian of World War II, and his and his fellow West Indians’ lasting impact on world history, including several liberation struggles across Africa. The film was selected as part of NYAFF’s celebration of the 100th anniversary of the first Pan-African Congress, organized in Paris by W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida Gibbs Hunt in February 1919, when delegates from Africa and the diaspora convened to champion Africa’s self-determination. Tickets for the film and Opening Night post-screening reception are available online at africanfilmny.org for $100. Regular festival prices apply for screening-only tickets, which can be purchased at filmlinc.org.

Marking the 25th anniversary of the tragic Rwandan genocide of 1994, when between 800,000 and one million lives were lost, at 5:45 p.m. on Saturday, June 1 is the Centerpiece film, Rwandan director Joël Karekezi’s gripping drama The Mercy of the Jungle. One of a crop of films about the aftermath of the tragedy by Rwandan directors, it follows Rwandan soldiers hunting rebels separated from their unit as they fight to survive while lost in the war-torn countryside. Preceding The Mercy of the Jungle will be the short The Letter Carrier, a haunting, folkloric fairy tale told through original a capella song. The directorial debut of actor-directors Jesse L. Martin and Rick Cosnett imagines a black family from Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains and the lengths they will go to save themselves from slavery.

In its look back, NYAFF also tips its hat to FESPACO (Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou), the historic festival in Burkina Faso now celebrating its 50th anniversary, with classic works from African trailblazers who continue to influence generations of filmmakers. Among the selections are the first FESPACO Best Film winner (Oumarou Ganda’s Le Wazzou Polygame in 1972), most recent awardee (Karekezi’s gripping drama The Mercy of the Jungle), and several in between, including Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud’s Fatwa (bronze at FESPACO in 2019, first prize at Carthage Film Festival in 2018), Ola Balogun’s Black Goddess (1978), and Souleymane Cissé’s Baara (1980), all seminal works that define themes explored in contemporary African cinema. The final film screening at Film at Lincoln Center, on June 4, is the sweeping epic Sarraounia by Med Hondo, who passed away on March 2.

The festival also highlights some of today’s most buzzed-about directors of the diaspora, including South African comedian-actor-director Kagiso Lediga (Wizard / Matwetwe), the first African director to be tapped for a Netflix Original Series (Catching Feelings, starring Pearl Thusi); Julius Amedume, whose thriller Rattlesnakes featuring Jimmy Jean-Louis won the Panafrican Film Festival Audience Award for Narrative Feature), and Cameroonian director Rosine Mbakam, whose Chez Jolie Coiffure captures the powerful real-life story of an undocumented hair-salon manager who escaped to Belgium from quasi-slavery in Lebanon.

A digital art exhibition, From Ouaga to NYC: Capturing the Pan-African Spirit, will run from 1 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Friday, May 31, to Monday, June 3, and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, June 4. For four decades, director Mohammed Challouf and cultural advocate Kojo Ade captured African and African diaspora cultural celebrations on the continent and in the diaspora respectively. Charting personal memories across landscapes of African history and heritage, the two photographic essays explore issues of cultural identity shaping an African diaspora consciousness and solidarity within an international vocabulary of contemporary media art practice.

Finally, acclaimed Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Marie Téno will deliver a free master class on entertainment and education within the context of African cinema on June 1. The event will feature a discussion on how filmmakers and stakeholders today can trigger change through the transformative power of cinema, much as the pioneering generation of African filmmakers did in

Tickets go on sale May 10 and are $15; $12 for students, seniors (62+), and persons with disabilities; and $10 for Film at Lincoln Center members. See more and save with a 3+ film discount package. Learn more at filmlinc.org.

The 26th NYAFF kicks off at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAMcinématek) Thursday, May 23, and runs through Monday, May 27, as a part of BAM’s popular dance and music festival DanceAfrica. It then heads to FLC and closes with screenings at the Maysles Cinema in Harlem from Thursday, June 6, through Sunday, June 9.

The programs of AFF are made possible by the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment, Bradley Family Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Domenico Paulon Foundation, L’Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (International Organization of La Francophonie), NYC & Company, French Cultural Services, Manhattan Portage, City Bakery, Black Hawk Imports, Essentia Water, South African Consulate General, National Film and Video Foundation, Consulate General of Sweden in New York, Hudson Hotel, and Royal Air Maroc. 

FILMS & DESCRIPTIONSAll screenings take place at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (144 West 65th Street) unless otherwise noted.