top of page
Analytics
Articles on selected topics and films, with focus on essential cinephilic originality and items of cinema history. Also there are articles on theatre, music, art.
Cinema critique essay series“IMAGINARY RETROSPECTIVE”
Earth snoring “The world is cruel, and I make films as adaptations of my dreams - I carefully outline dreams and then fish out...
Marina Drozdova
DOCUMENTARY CASE
In essence, cinema can be neither "real" nor "actual" (all these words are just labels for trends). In cinema as art, we deal with the...
Marina Drozdova
Cannes 2024: The Seed of the Sacred Fig
The Seed of the Sacred Fig (by Mohammad Rasoulof) may be an imperfect film, but it is the undisputed highlight of the Cannes program....
Marina Drozdova
CANNES 2024: Music and bodies. Emilia Perez
Emilia Perez by Palme d'Or winner Jacques Audiard is a stunning, provocative film - musical crime tragicomedy. Mexico City. Talented...
Marina Drozdova
Cannes 2024: Skin and Bones
A feminist shocking, hallucinogenic satirical body-thriller about the horrors of aging –Substance by Coralie Fargeat. “Substance” is a...
Marina Drozdova
CANNES 2024: Limonov: The Ballad about Eddie
Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie by Kirill Serebrennikov - the film is based on Emmanuel Carrère's famous book "Limonov", a romantic mixture...
Marina Drozdova
AT VISIONS DU RÉEL 20 YEARS AGO: LOVE-LOVE-LOVE
In a few days International Documentary International Film Festival Visions du RÉEL will start its work in Nyon, Switzerland. Once it...
Marina Drozdova
SUMMER CINEMA
Cinema critique essay series: «Remembrance, embers and membranes of beauty… make artists and morons lose all self-control…” (VN) ......
Aleksandr Kiselev
Extraterrestrial burlesque
The Empire by Bruno Dumont Berlinale 2024 notes Dunes, heat, village bums. It seems at first glance we are in a French village?.. In...
Marina Drozdova
BEYOND-HUMAN VOICES: BERLINALE 2024
The main prizes of the Berlinale 2024, perhaps more than ever, reflected the extreme points of possibilities of cinematic genres at the...
Marina Drozdova
Twin Peaks.3.Instruction
Cinema critique essay series: «Remembrance, embers and membranes of beauty… make artists and morons lose all self-control…” (VN) "Don't...
Marina Drozdova
RETURN OF PRODIGAL FANTASY/2
Venice cinema biennale – the notes… Note that real pandemonium was happening this year on Immersive Island. Yes, the festival provides a...
Marina Drozdova
RETURN OF PRODIGAL FANTASY/1
Venice cinema biennale – the notes… 20s of the 21st century. And magically, in magical Venice, films return to what the silver screen was...
Aleksandr Kiselev
CLOWNS, SOUNDS, DERVISH WITH A CAMERA AND... HORRORS
Berlinale 2023 A friend of mine is doomed to share the chaos of my melomania. To tone down the pathos, he calls Shostakovich —...
Marina Drozdova
Cannes 2023 - Asteroid City
BEST OF THE FEST Wes Anderson is adored by spectators. We just love him for unpredictable humor and virtuosity. «Asteroid City» - the...
Marina Drozdova
FALSTAFF AS A CLOWN. SCENOGRAPHY AS SATIRE
"Fastaff" in Opéra de Nice turned out to be an intriguing visual clownery that deftly combines different concepts of contemporary art....
Marina Drozdova
Grasshoppers in Wonderland
Best Films of Visions du Réel 2023. Director’s victory over rational reality Undoubtedly, the genre breakthrough and the most provocative...
Marina Drozdova
THE NYMPHS ARE DEPARTED. SNOW
The premiere of "Daphne" by Richard Strauss at the Berlin Stats Opera fell in the middle of the Berlinale film festival - and half of the...
Marina Drozdova
HOLIDAY OF MINIMALISM
Berlinale 2023 We had a friend - a wonderful film critic and, by the way, a true admirer of the Berlinale - her name was Ms. Basina....
Marina Drozdova
ON STOICS
Berlinale 2023 The Berlinale Documentary Award went to Tatiana Huezo for El Eco (The Echo), the epitome of a documentary novel (hello,...
Aleksandr Kiselev
HOLD ON TO THE CHAIR
Berlinale 2023 Berlinale has always been famous for its active socio-political position, and participating films reflected this focus -...
Marina Drozdova
Cinema critique essay series“IMAGINARY RETROSPECTIVE: DOCUMENTARY WONDERS”
SPELEOLOGISTS UNDER THE BIG TOP Werner Herzog always finds characters whose fantasy conquers reality by dispelling its arrogance. In his...
Aleksandr Kiselev
VERTIGO & AMATEUR FOOTAGE
IDFA Film Festival - notes... Private Footage (dir. Janaína Nagata) – Brazil. This is an investigative film: the author decodes an...
Marina Drozdova
CINENOVELS at IDFA
Reflections on IDFA 2022 Winners and Program “Apolonia, Apolonia,” director Lea Glob (Denmark, Poland, France), predictably won the main...
Marina Drozdova
FAMILY THRILLERS
The IDFA Film Festival has identified one of the most sought-after genres of contemporary documentaries: family thrillers created on the...
Marina Drozdova
Cinema critique essay series“IMAGINARY RETROSPECTIVE: DOCUMENTARY WONDERS”ABDUCTION
Once upon a time, the Berlinale film festival’s “Panorama Document” opened with the super-intriguing British documentary thriller, “The...
Marina Drozdova
VISUALITY AS MIRACLE
Venice Cinema Biennale 2022 The programs of Venice cinema biennale welcome films – both documentaries and features - which gave the...
Aleksandr Kiselev
TENDER IS THE SIGHT
FIDMarseille is Europe’s largest documentary film festival and, likely, France’s leading documentary event. The July heat, no doubt,...
Marina Drozdova
Cinema critique essay series“DOCUMENTARY FILM SEASON ESSAYS” THOUSANDS OF BINOCULARS
In the current documentary films season, those films in which other worlds look at us, at our human world (if it is still ours), or at...
Marina Drozdova
Cinema critique essay series“DOCUMENTARY FILM SEASON ESSAYS”COMEDY
How do we counter the unbearable weight of being? Through comedy. And here are some examples of this genre. "Makeup. Artist" by Jafa...
Marina Drozdova
KEYHOLE OF TIME. Chapter 3. Cinema creatures
Synopsis The article relates the research of the amateur films language based on the study of L’agence régionale pour le livre et l’image...
Marina Drozdova
KEYHOLE OF TIME. Chapter 2. Theoretical background
Synopsis The article relates the research of the amateur films language based on the study of L’agence régionale pour le livre et l’Image...
Aleksandr Kiselev
KEYHOLE OF TIME. Chapter 1. Historical memory
Synopsis The article relates the research of the amateur films language based on the study of L’agence régionale pour le livre et l’Image...
Marina Drozdova
From attics and basements
The season of amateur footage in documentaries. Current festival season offers a wave of documentaries, centered on amateur footage....
Marina Drozdova
bottom of page