Portside

From directors to independent cinema owners, freelancers to company owners: people in the film business on their struggles in a time of crisis.

“You don’t work for us, you work with us.” That’s the pitch the boss makes for the exciting new job opportunity he dangles in the opening scene of 'Sorry We Missed You', Ken Loach’s latest lament for the downtrodden.

The triumph of Greta Gerwig's homage to Alcott, though not a Marxist or revolutionary work, is in its ability to connect modern viewers to a historical struggle: bringing the past alive by connecting it to the current political and social concerns.

Filmmaker Bong Joon-ho on his film Parasite: " I tried to express a sentiment specific to Korean culture, [but] all the responses from different audiences were pretty much the same. Essentially, we all live in the same country, called Capitalism."

The film makes plain what queer audiences have been quietly telling us forever: that their lives have always been present, even at times where their existence has been vehemently denied. Even in the face of a suffocating culture of repression.

There remains this pervasive assumption that the past was overwhelmingly white and male, and this blanket judgment gives filmmakers and Hollywood too-easy a pass.

One of the main questions posed in 'Epicentro' is what happens when the marginalized create their own narratives against the dominant ones. It’s an idea expressed in many of this year’s Sundance documentaries.

This documentary premiered at Sundance and shows the hard, exhausting work of fighting for civil and human rights under Trump.

'1917' is based on Alfred Mendes’ role as a messenger when he served in the 1st Battalion Rifle Brigade, training as a signaller in France. He was thereafter sent to Belgium, with the rest of his battalion, to win back the village of Poelcappelle.