The Mixing Room: conversations about cinema: Recent Episodes
Sight & Sound: the international film magazine
Roundtable discussions with Sight & Sound film critics exploring new movies and film trends. Currently recorded from themed film festivals on an occasional basis.
Demonic oppression was the story of this year’s UK horror film showcase – along with female survivorship, identity differences and the dangers of the internet. Hardy survivors Kim Newman, Anton Bitel and Virginie Selavy explore our latest demons in this roundtable post-mortem.
Under discussion:
Demonic conspiracies and satanic possession in 👻 For We Are Many (Lawrie Brewster, Andrew Ionides, Brad Watson, Mitch Wilson, Carlos Omar De Leon, Matthan Harris, Dane Keil, Mark Logan; UK) 👻 Porno (Keola Racela, USA) 👻 Ready or Not (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, USA) 👻 Daniel Isn’t Real (Adam Egypt Mortimer, USA) 👻 The Black String (Brian Hanson, USA)
The slipperiness of truth and safety online in 👻 Death of a Vlogger (Graham Hughes, UK) 👻 Deadcon (Caryn Waechter, USA) 👻 Ghost Killers vs Bloody Mary (Fabrício Bittar, Brazil) 👻 Halloween Party (Jay Dahl, Canada) 👻 The Drone (Jordan Rubin, USA)
Differences of sexuality, class and gender in 👻 Spiral (Kurtis David Harder, Canada) 👻 The Dark Red (Dan Bush, USA) 👻 Satanic Panic (Chelsea Stardust, USA) 👻 The Wind (Emma Tammi, USA) 👻 Criminal Audition (Samuel Gridley, UK) 👻 Why Don’t You Just Die! (Kirill Sokolov, Russia)
Female survivors in 👻 A Good Woman Is Hard to Find (Abner Pastoll, UK) 👻 Feedback (Pedro C. Alonso, Spain/USA)
Parental angst in 👻 Freaks (Zach Lipovsky, Canada) 👻 The Deeper You Dig (Toby Poser & John Adams, USA) 👻 Knives and Skin (Jennifer Reeder, USA)
The monstrous in 👻 Rabid (Jen & Sylvia Soska, Canada) 👻 Depraved (Larry Fessenden, USA)
To make Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story, director Steve Sullivan conducted a decades-spanning quest to uncover and understand the man behind Frank Sidebottom, the cult comic figure with the papier-maché head. On Sight & Sound’s website, he tells Leigh Singer all about it, and shares some of the material he uncovered:
https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/features/being-frank-chris-sievey-story-frank-sidebottom-steve-sullivan-making-of-archive
Tara Brown, Keith Jarrett and Ben Walters talk through all the fun in the 2018 BFI Flare! Film Festival, from queering the South Bank and LGBTQ+ bingo cards to mainstream incursions, gay miserabilism and the marvellous indescribability of Good Manners.
What does Steve McQueen’s new heist thriller Widows – Sight & Sound’s November 2018 cover film and gala opener of this year’s London Film Festival – tell us about race and class? Philip Concannon, Nick James, Isabel Stevens and Kelli Weston discuss this, Chinese auteur Jia Zhang-ke’s new crime drama Ash Is Purest White, plus three more picks from this year’s festival: Sudabeh Mortezai’s Joy, Andrew Bujalski’s Support the Girls and Bi Gan’s Long Day’s Journey into Night.
Read about our November issue: bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/november-2018-issue
See all our London Film Festival 2018 online coverage: bfi.org.uk/sight-sound-magazine/london-film-festival-2018
Gaspar Noé’s closing-night Climax set the tone for a horror bonanza that went big on spiked drinks, ghosts, nuns and dollhouses. We locked Anton Bitel, Kim Newman and Virginie Selavy in a room to chew it over.
A look back at the best of last year’s FrightFest with Anton Bitel, Kim Newman and Virginie Selavy.
Kelli Weston hosts a conversation with Sophie Brown, Simran Hans and Ben Nicholson to discuss some of the picks of this year's Sheffield documentary festival: • RaMell Ross’s Hale County This Morning, This Evening • Bing Liu’s Minding the Gap • Khalik Allah’s Black Mother • Nathaniel Dorsky’s Arboretum Cycle and Scott Barley’s Sleep Has Her House • Sandi Tan’s Shirkers • and Erick Stoll and Chase Whiteside’s América