Alison Jean SmithMother of Color (2022), the first feature-length film from Portland-based filmmaker Dawn Jones Redstone, explores the nexus of race- and gender-based marginalization through a day-in-the-life of Noelia, played by Ana del Rocío. A second-generation...
When Sarah, a no-nonsense molecular biologist at Columbia University, receives a call informing her of her mother’s death, her default response is denial. “There must be some sort of mistake,” she says. As the protagonist of Queen...
When documentary filmmaker Tzewoon Chan began making his genre-bending film Blue Island 憂鬱之島 (2022) in 2017, Hong Kong was between social movements. Coming out of a previous project, Yellowing (2016), which explored the explosive 2014 pro-democracy...
Waiting for the Carnival (2019), an engrossing documentary by Brazilian filmmaker Marcelo Gomes, opens with a swath of billboards set against a stark landscape. Showcasing models in skin-tight blue jeans, the billboards welcome the viewer to...
Tracing the last century of Kauai’s history and its representation in film, Anthony Banua-Simon’s documentary, Cane Fire (2021), begins with a mystery: what happened to the never-released romance White Heat (1934)? White Heat was the first...
For many Seattleites, Aurora Avenue has for years been synonymous with prostitution, drug trafficking, and general urban decay. For those unfamiliar with the region, it’s a stretch of Highway 99 running from the city’s north to south...
Arami Ullón Interview: Nothing But the Sun Chronicles Colonization’s Damage to the Indigenous Ayoreo
Nothing But the Sun (2020), a searing documentary from Paraguayan-Swiss filmmaker Arami Ullón, explores the plight of the Ayoreo, an Indigenous group living with the aftermath of colonization. Translated from its Spanish title, Apenas el Sol, the...
Los Angeles-based filmmaker and public speaker Ashley Eakin’s third short film, Single (2020), became a smash success when it premiered at South by Southwest. Single, which she’s now developing into a series for FX, follows Kim, a glamorous, self...