Timm Kröger’s The Universal Theory (Die Theorie von Allem) opens with a brief segment of a 1974 TV talk show on which Johannes Leinert, an author of a new book with the same title as this film, is the guest. While the host talks of the book as science fiction, the...
Roger Ross Williams opens (and will close) his adaptation of Ibram X. Kendi’s history of racist thought, Stamped from the Beginning, with the question: What is wrong with black people? The query is addressed to Dr. Kendi, and a group of black women academics and...
When we visit a school in İlker Çatek’s The Teachers’ Lounge (Das Lehrerzimmer), we discover a microcosm for society. It is not just a story of teachers, students, and parents. It is a reflection of many of the issues that must be dealt with in many settings each day....
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John Kennedy. November 23, 1963, is one of those dates that is unforgettable for Americans who lived through it. Comparable dates would be December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001—dates that are...
“We go forward because we know freedom is ahead.” A corrupt and oppressive president seeks to hold on to power. Those who try to bring freedom to the nation face violent retribution. In Moses Bwayo and Chrispher Sharp’s documentary Bobi Wine: The People’s President,...
It’s nice when I can put groups together when writing about shorts, but today I’m bringing a bit of a hodgepodge of films that are showing at HollyShorts Film Festival. Sevap/Mitzvah, directed by Sabina Vijrača, tells the true story of two friends in Bosnia during...
The Apostle Paul wrote, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways” (1 Cor. 13:11, NRSV). I’ve always seen that statement as simultaneously wise and foolish....
Animation makes up an important part of the world of short films. That is true at HollyShorts Film Festival. Here are a few of the animated films I’ve been sampling. The first four are considered adult themed, the others are for children or families. American Sikh,...
Today I’m going to take a look at a few of the comedies playing at HollyShorts Film Festival. It should be noted that most of the comedy shorts I sampled had a dark humor as their base. Full Time, directed by Jon Ryan Sugimoto, is about a recent graduate who is hired...