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| Photo via BFI. |
"The best films of the year – the overground, the underground, the widely
released and the still emerging, from oldtimers and first-timers – as
chosen by 112 of our international contributors and colleagues." Read full list in the
BFI website. E.T.P. 6'
Open Culture has compiled in its platform 8 Free Films by Dziga Vertov. "We offer a roundup of all the Dziga Vertov movies currently
viewable free online, a collection that allows you to watch and judge
for yourself whether he and his collaborators succeeded in making a dent
in what he called “the film drama, the Opium of the people.” Despite
the thoroughly low-tech nature of these pictures, even by documentary
standards, you may find yourself moved after having watched them — not
necessarily by the Soviet causes he sometimes extolled, but by his
cinematic rallying cry: “Down with bourgeois fairy-tale scenarios. Long
live life as it is!” Have a look at a couple of films and access the links in
Open Culture. E.T.P. something between 10' and 9 hours.
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| Photo via NPR. |
Nice review of Venezuelan director Mariana Rondón's latest film Pelo Malo in NPR. "Pelo Malo" means "bad hair" in Spanish. It's a term that is commonly
used in Latin America, and it's also the title of a new Venezuelan film
that tackles racism and homophobia . . .
Pelo Malo
is a rare look into identity politics among Latin Americans, where
racism is often a taboo topic. Despite the taboo, director Mariana
Rondón says, the term "pelo malo" is common currency. "The origin of the
term is very offensive. It's very racist. But it's also true that in
Venezuela, we are so mixed, that in every single family there is someone
with ... 'bad hair.' We joke that the second most profitable industry,
after oil, is hair straightening. Because everyone here wants to have
straight hair." Read or listen to the full article in
NPR. E.T.P. 4'
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| Photo via The Conversation. |
Russia has seen a surge in such performance art actions while individual
liberties have been rapidly diminishing. Performance art has often been
used in ways that resemble protest and so it’s unsurprising that it is
often perceived as hooliganism. But these very dramatic and public forms
of art are actually connected to a long line of performance traditions
in Russia that date back to the revolutionary era. Read
Chopped earlobes and the long history of political shock art in Russia by Amy Gryzbel, l
ecturer in History of Art at University of Aberdeen in
The Conversation. E.T.P. 5'
Whilst
Oxford's dictionary word of the year was vape, which is new okay, but is very much
meh, Dictionary.com's one was
exposure, which I though it was more interesting. This is why: "In 2014, the Ebola virus, widespread theft of personal information, and
shocking acts of violence and brutality dominated the news.
Vulnerability and visibility were at the core of the year’s most notable
headlines. Encapsulating those themes, Dictionary.com’s Word of the
Year for 2014 is
exposure." Read full article in
Dictionary's Blog. E.T.P. 5'
