‘A Yard of Jackals’ and the Sound of Dictatorship
Sound editing is crucial in Chilean horror film A Yard of Jackals; we see nothing (thankfully), yet we can imagine in rich detail everything.
Guilherme Quireza
Guilherme Quireza is a Brazilian film critic and contributing editor at PopMatters. Writing in English and Portuguese, he focuses on contemporary cinema, film festivals, genre, and the circulation of international cinema across cultural contexts. His criticism is especially interested in how film form organizes social, political, and aesthetic meaning. His work has appeared in PopMatters, Bright Lights Film Journal, In Review Online, High On Films, and other international outlets.
‘Amrum’ Presents Wartime Distress with Visual Grace
Fatih Akin’s visually beautiful wartime drama, Amrum, turns a child’s survival into a memory handed from one talented filmmaker to another.
Sound of Falling’s Slow Exhaustion of Memory
In Mascha Schilinski’s moody psychological drama Sound of Falling, we sense that a place can outlast the lives shaped inside it: what happened there does not disappear.
‘I Swear’ Is Carried by Robert Aramayo’s Performance
Robert Aramayo’s performance in Tourette syndrome drama I Swear is the leap in his career: the performance that turns his early promise into an actor we are compelled to watch.
‘Palestine 36’ and the Limits of a Settled History
A film about Palestine does not need to claim neutrality. The trouble is that Palestine 36, despite its force, oversimplifies the complicated history.
‘Broken Voices’ Records the Sound of Institutional Abuse
Drawing on the scandal around one of the Czech Republic’s most admired choirs, Broken Voices shows, once again, how institutions meant to exalt can perpetuate abuse.
One World Film Festival Refuses to Make Human Rights Easy
One World Human Rights Film Festival’s political force is in its willingness to remain in contradiction, where justice can arrive too late and survival can depend on fragile acts of self-invention.
‘The Sandbox’ Only Touches the Surface of Surveillance
Without digging too deeply into the subject, as it warrants, The Sandbox contends that border zones are experimental grounds for hi-tech surveillance of vulnerable people.
‘The Blue Trail’ Traces the Exile of Growing Old
From August Winds to Neon Bull and now The Blue Trail, Gabriel Mascaro observes characters pushed to the margins of systems that organize desire, work, family, and belonging.
‘My Word Against Mine’ Turns Fracture into Procedure
Psychoanalysis documentary One Word Against Mine relies on that unstable border between what seems to come from outside and what has already taken shape within.
‘Mailin’ Is a Dark Fairy Tale of Survival
María Silvia Esteve’s Mailin drifts toward a dreamscape of surviving trauma and injustice.
‘A Fox Under a Pink Moon’ Shows a Primal Method for Survival
In one of A Fox Under a Pink Moon’s sharpest insights, imagination is one of the few available means of surviving a crisis.