REVIEW: Never Steady, Never Still [2018]

I’m full of memories. I’m full of hope. I’m full of regrets. With a riveting central performance by Shirley Henderson as a woman dealing with advanced Parkinson’s, you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking Kathleen Hepburn‘s Never Steady, Never Still (adapted from her short of the same name) was simply about the tragedy of the disease. A different version of this story would probably go that route because it’s the “flashier” path towards recognition. The Vancouver native, however, decides to go further by delving beneath the surface by exposing the hardships…

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TIFF13 REVIEW: 2013 Short Cuts Canada Programmes

Programme 1 A far cry from the documentary short Joda—a visual letter to Jafar Panahi—that was included in the TIFF Short Cuts Canada Programme last year, graphic designer turned filmmaker Theodore Ushev’s Gloria Victoria is all about the visceral and aural capabilities of film without something as unnecessary as words. Full of sumptuous textured layers formed by sketch drawings, Russian Constructivist elements, what I believe were faces from Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, and more, the rising crescendo of Shostakovich’s “Invasion” from Symphony No. 7 helps spur on an emotive war in…

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