In the karst landscapes of Gunung Sewu (the thousand mountains), where limestone hills meet the southern sea of Java, a way of life unfolds in close relation to the land, where gestures, rituals, and songs sustain a shared rhythm of existence, shaped by long-standing cosmological understandings.
Review by Andie Kay:
Writer/Director Ira Setiawati creates a love letter to the Gunung Sewu (aka The Thousand Mountains). This beautiful landscape on Karst Global Geopark is protected by the United Nations. The local culture, traditions, ceremonies and celebrations that are captured show how man and nature can live in harmony.
The cinematography from Bagus Wongso is incredibly breathtaking and the rock colors inside the sacred caves were really mesmerizing. Even some of the still photography showing how to access the caves was incredible. Getting the opportunity to listen to the speakers; Ribut Subranto, Irianto, and Guntoyo was interesting and educational.
Marvelous job editing this film to give the viewer a complete understanding of the Gunung Sewu and how vast and beautiful it is.
Hazarding a guess at our planet’s imperiled future, Project Hazmatic: Dangerous Goods, hovers between cataclysmic hymn, ecstatic elegy, and absurd ritual. Clad in bespoke hazmat suits, eco-voyagers cavort through industrial ruin and wild splendor. In a fever dream of climate crisis and toxic onslaught, individual and collective grief transforms.
The poetic documentary, PROJECT HAZMAT: DANGEROUS GOODS, is an artistic exploration of the toxic materials used to hurt the climate and people themselves. The narrator’s voice is calm, but still proves a point through the subtle metaphors depicted on screen.
The narrator’s voice proves the point of hazardous materials on the whole environment without ever raising it an octave. The story shows how through the history of the poet that this person has seen devastation in person. She has seen it through her father and through the sites that she has visited in her own life. This isn’t an unbiased person that has watched the news, but someone who has lived it and is begging people to listen from a person with experience.
The metaphors shown on screen also are in contrast with the soothing voice, something that only adds to the film’s artistry. The person on screen begins with wearing caution tape and a red wig, a symbol of the danger that the world is in if we don’t change trajectory. The person switches to a hazmat suit, which suggests it is already too late but we still have the opportunity to clean up the previous messes. The words describing the narrator’s father are bleak, showing what exactly can happen to the human body when the same materials destroying the planet are encountered without the proper equipment for cleaning up.
The film’s most striking visuals don’t come from the person on the screen, but with the objects depicted on screen. The topic about the names of storms is shown as a toy house washed with waves, later the same house is on fire as the mention of other catastrophic events are described. This suggests it is not just that the world is in danger, but it is on fire.
If someone is interested in learning about the effects of climate change without being preached at, the PROJECT HAZMAT: DANGEROUS GOODS would be a great place to start because this film doesn’t preach, yet it still packs a punch with the delivery of describing the events through powerful metaphors.
A prestigious attorney colludes with his impulsive brother to hide a manslaughter, but when an innocent is charged, their plans spiral out of control, leading to moral reckoning and inevitable judgment.
The feature film, THE LAST RECKONING, is an intense story that uses expert storytelling to take the audience on thrilling mystery from beginning to end. The film begins with a girl taking a snake ring off an unknown murdered man, she is dirty and the first question is if this man’s victim or if there is something more at play. The film unwinds to reveal that there is always more to the story.
This film answers the question if criminals have a moral code, when they have to question their entire world after an innocent person is arrested for the murder they committed. The story takes cues from classic Hollywood films, interweaving the plot into a modern depiction of a film noir. Many films today seem to have clear cut good guys and bad guys, but THE LAST RECKONING will have the audience questioning the motives and reasonings of the murderers where their humanity will be seen over the crime and framing of an innocent person.
The intense plot is only enhanced by the limited locations depicted through the film. The majority of the story is in one house, with only a handful of scenes depicted outside this location. This helps add to the psychological drama that drives the story because each person is forced to deal with the consequences and if it is worth it.
The film wraps up nicely with the final revenge, again going back to the way films used to be written. The moral code is questioned, but it still proves that no one can truly get away with murder because someone always knows who is guilty and who is innocent. THE LAST RECKONING is a must watch for anyone that loves the feel of classic films and is looking for a film that will make everyone think about the thin gray lining between good and bad.
They Are Killing Us declares its intentions with an utmost unflinching clarity. This is not a film that eases the audience in. This is a short drawing from the living archive of human atrocity; intertwining the use of audio, claymation, and layers of mixed-media animation into something that feels like an alarming notice. Filmmaker Maurice Cormier showcases what we are about to experience is not abstraction. These are events happening in real time, in the present state of the world. The screen is no longer a safe distance to live.
A sphere of orange clay suspends in darkness. In fact, it pulses. The camera moves toward it in rhythmic cuts, closing the gap between the viewer and the violence with each heartbeat. When the sphere is sliced and blood begins to seep through its cracks, the metaphor needs no translation: this is a world bleeding. This is the earth as a body. This is humanity at its core.
The violence and innocence intertwined is where the groundbreaking imagery lives.
The choice of clay is childlike in texture and innocent in its associations. This sits in deliberate tension with what social commentary it is made to depict. Orange, is the color of decay and warning, bleeds across the canvas in layers of spray paint until the frame itself is consumed. This is a visual argument for saturation: the world has absorbed so much violence that it can no longer contain it. Cormier understands the medium is the message. Animation, particularly in this hand-crafted form, grants access to the unbearable. This artistic choice allows the filmmaker to go where live action cannot.
The film’s structure is cumulative and relentless by design. A god-like figure enters who is imposing and unclear of intentions. However, is put down by gunfire before the eye can fully register him. Limbs fall. Bodies wrapped in gauze populate the frame in rows of pure death and decay. A human silhouette crosses the screen engulfed in flame, then falls. Couples burn in each other’s arms. The sphere, now split, reveals muscle-like tissue connecting its severed halves. This is the final image of a world torn apart but still, grotesquely, holding on. And then the heart monitor flatlines.
By the time you realize you are only three and a half minutes into a five-minute film, Cormier has already accomplished something remarkable: he has made the viewer feel the exhaustion of living inside an ongoing catastrophe. The pause you take to breathe is not incidental. It is the film working exactly as intended.
The audio is the film’s spine. Screams that may well be real, gunshots that accumulate past the point of shock into something closer to demise, and a sound design that scratches at the nervous system. Cormier leads the viewer’s distress entirely through sound. The design is deliberately, masterfully uncomfortable.
The mixed-media approach between the use of clay, paint, and layered animation is not simply stylistic indulgence. This is the precise tool the subject demands. This range of texture and form is what allows a film this unflinching to be experienced rather than merely endured.
The camera implicates extreme close-ups on pools of blood, the steady rhythmic cuts synced to a heartbeat, each visual handcrafted and intentional. Every compositional choice narrows the distance between screen and viewer. Cormier puts you directly in the shoes of those undergoing the violence, and he achieves this with precision.
The childlike quality of the medium pressed against the enormity of its subject creates a dissonance that is the film’s defining achievement. They Are Killing Us is not an easy film. It is not meant to be. It is a call to awareness in the form of a five-minute confrontation. This short intrudes with violence until it ultimately flatlines, leaving behind the question it has been asking all along: what are you going to do about it? Maurice Cormier has made something visceral, necessary, and genuinely haunting. The innocence of its form and the brutality of its content are not in conflict. That tension is the point. That tension is the film.
Ten minutes before showtime, a theatre group unravels into warm-up disasters, personal drama and backstage chaos as they scramble to survive opening night.
ACT! drops you backstage ten minutes before showtime and keeps you there, between the chaos and the clock. This story unfolds into a disarmingly funny, quietly devastating, and painfully human experience: a portrait of people who have rehearsed for weeks and are still, somehow, completely unprepared for the moment in front of them. Not because they lack talent. But because they are human, and being human is the one thing no amount of rehearsal can fix.
At its center is Oscar, an actor whose need for validation becomes the film’s beating heart. As the countdown to curtain accelerates, he moves through the ensemble like a question mark. He goes about asking each person the same thing: “…do you think I’m a good actor?” A small question carrying weight. Imposter syndrome made flesh. The film understands this hunger for reassurance is the cost of caring deeply about something that offers no guarantees.
The ensemble surrounding him is a theatre company in full motion: egos flowering, anxieties spiking, romances unraveling in real time. An affair surfaces between scene partners. A rehearsed line mispronounced becomes a whole Abbott and Costello routine. Rituals collide. Personalities ignite. Overlapping, escalating, and gloriously unhinged. The film leans into madness with the filmmaker’s intention. The overwhelm is not accidental. It mirrors exactly what it feels like to be inside a theatre ten minutes before the doors open.
Beneath the comedy, ACT! is a film about what it means to pour yourself into a collaborative art. One built on shared delusion, collective vulnerability, and the strange intimacy of performing for strangers. Theatre demands you be simultaneously exposed and invisible, sincere and pretend. The film holds this contradiction with real tenderness.
Each of the characters are sketched with enough specificity to feel true without tipping into complete caricature. Oscar’s spiral is handled with a light touch that makes the eventual blow land harder: when the verdict on his talent finally comes, delivered by someone who has no reason to be kind, it hits not just him but the audience.
The filmmaker demonstrates a confident command of controlled chaos. Scenes bounce and overlap, voices compete, the camera moves through the space as if it too is trying to keep up. Yet, nothing feels lost. There is intention behind every collision, every interruption, every character who drifts in and out of frame. The pacing is precise in a way that disguises how precise it is; the hallmark of direction that trusts its material.
The film’s final reveal that no one is outside, that the audience they have been preparing for does not exist. The rejection was always coming. The director’s decision to let them perform anyway, to give them their five minutes, reframes the entire film. The joy of the work, it turns out, was never contingent on the audience showing up in the first place.
ACT! is uncomfortably funny and truthful in the best tradition of theatre itself. It understands the people drawn to this art form are a particular kind of person: eccentric, anxious, generous, egotistical, desperately in love with something that will not always love them back. & it treats all of them, even the difficult ones, with real affection.
I was so honored and grateful to be a part of this festival! As a first-timer I truly appreciated all of the encouragement and support from the festival, including the wonderful supportive materials they make available (review, blog, podcast, viewer feedback…) beyond the screening. Wholeheartedly recommend! #femalefilmfestival #filmfestival
Our experience with the Experimental, Dance & Music Film Festival was truly exceptional. The audience feedback format created a rare and meaningful connection between filmmakers and viewers. Watching people emotionally engage with our film and discuss its visual language and atmosphere was incredibly inspiring.
The feedback video was thoughtfully produced, professional, and genuinely valuable for independent filmmakers. The communication, organization, and overall artistic environment of the festival were outstanding. We are deeply grateful to the festival team for supporting and promoting independent cinema with such passion and care. #experimentalfestival #filmfreeway #festivaldeadline
Loved how expansive the festival is-including a screening, a review, a podcast interview, and audience feedback. All played a really big role in getting more eyes on the film! #wildsound #filmfestival #filmfreeway
The leaders of the Thriller/Suspense Festival are awesome. It’s really a good festival. They’re responsive and their focus is truly all about the films and filmmakers. You won’t be disappointed #thriller #filmfreeway
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