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Dec 9, 2024 | 
newleftreview.org | Erika Balsom
Near the start of Robert Kramer and John Douglas’s Milestones (1975), a panoramic docufiction that charts the unravelling aspirations of the New Left from Vermont to Utah, Ho Chi Minh’s poem ‘The Milestone’ appears in full as text on screen: Neither high up nor far away, On neither emperor’s nor king’s throne, You’re only a little slab of stone Standing on the edge of the highway.
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Nov 15, 2024 | 
aperture.org | Erika Balsom
Hervé Guibert is best known for autobiographical novels, such as To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life (1990), published the year before he died from AIDS-related complications at the age of thirty-six. But Guibert was also passionate about another means of turning life into art: photography.
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Sep 27, 2024 | 
4columns.org | Erika Balsom
In Mati Diop’s poetic documentary following the repatriation of artifacts back to Benin, a plurality of African perspectives and an aura of supernatural enchantment. Still from Dahomey. Courtesy CMPR. © Les Films du Bal.
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Sep 10, 2024 | 
frieze.com | Erika Balsom
After a greasy brunch amidst the fake trees, stained-glass flamingos and gambling machines of Las Vegas’s Peppermill diner, we hit the road north for 150 kilometres. When we arrived in the tiny town of Alamo, the man who would drive us the rest of the way to Michael Heizer’s City (1970–2022) didn’t have much to say about the mammoth earthwork that we four Londoners had travelled so far to encounter. He did, however, want to point out two things on the map.
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Feb 28, 2024 | 
dialnet.unirioja.es | Erika Balsom |Armelle Chrétien
IdiomacatalàDeutschEnglishespañoleuskarafrançaisgalegoitalianoportuguêsromână
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Feb 26, 2024 | 
filmcomment.com | Erika Balsom
This article appeared in the February 23, 2024 edition of The Film Comment Letter, our free weekly newsletter featuring original film criticism and writing. Sign up for the Letter here. Stay up to date on all of our coverage of the Berlin International Film Festival here. Direct Action (Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell, 2024)Even though the weather was unsettlingly balmy, there was a chill in the air at this year’s Berlinale.
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Jan 28, 2024 | 
cinema-scope.com | Erika Balsom |Jay Kuehner |Haden Guest |Mark Peranson
Face the Music: Hamaguchi Ryusuke on Evil Does Not Exist by Beatrice Loayza Your Own Hall of Fame: Alex Ross Perry on Videoheaven and Pavements by Adam Nayman Objects of Desire: Rodrigo Moreno on The Delinquents by Jordan Cronk From the Vision to the Nail in the Coffin, and the Resurrection: Dimitris Athiridis on exergue – on documenta 14 by Antoine Thirion Last of the Independents: A Roundtable on Charley Varrick with Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala by Christoph Huber Deep Cuts: The First...
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Jan 28, 2024 | 
cinema-scope.com | Erika Balsom |Mark Peranson
By Erika Balsom Lately it feels like everywhere I look obscure old films are being dusted off and presented to eager publics. Even a right-wing newspaper like London’s Telegraph had cause last November to speak of a “repertory boom” in the city where I live, deeming it “the year’s most unlikely media trend.” Their idea of what this looks like is a bit different than mine; not everyone is “suddenly” lining up to see Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949).
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Jan 26, 2024 | 
4columns.org | Erika Balsom
Not a Pretty Picture Erika Balsom Before there was Valley Girl, Martha Coolidge’s 1975 debut film presented a very different portrayal of high school teens. Michele Manenti and Martha Coolidge in Not a Pretty Picture. Courtesy Picture Pro LLC / Janus Films.
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Nov 2, 2023 | 
newleftreview.org | Erika Balsom
‘In the autumn of last year, there were four cases of homicide committed in four cities using the same handgun. This spring, a 19-year-old man was arrested. He became known as “the handgun serial killer”.’ So begins Adachi Masao’s A.K.A. Serial Killer (1969), an experimental documentary that retraces the steps of Nagayama Norio, arrested in Tokyo on 7 April, 1969.
