Doc Corner: The Istanbul Cats of 'Kedi'

In many ways, it’s only natural that a film like Kedi should come along. The internet loves cats, of course. Even if the internet doesn’t necessarily deserve cats. And a documentary about cats is a no-brainer of a concept (we’ll pretend Lil Bub & Friendz doesn’t exist because it is terrible). The real surprise then isn’t that Kedi exists, but that it quietly subverts any lazy reading that people would no doubt all too easily assign to it. Yes, it is the movie about street cats of Istanbul, but that’s just a hook for audiences whose attentions are being torn this way and that. The truth is that Ceyda Torun’s elegant and enchanting Kedi is so much more.

Even if it was just about the cats – what cats they are! In what can only be described as a particularly unique set of casting, Torun’s film shuffles across the city with vignettes about a collection of individual moggies, following them around as they roam the streets, finding food, fighting, hunting, battling for attention from humans who aren’t so much owners as casual caretakers, and thieving fish from markets and ports.

But, as I said, Kedi is much less interested in just being a film about cats. Rather it is a film that uses cats as a platform to dive into the history of a city, its people, its culture, and questioning what our relationship with cats says about us.

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Gay Indie VOD Round-Up with Franco, Quinto and Juliet Stevenson

By Glenn Dunks.

It's sometimes hard to keep up with all the films hitting VOD from the festival circuit, particularly those under the LGBTQ banner that can so easily get lost by audiences. More and more films including those with big stars and major filmmakers are now taking the direct route so competition is fierce. Let's take a look at some of the titles hitting the regular services over these first few months of the year. If your interests extend beyond the buzzier must-see titles like Carol and Moonlight, you should definitely keep an eye out for them and others like them.

DEPARTURE
I’m just going to say it – Juliet Stevenson should be next in line for a Rampling/Huppert style dalliance with Oscar. She is far and away the best thing in this pretty if frustrating drama about a mother and son in the south of France. She is exquisite as Beatrice, a permanently sad Woman Who Lies To Herself™ on the verge of divorce who has travelled to the family holiday house to pack up their possessions so the place can be sold. Never too far away from a glass of wine or an angry/tearful breakdown, Stevenson’s performance is the kind of body-shaking reminder of her talent that, should they watch it, ought to inspire somebody to give her another showcase.

[More on Departure and three more queer titles after the jump]

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Doc Corner: 'Oklahoma City' As Relevant as Ever

Like many of the best documentaries, Barak Goodman’s Oklahoma City isn’t just about one thing. In fact, despite its title exclusively and definitively referencing the bombing of a federal building – the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil until 9/11 – Goodman’s compelling and ultimately very chilling and concerning film is about a larger swathe of domestic terrorism, detailing how the events of April 19 1995 were the inevitable culmination of an out-of-control spiral of white nationalism and anti-government revolt.

Despite the enormity of the event, the events of Oklahoma City have not been detailed on screen very often. For what reason that is, I’m not sure, but that absence of films (non-fiction or otherwise) would already be enough to allow this Sundance-premiering film extra weight and deserved attention. But in a depressing coincidence, and the reason Goodman’s film is as relevant 22 years later as it is, the wait to make a film has allowed the circumstances of the day, elements of the case that may have been forgotten or lost amid the debris, to hold a greater significance.

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Doc Corner Goes to Slamdance

by Glenn Dunks

Okay, so if we had really gone to Slamdance I feel like you would have noticed with some extra coverage given that it runs at the same time and in the same city as Sundance. So despite not travelling to the snowy surrounds of Park City, I was still nonetheless lucky enough to get a peek at Slamdance’s documentary slate. And here we are telling you about FIVE of the titles in this super-sized edition of Doc Corner. Those five include outback savages, musical amateurs and geniuses and more that should be coming to festivals and VOD over the next year...

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Review: "Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo"

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

You've seen the moment many times. Two future lovers see each other in a crowd, and something clicks. In West Side Story that moment prompts a blur on the edges of the frame, with only the lovers in focus. In La La Land, it takes the form of a camera push-in with all the lights, but for a spotlight, going out. The moment is so familiar in fantasies (and desired in reality) that there's even an old showtune about it.

Some enchanted evening, you will meet a stranger
You will meet a stranger across a crowded room.
And somehow you know, you know even then...

The last place you might expect to see it deployed is in a new French film which begins with 18 minutes of explicit activity in a sex club...

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