Mydylarama Podcast

This week's focus is colonial chic in light of the touted and actual removal of Gone with the Wind (1939) from a number of programmes and archives due to its racist outlook. We discuss themes of colonialism and postcolonialism through film, namely the above and Jane Austen's work, and their filmic representations. As the saying goes, it’s not what you're looking at, it’s what you see. Our picks this week are the Encounters Film Festival—GET YOUR PASS—and its expert, sharp-eyed curating—only £10 gives you access to hundreds of excellent and very entertaining short films, as well as discussions, Q&As and so on; and the Nordisk Panorama, which showcases Nordic feature documentaries and short films. The festival will be over by the time this comes out, but do check the website to browse the winning docs and archives. And lastly, a treat for genre fans, horror and fantastic festival Grimmfest, which is completely online this year and boasts new films, old films, and for the first time a cool-looking comic! Abla mentions a couple of series: The Vow, available on HBO, a mind-boggling expose of MLM-cum-self-improvement course-cum mad sex cult NXIVM and its incredibly underwhelming leader Keith Raniere—and the BBC miniseries Des, David Tennant’s uncanny portrayal of serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Follow us and comment! @mydylarama on Twitter & Facebook 🎙️ mydy.link/podcast 💷 mydy.link/support 🎧 mydy.link/apple About Top Picks is hosted by two of film programmers and social researchers behind myDylarama film reviews. We use postcolonial, afro-pessimism, and Bourdieusian theories to discuss race and class in drama, documentary, mystery, and horror films. Now in its 10th year, myDy champions independent film and in using the medium as a platform for underrepresented and oft-ignored voices. myDy is official partner of the Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival, and collaborates with The Media Fund, ByWire, and Emerging Filmmakers Night. Abla Kandalaft, co-founder of myDylarama, is a trilingual film programmer, researcher, journalist and translator. She is passionate about economics, environmental issues, migration, and politics; and has worked with BBC, Cannes Film Festival, and BFI. Coco Green is an aspiring academic and armchair critic. When not discussing racism in film, both on Top Picks and in the streets, she is writing about black counterpublics in hopes of completing her PhD.

This week we are joined by Matt Howsam, a production coordinator in the VFX industry and a film critic. We mention the hilarious and highly original One Cut of the Dead (2017) by Shin'ichirô Ueda, a Japanese Zombie comedy in the style of some of the best mockumentaries out there and a homage to low budget filmmaking. Depending on where you are you can watch it on Shudder or buy the DVD. Abla also highlights the Netflix series Unwell (2020– ), which looks at the dark side of the wellness industry and some of the products and concepts currently being flogged on the market through – yet again – more MLM initiatives. For our festival picks, this week we recommend Visionmaker's Indigenous Filmmakers Festival, which runs from 31 August to 5 October, the Encounters Short Film Festival, one of the world's best short ff, which runs from 18 September to 11 October and is offering a £10 pass! A few films to highlight are Mahdi Fleifel's 3 Logical Exits, Clermont-Ferrand Grand Prize winner Anthony Nti's Da Yie and Morad Mostapha's Henet Ward. Matt recommends Women Make Films (2019), a 14-hour doc series and the Japanese cinema season, both on BFI Player. Matt chose to discuss Trey Edward Shults's Waves (2019), a dizzying and theatrical film about a family dealing with the aftermath of a tragedy. We discuss the highly cinematic and aesthetic qualities of the film, the impact that has on the emotional punch of the story and the portrayal of the characters, and the somewhat problematic or baffling portrayal of family dynamics that are very personal to the (white) director through the prism of a black family. We briefly mention the Chinese drama So Long, My Son (2019) in our conclusive remarks. If you like our work, you can support us at mydy.link/support. Follow us @mydylarama on Twitter & Facebook Follow us and comment! 🎙️ mydy.link/podcast 🎧 mydy.link/apple About Top Picks is hosted by two of the academics, film programmers and social researchers behind myDylarama film reviews. We use postcolonial, afro-pessimism, and Bourdieusian theories to discuss race and class in drama, documentary, mystery, and horror films. Now in its 10th year, myDy champions independent film and in using the medium as a platform for underrepresented and oft-ignored voices. myDy is official partner of the Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival, and collaborates with The Media Fund, ByWire, and Emerging Filmmakers Night. Abla Kandalaft, co-founder of myDylarama, is a trilingual film programmer, researcher, journalist and translator. She is passionate about economics, environmental issues, migration, and politics; and has worked with BBC, Cannes Film Festival, and BFI. Coco Green is an aspiring academic and armchair critic. When not discussing racism in film, both on Top Picks and in the streets, she is writing about black counterpublics in hopes of completing her PhD.

In this episode, journalist and film critic Leila Latif talks about her coup de coeur pick from a season of Arab women filmmakers season at the Garden Cinema in London - Nadine Labaki's Capernaum. We talk about the importance of the film, its sensitive and sober depiction of poverty, its positive reviews and those that called it overblown or manipulative, and what this says about Western stereotypes of the Arab world. We also talk about Sudanese film, Saleh Bakri's always charismatic turns in Wajib and The Blue Caftan and nod to Wissam Aljafari's short Ambience.

This is the recording of the discussion and some music following the screening of Fragments of a Dream at Rich Mix on 19 January 2023. Dr Francisco Dominguez talks to us about the current situation in Chile and what we can do to counter the various far right movements around the world and imperialism, musician Phaxsi Coca treats us to some entrancing live music and the film's co-directors tell us about their work, the Dream Lives On festival in Wales that celebrates Latin American music and peace in the spirit of Chilean activist Victor Jara. The screening was organised by Alborada - a magazine providing a progressive look at Latin American culture, arts and politics and their film arm, Alborada Films - and Movimientos, an organisation that hosts cultural and artistic Latin American events.

We were delighted to chat with Nana Mensah, director, writer and actress. Her first feature film Queen Of Glory, in which she also stars, met with much critical acclaim and was praised for its astute, unsentimental and at times downright hilarious portrayal of a Ghanian family in the US and high achieving academic daughter. We chat about her foray into filmmaking, how she made use of available resources, recent work by emerging filmmakers and artists of African origin(s) in and she shares her experience on the relationship friends and family of Ghanaian and other African origins have with the US. If you like our work and want to support us, please go to: ko-fi.com/mydy 🎙️ mydy.link/podcast 💷 ko-fi.com/mydy Subscribe for offers at: mydy.link/subscribe 🎧 mydy.link/apple