Beating the Fear of Jinn Into Me 

Coverage from the Austin Film Festival, highlighting some panels and films that emphasized the importance of diverse and inclusive storytelling.

I understood post-memory as passing down stories and images of one’s experiences that are not your own. For decades, rape has been depicted in cinema through a third-person perspective, leaving the viewer to observe rape; not to experience it. 

Unrelentingly funny, highly entertaining, and ridiculously absurd, My Movie Starring Paul Dano is, according to its creator, Joe Bartone, a tribute to the willful ignorance of independent filmmaking found in the late '70s in New York City. Developed through open discussions with the cast at the reading table, the mockumentary follows a delusional and fame-starved indie director, Herman Rumowicz, through the process of making his very first feature movie starring Paul Dano.

An animated reboot based on the book of the same name, with differences from the live-action movie of the same name.

"A Drowning Man" (2017) explores the unseen aspects of the Refugee Crisis. In, 15 far-too-short minutes, viewers are given a detailed snapshot of what it's like for a refugee to drown in the waters of poverty and otherness while trying to navigate a land whose promise has worn off, and only 'strange' remains.

Personalities clash and tempers fume in a family-run Chicago restaurant