STRAW 2025: A Mother’s Silence Was Louder Than a Siren
A haunting look at grief, survival, and a mother’s quiet collapse in a world that never gave her room to fall.

A modernization of the classic western in which the Cowboys are a struggling local amateur soccer team, the Indians run a nearby Tandoori restaurant and the bandits are a group of menacing thugs led by a maniac known simply as 'American Bob'.
A haunting look at grief, survival, and a mother’s quiet collapse in a world that never gave her room to fall.
It’s the most loving tribute to cinema and to Ingmar Bergman, set in world that feels so habitable that I felt like only re-watching this for eternity, because of how inviting it looks and feels.
In all actuality, “Just Mercy” should be labeled a “wall punching narrative.” Constantly, the flick throws high forms of adversity our way, amping up our most inner levels of discomfort. Filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton wonderfully paces the film in such a way that replicates the slow-burn nature of justice.
Set against the backdrop of the Jim Crow era, the film offers layered representation.
What are we willing to walk through to see our dreams come to pass? Our minds might be so wholly alive with the passions we carry and the plans we make to see these things become all we wish them to be, yet life doesn’t always want to come alongside. Instead, obstacles arise, both physical and mental, which attempt to dissuade us or even prevent us from moving forward, stalling or stagnating the momentum to achieve what we desire. The age-old question remains….can we overcome? Or will we BE overcome?
"The Platform" is horror and science fiction film doubling as a visual commentary on capitalism and economic inequality. The movie is not for the faint of heart nor the viewer hoping for political neutrality in their film's depth.