The Becoming Abie series was made by Bolu Essien’s Nigerian-based production company Evolving Light Studios, which she founded alongside her husband, Emmanuel Essien, and is distributed by Nigerian distributor FilmOne.
Category: Film/TV/Video
Part 2, RIOTSVILLE, USA Film Review
Biographical Sierra Pettengill, Director Focuses on the warped narratives of the American past. Most recently, she directed the archival short The Rifleman, which premiered at the 2021Sundance Film Festival. Her 2017 feature-length film, the all-archival documentary The Reagan Show,…
RIOTSVILLE, USA Film Review – A Stunningly Poetic and Cinematically Furious Reflection on the Righteous Inner City Rebellions of the 1960s & the U.S. Army Militarized Ops That Worked to Destroy Them
In RIOTSVILLE, USA, Director Sierra Pettengill, like a consummate painter with a cinematic palette, fuses archival national news media reportage from the late 1960s with archival U.S. military film and video footage from that same period in a cinematic exposition exposing the insidious nature of the militarization which was – and continues to be – primarily, but not exclusively, focused on Black people fighting for the real Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Pettengill’s paints veraciously without one misstep of historical and philosophical significance unlike so many other chroniclers, filmmakers and documentarians of that period. – By Gregg W. Morris
STRANGER AT THE GATE Film Review
Director Joshua Seftel: “To me, this is the story of a collision course between Richard “Mac” McKinney and the congregants of the Muncie Islamic Center. It’s a story so relevant to our world today – a world filled with misunderstanding, people taking sides, and seemingly unbridgeable societal gaps – and yet this story shows there is hope. I believe the film can serve as a glimpse into what is possible when we stay open and kind, a story about family, compassion, and forgiveness.” – Review by Gregg W. Morris
One of the Most Intriguing – If Not the Most Intriguing – in Recent Memory
TOO ROUGH
TOO ROUGH has cinematic derring-do and an inimitable storytelling prowess that can leave audiences in blissful awe. – By Gregg W. Morris
Film Short Review
An Astonishing Cinematic Experience That Can Leave Audiences Breathless
The astonishing way that the filmmakers can teleport audiences back to that day in 1963 will have audiences on the edge of their seats, literally and figuratively, every time they decided that they have to see it one more time. – By Gregg W. Morris
The Word Is Out: Horror Fans Can Have the Bejesus Scared Out of them in Multiple Fright Nights Watching 67 Films at the 18th Annual HollyShorts Oscar-Qualifying® Film Festival, Screening from August 11-20, 2022
The Oscar® Qualifying HOLLYSHORTS FILM FESTIVAL returns for its much-anticipated 18th edition from August 11- 20th, 2022, with an 5000 entries this year! Epic Dread Sponsor this year’s scary mix. Don’t overlook Pauk J. Fanklin’s FIREWORKS, Brian Sepanzyk’s IN THE SHADOW OF GOD. – By Gregg W. Morris
The Oscar® Qualifying HOLLYSHORTS FILM FESTIVAL, August 11 – 20, 2022, with 5000 Entries, 161 Female Directors and 101 BIPOC Directors and Nearly 400 Films
Stars, filmmakers nclude Academy Award Nominee® James Franco, Golden Globe and Grammy Nominee Wiz Khalifa, Emmy Nominee Colman Domingo, Rosario Dawson, Nina Dobrev, Penn Badgley, Emmy Award-winner Brian Cox, Academy Award nominee June Squibb, SAG Winner Zachary Levi and more. – By Gregg W. Morris
KARMALINK, Film Review of Director Jake Wachtel’s Mesmerizing Sci-fi Reincarnation Artificial Consciousness Search for Enlightenment Movie
The way that Director Jake Wachtel made his film can mesmerize audiences around the world. He uses a “sci-fi lens to tell the story of a boy facing the alienating effects of technological progress (the literal displacement of his soul) as a mirror for forms of neo-colonialism and cultural displacement.” It is shot through a prism of mesmerizing psychedelic dreamscapes about reincarnation, artificial consciousness, and the Buddhist search for enlightenment, giving KARMALINK an amazing irresistible hallucinatory feel about it.
By Gregg W. Morris
Tribeca Film Festival 2022
WE MIGHT AS WELL BE DEAD – Winner of Best Cinematography in the TFF International Narrative Competition
The tenants of an exclusive home owners type association are disintegrating – allegorically and metaphorically – into a state of sadistic and vile misanthropy of Trumpian magnitudes. In 93+ minutes of riveting story telling, it’s as if the tenants are victims of a communal schizophrenic disorder of cosmic proportions yet to be recognized in the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR). Winner of Best Cinematography in the TFF International Narrative Competition
By Gregg W. Morris