Following the recent DVD release of her first feature length film She, a Chinese in the UK, John Berra sat down with filmmaker Xiaolu Guo to discuss the development of the film, the issue of national identity and the state of Chinese independent cinema. She, a Chinese (2009) is the latest feature film by Xiaolu […]
Author: John Berra
John Berra is a Lecturer in Film Studies and the author of Declarations of Independence: American Cinema and the Partiality of Independent Production (2008). He is also the editor of the Directory of World Cinema: American Independent (2010) and the Directory of World Cinema: Japan (2010), and is a regular contributor to Electric Sheep, Film International and Scope.
Yoshihiro Nakamura’s Fish Story is a quirky Japanese comedy, adapted from the novel by Kotoro Isaka, which blends urban legend, martial arts mayhem and post-Millennium tension to engaging and amusing effect. As with the over-hyped Roland Emmerich blockbuster 2012 (2009), Nakamura’s film refers to the Mayan calendar for the date of the end of the […]
The awkward marriage between art and exploitation has rarely been more evident than in Werner Herzog’s latest exercise in cinematic dementia, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans, a film that has been in UK distribution limbo for a while, but has been granted some time off for good behaviour with a screening at the 16th […]