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Hello, everyone! It seems like there’s a constant supply of genre films coming out these days, which can make it hard to keep up with everything. Here’s a look at my thoughts on two recent indie projects, Hanna Bergholm’s Hatching and The Aviary from Jennifer Raite and Chris Cullari.

Enjoy!

The Hatching: As far as directorial debuts go, director Hanna Bergholm has done a phenomenal job of quickly establishing herself as one of the most intriguing new talents to watch in the genre space with Hatching. A harrowing exploration of the horrors and pressure that many (if not most) young folks experience throughout adolescence, screenwriter Ilja Rautsi does a great job of crafting a story that seamlessly meshes psychological horror with an unconventional creature feature, resulting in one of the most unique viewing experiences that I’ve had in 2022.

In Hatching, we’re introduced to young...

Most people around the world would fail spectacularly if asked to list five Finnish films on the spot. It is a country whose film industry tends too often to get overshadowed by that of its neighbors. To the west, there’s Sweden, a country that gave us Ingar Bergman, Let The Right One In and all those Stieg Larsson Girl with the Never-Ending Sequels films. To the south, we have Poland, a country that gave us not only Janusz Kamiński, but also Krzysztof Kieślowski, a director whose Three Colours trilogy are a rite of passage for prospective film students all over the world. It’s hard to stand out in a crowd when you’re being overlooked by your Scandinavian neighbors. However, sometimes a film comes out that is so interesting and so gripping, that it just refuses to be ignored. Case in point, the 2022 adventure-horror film Hatching.

Tinja is...

Mother (Sophia Heikkilä) has the perfect family. The kind of family who would no doubt have made Adolf Hitler shed a single, wistful tear. It’s because of this that Mother makes a living placing her family’s unblemished, Aryan faces in front of a selfie camera and documenting their lives for all the world to see. In their crisp, pastel pink-and-white garments that they flounce around within the walls of their toy dollhouse home—the latter of which the camera establishes by floating around the exterior to mimic drone shots Mother uses in her family vlogs—the nuclear family at the center of Finnish director Hanna Bergholm’s rattling feature debut Hatching projects an image of unattainable attainability. It’s the same sort that modern-day vloggers and influencers profit from in real life. Smiling faces, tousled hair, audience-acceptable kisses and hugs, restrained displays of affection. The kind of family...

Motherhood is scary stuff. From “Rosemary’s Baby” through to “The Babadook” and “Hereditary,” a certain breed of horror film has taught us as much. Equally disturbing, in Hanna Bergholm’s inventive, alarmingly sunny genre outing “Hatching,” is adolescence: lurking under a protective mother’s wings, waiting to crack and come of age in a Finnish suburb’s suffocating, expertly calibrated atmosphere.

But “Hatching” is no blood-soaked “Carrie.” One could instead think of it as the weird lovechild of “American Beauty” and a grotesque version of “E.T.,” with the uncanny touch of Yorgos Lanthimos. Even this comparison feels incomplete in defining Bergholm’s directorial debut, a wicked foray into youthful anxieties that is admitted short on genuine scares, but full of delicious squirms and cringes through Bergholm’s skillful play with body horror and doppelgänger tropes — the same spirit that gave us both Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Dr. Jekyll and Mr.

Hatching Trailer — Hanna Bergholm‘s Hatching (2022) movie trailer has been released by IFC Films. The Hatching trailer stars Siiri Solalinna, Sophia Heikkilä, Saija Lentonen, and Jani Volanen. Crew Ilja Rautsi wrote the screenplay for Hatching. Stein Berge Svendsen created the music for the film. Jarkko T. Laine crafted the cinematography for the film. Hatching Poster Hatching Movie [...]

Continue reading: Hatching (2022) Movie Trailer: Gymnast Siiri Solalinna brings home a Giant Egg in Hanna Bergholm’s Film...

International Film Festival Rotterdam 2014

Bright Future

World Premieres

Above: The Pinkie

About Sarah (Elisa Miller, Mexico, United Kingdom)

Bella Vista (Vera Brunner-Sung, USA)

Creator of the Jungle (Jordi Morató (Spain)

La distancia (Sergio Caballero, Spain)

Dzma/Brother (Téona Mghvdeladze & Thierry Grenade, France, Georgia)

L’éclat furtif de l'ombre (Alain-Pascal Housiaux & Patrick Dechesne, Belgium, Germany)

Edén (Elise DuRant, USA, Mexico)

Helium (Eché Janga, Netherlands)

History of Eternity (Camilo Cavalcante, Brazil)

Hotel Nueva Isla (Irene Gutiérrez & Javier Labrador, Cuba, Spain)

The Iranian Film (Yassine el Idrissi, Morocco, Netherlands, Egypt)

Jacky au royaume des filles (Riad Sattouf, France)

L for Leisure (Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn, USA, Mexico, France, Iceland)

Little Crushes (Aleksandra Gowin & Ireneusz Grzyb, Poland)

Masked Monkey - The Evolution of Darwin’s Theory (Ismail Fahmi Lubish, Indonesia)

Oilfields Mines Hurricanes (Fabian Altenried, Germany, Iceland)

The Pinkie (Lisa Takeba, Japan)

The Quiet Roar (Henrik Hellström, Sweden, Norway)

Sitzfleisch (Lisa Weber, Austria)

The Songs of Rice (Uruphong Raksasad,...

Picks include the latest documentary from Ai Weiwei [pictured].

The International Film Festival Rotterdam has unveiled the selections for its Bright Future and Spectrum programmes (list of premiere titles below).

Across both sections there are 37 world premieres.

Bright Future is comprised of 63 films, all first and second features. Bright Future includes five films supported by the Hubert Bals Fund, including Carlos Armella’s Las voces.

Five films from Bright Future will compete in the Big Screen Award Competition, including telepathic dwarf thriller La distancia by Sergio Caballero; and Riad Sattouf’s Jacky au royaume des filles starring Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Other notable seelctions include Burrowing director Henrik Helstrom’s second feature The Quiet Roar, about a dying woman who reconnects with her past through an acid trip.

Spectrum, focusing on artistic and experimental cinema, includes 69 films, including three supported by the Hubert Bals Fund. Five Spectrum Films, including Jos de Putter’s See No Evil and Oxana Bychkova’s Another...