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Reviews

HOCCI @ HIFF42: BROKER Review

BROKER was an official selection of the 42nd Hawai‘i International Film Festival presented by Halekulani.  Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest film was perhaps my most anticipated out of the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Not only was it met with rave reviews and considered a top contender for the Palme d’Or, but Kore-eda’s previous film SHOPLIFTERS was one

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HOCCI @ HIFF42: Cinema Violence in PROJECT WOLF HUNTING & HUNT

Warning: The following contains spoilers for PROJECT WOLF HUNTING (2022) and HUNT (2022). Over the course of HIFF42, I watched two South Korean films that were centered around and saturated with brutal violence: one considered it a spectacle, something that it assumed the audience wanted to see, and something that could easily be assigned moral

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HOCCI @ HIFF42: GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD Review

GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD screened at the 42nd Hawai‘i International Film Festival presented by Halekulani When regarding the art and ingredients of making a gangster film, Quentin Tarantino stated, “a good, pulpy story or you need an aspect of criminality that you want to put under a microscope.” He also added that a satirical subtext is

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ADIEU GODARD // Why We Love This Film // HIFF Selects

Absurd and thoroughly enjoyable, it is only fitting to feature Amartya Bhattacharyya’s ADIEU GODARD as our October HIFF SELECTS film in honor of the French auteur’s recent passing. Back to absurdity, here is the premise for the film: An old porn-addict accidentally brings home a DVD of a Godard film, and falls in love with

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FREE PUPPIES! // Why We Love This Film // HIFF Selects

A New York Times “Noteworthy Film of the Summer,” September’s HIFF SELECTS is for all the dog lovers out there in an incredible true story of resilience, determination and lots of elbow grease. FREE PUPPIES! Chronicles this incredible story–When Hurricane Katrina left more than 250,000 pets stranded, the infrastructure of modern pet transport for a

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HIT THE ROAD | Why We Love This Film // HIFF Selects

Panah Panahi, son of the great Iranian director Jafar Panahi, forever embattled with the government and currently under house arrest, makes a striking feature debut with this charming and deeply moving road movie. HIT THE ROAD expands on the genre, following a family of four–two middle-aged parents and their sons, one a taciturn adult, the

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NEPTUNE FROST | Why We Love This Film // HIFF Selects

A visual and aural feast, NEPTUNE FROST is an Afro-Futurist musical that is a cry for liberation through technology. The best science fiction is allegorical to the societal climate of its times, but it is also done so through a white male gaze. From EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE to the exemplary works of Octavia

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