Tag Archives: Film

From the Lifeless Pages of History Books to the Big Screen: Chinonye Chukwu’s Till (2022)

By Sabrina Völz

“The lynch­ing of my son has shown me that what hap­pens to any of us

any­where in the world had bet­ter be the busi­ness of us all.”

Mamie Till-Bradley in Till

Photo credit: Maxim Hopman
Pho­to cred­it: Max­im Hopman

The name Till is one that most Amer­i­cans and many peo­ple around the world will rec­og­nize from their civ­il rights his­to­ry lessons. In 1955, while vis­it­ing fam­i­ly, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy from Chica­go, was bru­tal­ly beat­en and mur­dered for alleged­ly flirt­ing with and whistling at a mar­ried white woman near Mon­ey, Mis­sis­sip­pi. His bloat­ed body was lat­er found in the Tal­la­hatchie River.

I must admit that when I first heard about the film Till, it imme­di­ate­ly sparked my curios­i­ty. Yes, I thought. The heinous crime that caused a media fren­zy and gal­va­nized the civ­il rights move­ment needs to be brought to new gen­er­a­tions. But wait. We live in an age of trig­ger warn­ings (state­ments that alert read­ers or view­ers to poten­tial­ly dis­turb­ing con­tent) and audi­ences with a height­ened sen­si­tiv­i­ty to vio­lence. So how can film direc­tor Chi­nonye Chuk­wu draw view­ers to movie the­aters and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly do jus­tice to the bru­tal­i­ty of that crime?

It also intrigued me that Chuk­wu placed Emmett Till’s moth­er, Mamie Till-Bradley, in the film’s cen­ter. If she’s men­tioned at all in Amer­i­can his­to­ry text­books, it’s main­ly to rec­og­nize the role she played in the deci­sion to show the world what South­ern hatred looked like. She was the dri­ving force to ensure an open cas­ket at Emmett Till’s funer­al. So what does the film reveal that most his­to­ry books do not?

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The Environmental Impact of Filmmaking

By Jannik Schümann

Two things you should know about me that at first glance might have noth­ing in com­mon: First, I love to watch movies and series – to dive into oth­er worlds, to escape from real­i­ty, and just to have a good time. For me, there’s noth­ing bet­ter than going to the movies or lying on the couch on a rainy Sun­day, watch­ing a good movie, or bing­ing a series. I even play a piv­otal role in their cre­ation as I work as an actor myself. Sec­ond, I con­scious­ly try to live sus­tain­ably because what we con­sume or do has a direct impact on the world’s ecosys­tems. I don’t eat meat, I don’t dri­ve a car; instead, I use my bike or pub­lic trans­port. And I pay atten­tion to labels to sup­port com­pa­nies ded­i­cat­ed to sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion and fair wages for laborers.

Pho­to cred­it: Dominic Wunderlich

Two years ago, when I first read about the envi­ron­men­tal impact of film­mak­ing in The Guardian, I was shocked. I hadn’t real­ized that my love for movies and for my job could seri­ous­ly con­flict with my ded­i­ca­tion to the envi­ron­ment. Because the truth is: Block­buster films with bud­gets of over $70 mil­lion pro­duce an aver­age of 2,840 tons of CO2 per pro­duc­tion. That is equiv­a­lent to 11 one-way trips from the earth to the moon!

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America and the Holocaust

By Michael Lederer

Beyond a severe­ly lim­it­ed immi­gra­tion quo­ta kept to a bare min­i­mum, few­er than a thou­sand Jew­ish refugees from Europe were admit­ted into the U.S. dur­ing World War II. In August 1944, they were brought on a sin­gle U.S. Lib­er­ty ship, then interned behind barbed wire on an old U.S. Army camp upstate New York until after the war had end­ed. That small lucky group includ­ed my father Ivo, his sis­ter Mira, and their par­ents Otto and Ruza.

Pho­to Cred­it: Michael Led­er­er: Otto, Mira, Ruza, and Ivo Led­er­er in Oswego, New York, 1945.

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The ‘Woke’ Cinderella Recipe: A Dash of Queerness, a Pinch of Feminism, and a Sprinkling of Fairy Dust

By Veronika Heinrich

Once upon a time, there was a young woman named Cin­derel­la (Cami­la Cabel­lo). In the 2021 film, she loves to design dress­es and wants to make a busi­ness out of it. When the prince (‎Nicholas Gal­itzine) announces a ball, her step­moth­er Vivian (Idi­na Men­zel), want­i­ng to pro­tect her from the patri­ar­chal world out­side, destroys Cinderella’s dress to keep her from poten­tial­ly mar­ry­ing a man she’d just met. The prince, how­ev­er, is in love with his best friend (Jenet Le Lacheur) but can’t real­ly admit it – not even to him­self. Also, he’s not qual­i­fied to rule the king­dom. The patri­archy, how­ev­er, wants him to become king and will nev­er agree to his smart sis­ter (Tal­lu­lah Greive) becom­ing queen.

When Cinderella’s fairy god per­son (Bil­ly Porter) arrives, they not only turn one of her designs into real­i­ty, but they also throw a par­ty at Cinderella’s place. When the prince and his best friend arrive, the pres­ence of the fairy god per­son gives them the strength to admit their feel­ings for each oth­er. The prince’s sis­ter becomes heir to the throne, and Cin­derel­la finds a queen with whom to trav­el around the world and sell her designs. And they all live hap­pi­ly ever after.

Only that’s not what happens.

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