Dear Cinephiles, Dr. Hannibal Lecter: “We begin by coveting what we see every day. Don’t you feel eyes moving over your body, Clarice? And don’t your eyes seek out the things you want?” It’s ideas about the acts of looking and participating that linger long after the...

Dear Cinephiles, Otis: “I’m going to make a movie about you.” James: “Make me look good, Honey Boy.” I think we all know by now of the healing powers of cinema. I do not know what I would have done without it the past few months for it has definitely kept me sane and...

Dear Cinephiles, “The only thing that matters in life is relationships,” says Julian. There are movies that sneak past me. I try to be as open minded as possible and never try to judge a film by its cover. I had read about “Truman” (2015) - the Spanish film that had...

Dear Cinephiles, Aguirre: “Have you seen any solid ground that would support your weight?” I know I have recommended a lot of films to you in the past months, but if you have never seen “Aguirre, The Wrath of God” (1972) I encourage you to rectify this immediately....

Dear Cinephiles, “Heathcliff, make the world stop right here. Make everything stop and stand still and never move again. Make the moors never change and you and I never change,” exclaims Catherine in William Wyler’s 1939 adaptation of Emily Bronte’s gothic romance...

Dear Cinephiles, “I ask no favor for my sex,” says Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg at the beginning of “RBG” (2018). “All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” Left bereft on Friday night, and simply not knowing whether to turn...

Dear SBIFF Family, Let your freak flag fly high with Shrek and his friends in this week’s Family Fun Film, “Shrek!” Trail along on their journey to Duloc to save the homes of the fairy tale characters who have occupied Shrek’s swamp. For some entertainment on the...

Dear Cinephiles, There’s a powerful – almost seismic – moment in the funny and affectionate “Dolemite is my Name” (2019). Three black men – including our main protagonist Rudy Ray Moore – decide to go to the movies and pick Billy Wilder’s “The Front Page” for the...

Dear Cinephiles, “I’m interested in the way we tell stories about our lives. About the fact that the truth about the past is often ephemeral and difficult to pin down,” says Sarah Polley in the enigmatic and affectionate documentary “Stories We Tell.” Memory and how...