Cinema Year Zero

Kirsty Asher strolls through the programming collaboration between Deeper Into Movies and Weird Walk, and its quest to revive sight-specific Weird Britain on film.

The contemporary began on 11 February 2005, when the TV series Nathan Barley first aired on Channel 4. It ended just 5 weeks later, on the same station, with the finale.

Blaise Radley examines the aged but still open wound of Vulgar Auteurism, to ask why this specific notion continues to fuel online film chatter.

Orla Smith casts an eye across the current state of UK film production and distribution, to ask how the humble emerging filmmaker can get their foot in the door. 

If box-office receipts are anything to go by, we are living in the post-theatrical world.

Kirsty Asher’s Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World retrospective calls for a blockbuster cycle driven by physical production and visionary leaders.

Nadira Begum points out the dearth of stars that can move mountains, and argues that the resurrection of the romantic-comedy from the streaming dustbin is the only way to save an actor’s face: beauti…

Digby Houghton wades through the mire of ‘awards season’ to ask if there is any room for the mid-budget drama amongst the streaming and blockbuster landscape of American film.

Cathy Brennan turns the attention back onto the critics: why do we watch the films we do, and what happens to the films we don’t?

Esmé Holden explores how the precision of Minnelli’s mise-en-scène creates a platonic formula for nostalgia in Meet Me in St. Louis.

Join S Paul as he unspools threads on Justin Bieber, Chicago drill, and theory, in an essay that is both sprawling and tightly interwoven.

Welcome back to Cinema Year Zero. 

Matt Kennedy uses his study of autoethnography to highlight a moment in Kimberly Peirce's 1999 film. 

In her CYZ debut, Esmé Holden locates spirituality within the materialistic world of Max Ophüls’ 1953 masterpiece The Earrings of Madame de…

Want to know what was lit and what was shit at Locarno this year? Then check out Joseph Owens’ report on the Swiss festival.

What is Denpa? Ellisha Izumi unpacks this familiar yet enigmatic Japanese genre.

Kirsty Asher interrogates the politics of 2021 animation Cryptozoo in light of the January 6th Insurrection

Kirsty Asher connects Cold War paranoia to psychogeography via Andrej Żuławski’s classic horror film.

Maximilien Luc Proctor turns the camera on himself to talk about his latest feature film.

Orla Smith on the disastrous indie film that Tobey Maguire convinced Leonardo DiCaprio to disown.