"You Don't Have to be Filmish": The Toronto Jewish Film Festival

The Toronto Jewish Film Festival is a one-week celebration of Judaism and Cinema that occurs in downtown Toronto, at the Bloor Cinema, early every May. The folkloristic literature on festival notes that these kinds of events are ways that communities and groups celebrate themselves, and although film festivals are frequently excluded from consideration of traditional festivity, I shall demonstrate that such an omission is unfortunate, since like traditional festivity, film festivals, in particular ethnic film festivals, explore the same issues of liminality for the celebrating culture.

La Dolce Morta: Space, Modernity and the Giallo

Mikel J Koven argues for the Italian giallo tradition as a "cinema of ambivalence; specifically, ambivalence towards modernity." His discussion highlights the giallo's fluctuating, often contradictory takes on language, on modernity's creature comforts, on its breaking down of geographic boundaries and on "modernity's pluralism and the changing social and cultural mores."

Blaxploitation! A Video Essay

Video essay on the history of Blaxploitation, included as an extra on the Blu-ray "Coffy", produced for Arrow Films

All About the Girl: Remembering the Girl Who Knew Too Much

Feature length documentary by Calum Waddell, including new interviews with filmmakers Luigi Cozzi and Richard Stanley, alongside Alan Jones and Mikel J. Koven.

Deep Red: The Quintessential Giallo

Essay exploring the giallo genre using Dario Argento's Profondo Rosso/Deep Red as example. Produced for Arrow Video's Blu-ray of Deep Red, and included as part of the full colour booklet.

9 Lives of the Black Cat

This is a short essay included in the accompanying booklet for Arrow Video's Blu-ray collection titled "Edgar Allan Poe's Black Cats": The Black Cat (Lucio Fulci, 1981) & Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I have the Key (Sergio Martino, 1972)