myDylarama

Leila Latif on Capernaum and contemporary Arab film

Mydylarama team — 2023-05-10T17:11:14Z

In this episode, journalist and film critic Leila Latif talks about her coup de coeur pick from a season of Arab women filmmakers at the Garden Cinema in London - Nadine Labaki's Capernaum. We talk about the importance of the film, its sensitive and sober depiction of poverty, its positive reviews and those that called it overblown or manipulative, and what this says about Western stereotypes of the Arab world. We also talk about Sudanese film, Saleh Bakri's always charismatic turns in Wajib and The Blue Caftan and nod to Wissam Aljafari's short Ambience.

Indy Film Library's Jack Brindelli on the politics of zombie films, horror and top picks from Amsterdam 2023

Abla Kandalaft — 2023-04-20T12:46:20Z

In the spirit of shedding light on all the great (and not-so great), imaginative and impressive films being made by the independent sector the world over, I spoke to Jack Brindelli from Indy Film Library, a platform that supports and reviews independent, under-celebrated or little-known films. The Indy Film Library is now a member of the Independent Media Association and they have an online and live mini-fest coming up end of April. The live element will be in Amsterdam. Jack wanted to flag three shorts that will be shown. Get your online tickets here!

Jack also talks about this year's highlights, including Jordan Peele's Nope and mentions analysing the film Pontypool, as part of a video essay. Pontypool, an unusual cultish zombie low budget flick is available to watch on YouTube.

If you like our work and wish to support you can make a one time or monthly donation here!

”A Lana Del Rey video as directed by the press manager for the Coalition for Families” Animator Nadia Barbu on Blonde

Abla Kandalaft, Nadia Barbu — 2023-03-31T14:02:17Z

"A Lana Del Rey video as directed by the press manager for the Coalition for Families". Animator Nadia Barbu joins us for scathing review of Blonde.

Nadia is an award winning animation filmmaker and illustrator. You can see her work here.

*Trigger warning* We discuss the film's depiction of abortion and miscarriage.

Nana Mensah on her work, African American directors & the Duplass school of filmmaking

Abla Kandalaft — 2022-12-09T21:27:02Z

We were delighted to chat with Nana Mensah, director, writer and actress. Her first feature film Queen Of Glory, in which she also stars, met with much critical acclaim and was praised for its astute, unsentimental and at times downright hilarious portrayal of a Ghanian family in the US and high achieving academic daughter. We chat about her foray into filmmaking, how she made use of available resources, recent work by emerging filmmakers and artists of African origin(s) in and she shares her experience on the relationship friends and family of Ghanaian and other African origins have with the US.

If you like our work and want to support us, please go to:
💷 ko-fi.com/mydy
Or Paypal: contact@mydylarama.org.uk

🎙️ Podcast

Subscribe for offers

🎧 mydy.link/apple

Nina Turner, Operation Varsity Blues & Black Student Debt

Abla Kandalaft, Coco Green — 2022-09-26T10:16:05Z

"What unites these documentaries is that they both believe in a meritocracy"

Summer break is officially over... In this episode, we discuss the problem of student debt in the US, the very specific ways it affects Black Americans and the elitism of higher education, through:
– The Intercept documentary Freedom Dreams: Black Women and the Student Debt Crisis, narrated by former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, a longtime ally of the growing debt abolition movement, which looks at the crippling student debt in the US specifically affects Black women. You can watch it HERE.

– The Netflix documentary Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal about the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal. The doc is a mix of re-eactements and real life interviews, and stars Matthew Modine as Rick Singer. It depicts the scandal surrounding the uncovering of a scam run by a private college councillor and “adviser” Rick Singer, who used bribes and doctored photographs to get rich people's kids into elite universities.

The issues we take with both docs is that they don't quite address some of the more fundamental, systemic inequalities, which mean that tackling the debt crisis in this way, or condemning Rick Singer's "side doors" into higher education just isn't enough.

Here is some additional reading on the subject that will hopefully help you gain more context:

Black Student Debt
7 findings that illustrate racial disparities in education
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2016/06/06/7-findings-that-illustrate-racial-disparities-in-education/

Degree Attainment for Black Adults: National and State Trends
https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Black-Degree-Attainment_FINAL.pdf

How Black Women Experience Student Debt
https://edtrust.org/resource/how-black-women-experience-student-debt/

Raising Undergraduate Degree Attainment Among Black Women and Men Takes on New Urgency Amid the Pandemic
https://edtrust.org/resource/national-and-state-degree-attainment-for-black-women-and-men/

Student loans, the racial wealth divide, and why we need full student debt cancellation
https://www.brookings.edu/research/student-loans-the-racial-wealth-divide-and-why-we-need-full-student-debt-cancellation/

The Student Debt Crisis? It's Infinitely Worse for Black Women
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/student-debt-black-women/

Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unequal-opportunity-race-and-education/

🎙️ mydy.link/podcast

💷 ko-fi.com/mydy

Subscribe for offers at:

mydy.link/subscribe

🎧 mydy.link/apple

Q&A with Philip Ilson, director of the London Short Film Festival

Abla Kandalaft — 2022-05-14T19:17:49Z

More Q&As! As Coco Green gets stuck in the final chapters of her PhD, we take a break from our usual format to publish Q&As and whatever audio output we fancy.

To mark our partnership with the Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival and celebrate short films, we had a chat with Philip Ilson, founder and director of the London Short Film Festival, and film programmer (for the BFI London Film Festival, amongst others) . We talk about film clubs in the 1990s, the festival's early days, programming freedom and short films to look out for.

Follow Philip on Twitter @philipilson and updates from the London Short Film Festival here.

If you like our work and want to support us, please go to:

ko-fi.com/mydy

Q&A with Rich Lucano, aka Phondupe

Abla Kandalaft, Eddy Durnan — 2022-04-29T15:26:17Z

We sent a bunch of questions to ambient music maestro Phondupe, who kindly recorded his answers. We thought we'd upload the audio as part of our podcast while we're on a short break from our usual format!

The written article is here.

Our Picks + Crooklyn

Abla Kandalaft, Akua Gyamfi, Coco Green — 2022-03-01T11:23:00Z

We're back!! We took a couple of months' break for me to get over the chaos of the first few weeks of having a newborn (my second - still chaotic!).

We're delighted to have Akua Gyamfi join us this week to discuss her work and her top picks. Akua is the founder of The British Blacklist . She's also the creator of the TBB Talks & Your Aunties Could Never Podcasts, as well as co-creator of The Circle Podcast & Web series.

Akua's top picks include the Prince Of Bel-Air reboot and the film she chose to discuss is Spike Lee's Crooklyn. We discuss the tone of the film, the depiction of familial relationships and female characters, the fate of daughter Troy, Black cultural output in the US and the UK, the prevalence of Black American popular culture. We also share anecdotes about MC Hammer and get schooled about what the Bay Area is!

Here's a useful link to Tonetalks, which is relevant to our discussion.

🎙️ mydy.link/podcast

Support us:

💷 ko-fi.com/mydy

Subscribe for offers at:

mydy.link/subscribe

🎧 mydy.link/apple

Our Picks + The Closer and Passing

Abla Kandalaft, Coco Green — 2021-11-23T13:59:34Z

We jumped straight into this week's picks:

Dave Chappelle's Netflix show The Closer - we discuss the various contentious issues that had been raised, the concept of punching down - or up - , taking offence, who holds power and critiques of whiteness.

Passing - Does Rebecca Hall's adaptation live up to the book? We discuss casting choices, the American specificity of the phenomenon of passing and the director's perspective on it.

Support us:

ko-fi.com/mydy

Subscribe for offers at:

mydy.link/subscribe

🎧 mydy.link/apple

Top Picks + Malignant: In praise of creature features

Abla Kandalaft, Coco Green, Eddy Durnan — 2021-10-27T16:26:14Z

After a couple of weeks' break for LFF, we are joined by guest Eddy Durnan, a Mydy subscriber, supporter, and a film buff with a long-standing career in visual effects to talk about (the somewhat maligned) Malignant.

A trip down memory lane brings up discussions around Dirty Dancing and Pretty Woman...

Support us:

💷 ko-fi.com/mydy

Subscribe for offers at:

mydy.link/subscribe
🎧 mydy.link/apple