My Memory Is Full of Ghosts review – deeply moving visual hymn for the bombed-out Syrian city of Homs

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Anas Zawahri’s documentary lays heart-wrenching testimony over languorous shots of bullet-ridden ruins and deserted streets The western Syrian city of Homs is only a husk of its former self. Previously a major industrial centre, the region became a key battleground between 2011 and 2014, for Bashar al-Assad’s army and rebel forces. Amid the immense bloodshed, hundreds of thousands of civilians were either displaced or trapped inside their own homes. Filmed in the summer of 2023, this deeply moving documentary from Palestinian-born and Syria-based film-maker Anas Zawahri maps out the collective trauma and sorrow that continue to linger, even after the shooting has stopped. Unfolding in languorous, largely static shots of bombed rubble, hollowed-out buildings, and deserted streets, the film lays bare the startling extent of wartime brutality. A sense of stillness and stagnancy hangs in the air, and almost every wall is riddled with bullet holes, urban scars that mirror the psychological ...
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Literary satire American Fiction takes Toronto film festival’s top award

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Cord Jefferson’s story of a novelist (Jeffrey Wright) grappling with the publishing industry’s expectations of black writers is now practically guaranteed serious Oscar consideration

American Fiction, the literary satire starring Jeffrey Wright as a novelist grappling with the publishing industry’s expectations of black writers, has won the Toronto international film festival’s influential People’s Choice award, a result that practically guarantees it serious Oscar consideration and contention for major awards.

Described by the Guardian as “hilarious and withering”, American Fiction triumphed over pre-festival favourites such as Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers and Hayao Miyazaki’s final film The Boy and the Heron, which were named the runners-up. It is written and directed by Cord Jefferson, a credited writer on TV shows including The Good Place, Watchmen and Station Eleven, and now making his feature directing debut.

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