In Film/TVSpotlight

IFFBoston Preview Part III: Colorful dogs, whistleblowers, and awkward karate

By Nick Johnstonon
Photo Credit: Bleecker Street

If you're a Boston-based cinephile, this is undoubtedly one of the most exciting times of the year for you, as the Independent Film Festival Boston has returned with one of their strongest line-ups ever. Running from April 24 through May 1 at the Brattle, Somerville and Coolidge Corner Theatres, there's so many great movies showing at this year's festival that we've had to split our preview up into three parts. We published our first preview on Tuesday, covering the first few days of the festival's line-up, and our second preview on Wednesday, covering the weekend offerings. Finally, here are some choice cuts from the last three days of the festival's programming. Tickets and more information are available at the IFFBoston website.

Prev5 of 6Next
Swipe or use your ← → (arrow) keys

The Art of Self-Defense

Tuesday, April 30 at 9:30 p.m. at the Coolidge Corner Theatre

We fell head-over-heels for director Riley Stearns’ latest feature when we saw it at SXSW back in March, and we have a weird feeling that you might too. A Lanthimosian comedy of masculine errors, the film tells the story of a meek young man (Jesse Eisenberg), whose life is changed when he’s assaulted by a motorcycle gang one evening while walking home. He decides to change his life and learn how to protect himself, and so he enlists at a dojo run by an intense sensei (Alessandro Nivola) who is hiding some dark secrets of his own. This is an incredibly funny film, though it’s never slight. We also highly recommend that you check out Stearns’ first feature, the cult thriller Faults, before you check this film out, mainly just so you can understand what a tonal departure this is for the director, but all theatergoers might find something they’ll love here. 

Prev5 of 6Next
Swipe or use your ← → (arrow) keys

© 2024 Vanyaland. All rights reserved. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with prior written permission of Vanyaland.

FOLLOW VANYALAND