Happy New Year readers, and welcome to The Spread’s first issue for 2016! 2015 was a busy and important year for Cinema Jam and beyond, and I hope 2016 will bring as many surprises. That’s why this 26th issue of our magazine is dedicated to new horizons - to the places 2015 has led us and to where we can journey from there in the year ahead.
As with some of the articles in our new issue, 2015’s final Jam Session celebrated the Best of Cinema Jam, bringing together Jammers for a selection of the year’s best Jammer-directed films and a healthy dose of holiday cheer. January will be back to business as usual, with our Jam Session being held at the Corbet Place Bar & Lounge in Shoreditch on January 19th.
In The Spread we’ve also got a selection of the best of 2015, with Marlies Janssens providing her rundown of the year’s best films and performances, and a top 10 list from myself that explores a year of favorites from Blackhat to Brooklyn. We’ve also shared a countdown of the greatest moments for women in film in 2015 by Raindance’s Baptiste Charles, and also from Raindance, we’ve got an intriguing argument against the first-time director bias by Mark Stirton. Agree or not, it’s a fascinating perspective on the issue.
To wrap up our look back at the year, we’ve got reviews of some new films, including my take on the beautiful but flawed In the Heart of the Sea and Lynn Klein’s analysis of an early 2016 release, Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster. Thomas Humphrey also introduces us to a strong new British short, Stutterer, which has made it onto the Oscar shortlist for Best Live Action Short. I’ll be rooting for it when nominations are announced.
On the interview side, we chat with two Jammers who featured at our Best of Cinema Jam 2015 event: Love is Blind director Dan Hodgson, and Seahorse director Daniel Montanarini, our Jammer of the Month. Finally, Thomas Humphrey talks with Ariel Kleiman, the promising young Australian director of Partisan.
To wrap up our issue, I’ve done a checklist of all the highly anticipated films coming out in 2016, with a few lesser-known upcoming movies thrown in for good measure. I also give some predictions on what we can expect from these new films.
Hope you enjoy our new issue, and here’s to a great 2016!
