There is a lot to look forward to in the next few months at Seventh Row — from an exciting range of expansive Special Issues to in-depth analysis of some of our favourite actors; from essays to film festival coverage and eBooks.
Special Issues
On Chesil Beach – June
A Seventh Row favourite since Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney and Associate Editor Orla Smith saw it on last year’s festival circuit, this Ian McEwan adaptation has proven divisive. With a quiet May release, the film is flying under the radar, but we want to raise its profile. With eleven articles, our On Chesil Beach Special Issue will be our largest, most comprehensive issue yet.
Unsane – June
Earlier this year, Steven Soderbergh’s Unsane wowed the whole team at 7R. Because we each felt we had a lot to say about the film, we decided to return to it in June. This Special Issue will feature an interview with emerging Production Designer April Lasky and an essay by each of the 7R editors.
Leave No Trace – July
Debra Granik’s latest film was one of Alex’s highlights at Sundance in January: the beautiful but harsh, moving yet unsentimental tale of a peculiar father-daughter relationship, it is extremely effective but made on a very small budget. This issue will again feature exciting interviews with the film’s core creative team talking about the specific, concrete aspects of their jobs — a must for aspiring filmmakers. Join us as we learn more about the reality of making such a film.
Feminist horror films – November
A first in 7R history, this Special Issue will centre on films that have already been released but which we believe deserve to be written about again and again. Stay tuned for this most exciting post-Halloween gorefest.
Familiar Faces
A sibling of our Bright Young Things series, Familiar Faces takes a look at the careers of established actors we admire.
Daniel Day-Lewis – coming soon
The talent of this shape-shifting actor is so great, and so widely accepted, that it seems almost absurd to talk about it in any sort of detail. But in this silence, Daniel Day Lewis seems to have gained the misguided, simplistic, and gimmicky image of the ‘method actor’ — one who goes to great lengths to become as similar as his characters as it is possible, long before shooting actually starts. Writing for 7R for the first time, Matthew D. Rodrigues lays down the actual, concrete ways in which Daniel Day Lewis has always been, with or without such intensive and literal immersion into his roles, an incredibly expressive and subtle performer.
Claire Foy – June
For our Special Issue on Unsane, we’ll be publishing a career profile on the film’s star, Claire Foy. Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney first discovered and fell in love with Foy when the actress played Anne Boleyn in the TV show Wolf Hall. This piece finds common threads in Foy’s career, which began with the titular role in the Charles Dickens adaptation Little Dorrit all the way through to her role as Queen Elizabeth II in hit TV series The Crown.
Tessa Thompson – July
Ever since her breakout turn in Dear White People, it’s been clear that Tessa Thompson is a star. And yet, she hasn’t been receiving parts of the calibre she deserves. With her upcoming supporting role in Sorry to Bother You, we want to shine a light on why Thompson has the talent and immense charisma to take the lead.
Ben Foster – July
For our Special Issue on Leave No Trace, we’ll publish a career retrospective on the work of unsung character actor Ben Foster. He got his start as a teenager on the TV show Flash Forward (shot in Toronto!) in the mid-1990s, which was when Alex became a fan. Then, he experimented with the role of the teen hearthrob (Get Over It, X-Men: The Last Stand), and got his big break in James Mangold’s remake of the western 3:10 to Yuma. He’s since done a series of quiet, thoughtful roles in indie films (The Messenger and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) alongside bigger, louder studio pictures (Hell or High Water, Inferno).
Domhnall Gleeson – August
Domnhall Gleeson’s second collaboration with director Lenny Abrahamson (Frank), The Little Stranger, is set to open at the end of August. To celebrate the film’s release, we’ll be dedicated an essay to the career of one of the best currently working character actors. Equally adept at comedy, drama, and stylized performances, Gleeson is regularly the MVP of every project he’s in and has the tendency to disappear into his characters. We’ve previously looked at his work in Frank and Ex Machina.
Timothée Chalamet – October
Timothée Chalamet announced himself to the world last year with his breakout turn in Call Me by Your Name, shooting him from the unknown to an Oscar nomination. But where will he go from here? On the release of Chalamet’s awards hopeful Beautiful Boy, we will be exploring the promise he showed in early roles and looking forward to what the future might hold for the young prodigy.
Chloë Grace Moretz – November
At just 21, Chloë Grace Moretz is already an established name in Hollywood, and a divisive one at that. Disturbingly over-sexualised from a young age and critically sneered at as she grew older, Moretz’s star image says a lot about the way the public treats young actresses. We’re fascinated by how her image will develop this year, in the wake of an outstanding career-best turn in The Miseducation of Cameron Post and her upcoming role in Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria.
Essays
The aesthetics of environmental docs
Some of the best documentaries of 2018 thus far have addressed environmental issues, including Anote’s Ark and Inventing Tomorrow. These docs are a far cry, in content and aesthetics, from the powerpoint presentation of An Inconvenient Truth, which launched the genre into the mainstream. The best and most successful environmental docs link people’s personal stories to the land and drop us into the world when environmental destruction is happening. We’ll take a look at some of the highlights from this genre in 2018, including Grit and HotDocs winner The Wind of Swabia.
Film Festivals
Cannes 2018
The Cannes Film Festival was especially rich in discoveries and talent this year, and you can expect many more interviews and reviews from Elena Lazic in the upcoming weeks.
HotDocs 2018
There is still more coverage to come in the next few weeks from HotDocs, North America’s biggest documentary film festival, which was held in Toronto in May.
TIFF 2018
In September, we will of course be back in Toronto for TIFF! This festival is great for seeing, before anyone else, the films that will then compete at the Oscars just a few months later; but it is also a great place to discover gems of independent and art house cinema. Expect even more interviews than we published last year.
eBooks
Female Gender Roles
One of the projects we are the most excited about is our eBook compiling some of our best articles about films that deal with female gender roles, in all their implications. From ‘motherhood’ to ‘bodies,’ ‘marriage,’ ‘politics,’ and more — articles which deal with distinct but interconnected topics will be put together and in conversation with each other, to offer a nuanced and complex portrait of the representation of women on screen.
Contemporary Canadian Cinema
The exciting revival of Canadian Cinema in recent years has become undeniable, and we are naturally here for it. We’ve been covering these films from fresh Canadian voices for a while, and it is only natural that we would put all these articles together in one handy eBook.
… and much more! This is only a sample of things to come at 7R — you can expect even more articles, reviews, and interviews than those listed here in the next few months.
