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Farihah Zaman
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FARIHAH ZAMAN is a graduate of the Film and Electronic Arts department at Bard College, where she was also the Film Editor for the critically acclaimed Bard Free Press. She began working in film as a Programmer for Film South Asia documentary film festival before moving to New York in 2005, where she worked as the Acquisitions Manager at independent film distribution company Magnolia Pictures. In 2008 she coordinated Independent Feature Production’s No Borders program, the only international co-production market in the US, before becoming Program Manager of The Flaherty Seminar. Farihah is currently a staff writer at film journal Reverse Shot, and serves on the Advisory Board of Film South Asia.

Blog Entries by Farihah Zaman

Holy Motors: Exclusive New Art

(0) Comments | Posted October 15, 2012 | 2:42 PM

Holy Motors (Indomina Releasing), which won the Prix de la Jeunesse at Cannes earlier this year and just came off a similarly successful run at the New York Film Festival, has unveiled new promo art for the film.

The first feature film from Leos Carax in nine years (he has...

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What Attending a Free Clinic Can Teach Every American About Health Care

(52) Comments | Posted July 2, 2012 | 11:12 AM

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In the wake of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's callous and very public proclamation on Fox News Sunday that providing health care coverage for 30 million uninsured Americans "is not the issue", it's disturbingly necessary to reiterate: the fact that 30 million Americans live...

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Top Five Films at BAMCinemaFest 2012

(0) Comments | Posted June 22, 2012 | 2:00 PM

Now in its fourth year, BAMcinemaFest kicked off last Wednesday with a screening of Mike Birbiglia's directorial debut, Sleepwalk with Me, which was hotly anticipated by the This American Life set, and a party in the lovely upper mezzanine that served street food like hot dogs and gyros, set to...

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Five Films To Support On Kickstarter

(4) Comments | Posted April 4, 2012 | 9:43 PM

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Now that Kickstarter has become a permanent fixture of the independent film community, it can be difficult to sift through all of the deserving projects on offer, though the website does help with various search criteria (such as "Popular this Week" or "Staff Picks")...

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True/False Film Festival 2012

(0) Comments | Posted March 29, 2012 | 10:03 PM

Although the True/False Film Festival, dedicated to documentary in the most creative and contentious sense of the word, is now in its ninth year and enjoying its highest attendance ever, to the first-time visitor it feels like a wonderful just-discovered secret. Below are 10 of my most exciting discoveries at...

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2012 Rendez-Vous With French Cinema: A Preview

(5) Comments | Posted March 2, 2012 | 2:57 PM

Last night marked the opening night of the 17th annual Rendez-Vous with French Cinema series, a veritable féte of contemporary French cinema presented by Film Society and Unifrance. For nearly two weeks, the cutely titled Rendez-Vous will take over screens at Walter Reade Theater, IFC Center, and BAMcinématek to bring...

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2012 Oscars: Are Docs Technically Getting the Shaft?

(6) Comments | Posted February 23, 2012 | 1:10 PM

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When Avatar was released in 2009, it was consistently and annoyingly referred to as a game-changer; even critics who derided the film's lack of narrative depth couldn't deny its impressive use of cutting edge technology to create an entirely new world rather than...

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Kill List: An Interview With Ben Wheatley

(0) Comments | Posted February 14, 2012 | 1:50 PM

Since it premiered at SXSW in 2011, word of British filmmaker Ben Wheatley's unconventional and unsettling horror flick Kill List has been zipping around the Internet, and the film opened in the U.S. at last on Friday, February 3rd. Kill List begins in the tense suburban home of Jay (Neil...

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Top Ten Movies of 2011

(10) Comments | Posted January 11, 2012 | 1:38 PM

2011 was the rare and beautiful year that was so packed with surprising and innovative films, it was seriously difficult to boil it down to just ten. It was a particularly fruitful year on the domestic front; beside the American films both independent (The Future, Take Shelter) and big-budget mainstream...

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Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Or, How Even Marital Sex Is a Punishable Offence

(34) Comments | Posted November 22, 2011 | 4:04 PM

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SPOILER ALERT:

I could never get into the whole Twilight thing, and not because I'm impervious to the charms of youth-oriented fantasy and sci-fi. Harry Potter? Magical. Hunger Games? I'm ravenous for more. Twilight? A glorified dime store novel with low...

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SXSW 2011 Dispatch Two: Coming of Age to a Theater Near You

(0) Comments | Posted March 30, 2011 | 6:45 PM

A good character arc with a life-changing event and a hint of nostalgia can be a powerful thing, regardless of how mediocre the film that enables it may be. Coming-of-age films generally blossom from the crossroads of youth and adulthood, so the SXSW Film Festival, with its tradition of supporting...

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SXSW 2011 Dispatch One: Too Many People Having Too Much Fun

(0) Comments | Posted March 24, 2011 | 10:55 AM

The nice man with the cowboy hat and the stacks of beers was asking me if I smoke. Well, when you're in a limo in Texas with Longhorn antlers on the hood and a furry zebra-print interior there is really only one appropriate answer to that question. It was SXSW-eve...

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Top Ten Movies of 2010

(17) Comments | Posted January 7, 2011 | 3:04 PM

This past year saw many critics complaining about the lack of good film out there, but with a little digging, I found a lot to love. From old masters to first time filmmakers, tiny documentaries to wide release narratives, films both American and international, click through the slideshow to see...

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Turning a Human Being into a Human Being: FOUR LIONS Review and Interview with Chris Morris

(0) Comments | Posted November 5, 2010 | 11:16 PM

As the promotional materials for Four Lions will express to anyone willing to take a gander, the film is seriously funny - and eager to prove it. Crowning the absurdist image of a crow with a bomb strapped to its tiny, feathered chest on the poster is a...

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11/4/08: An Interview With Jeff Deutchman

(0) Comments | Posted November 2, 2010 | 11:22 AM

In 2008, IFC acquisitions executive Jeff Deutchman curated dozens of first-person accounts of the historic election of Barack Obama to make his film 11/4/08, and a forward-thinking interactive website which allows people to upload, access, and edit related footage. In honor of the midterm elections, I talked with...

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2010 Fantastic Fest #4: Interview With Tim League

(0) Comments | Posted October 26, 2010 | 8:24 AM

Somewhere between a visit to the shooting range and floating down Ladybird Lake on a Viking Boat Party, I realized that Fantastic Fest is not your average festival experience. I sat down with Austin film fixture Tim League, who launched the festival with wife Karrie, to talk about their special...

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2010 Fantastic Fest #3: All Creatures Great and Small; Zombies, Vampires, and Terrible Human Beings

(6) Comments | Posted October 21, 2010 | 5:01 PM

When it comes to monster movies, novelty is not the be-all end-all; there is always room for a splashy new death or a witty recontextualization, but there are benefits to sticking to the formula. There are certain rules -- zombies rely on numbers rather than speed, vampires must be staked...

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2010 Fantastic Fest #2: Good Movies, Stupid Plots

(6) Comments | Posted October 12, 2010 | 1:07 PM

What does Ryan Reynolds have in common with a rubber tire? A promising acting career and a nose for risky but rewarding roles -- not, I hope, homicidal tendencies.

After ten solid minutes of watching Ryan Reynolds scream and writhe around in a box in the just-released thriller Buried...

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2010 Fantastic Fest #1: Remakes -- Did We Let the Right One In?

(7) Comments | Posted October 9, 2010 | 2:58 PM

I am sitting in Austin's Paramount Theater, a former opera house and one of the most beautiful Classic Revival venues in the country, holding a test tube full of green liquid I can only assume (and hope) is Jell-O and very strong booze, watching several grown men in Viking costumes...

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SXSW 2010: Land of the Rising Fun

(0) Comments | Posted March 18, 2010 | 1:22 PM

The first time I walked into the Alamo Drafthouse, I really had no idea what I was in for. I was a fresh-out-of-college intern at a distribution company, paying my own way to the South by Southwest Film Festival on a whim, and decided to book it directly from the...

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