{"id":25883,"date":"2017-07-30T09:08:27","date_gmt":"2017-07-30T13:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=25883"},"modified":"2020-07-29T11:10:35","modified_gmt":"2020-07-29T15:10:35","slug":"m-f-a-2017-fantasia-international-film-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2017\/07\/30\/m-f-a-2017-fantasia-international-film-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"M.F.A. (2017) [Fantasia International Film Festival]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>An art student has a switch in her painting style and inspiration following the accidental death of her rapist.\u00a0 Following this, she paints more and more inspired pieces and is inspired to do something about other college rapists.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

M.F.A. is a rape-revenge film written by Leah McKendrick and directed by Natalia Leite that takes a different route to the revenge and violence that the sub-genre usually offers.\u00a0 M.F.A. is built and feels more like a regular drama mixed with a few murders, almost slasher in style, except the way these are mixed makes it work.\u00a0 The film takes the point of view of women in the current culture, which is often dubbed rape culture, where they are blamed or found to have put themselves at risk then they report a rape while the accused rapist often gets away with just a slap on the wrist.\u00a0 The film here shows this from the point of view of one victim mainly and also from the point of view a few others that help bring the point home.\u00a0 It\u2019s a film with a message but not one that rams it down the public\u2019s throat necessarily.\u00a0 The story told here is one much too familiar to many women as 1 in 6 women has been a victim of attempted or completed rape (a quick web search will give many more stunning and scary statistics).\u00a0 The film takes an approach to it that may be uncomfortable to many as it shows a few rape sequences in rather violent details, but these are necessary to get the point across as there are still far too many deniers of this issue.\u00a0 Both the writer and director being women helped bring a female gaze on the issue and on the revenge angle of the story.<\/p>\n

Considering the story and content of the film, casting was very important.\u00a0 In the lead part of Noelle is Francesca Eastwood who here sports a look far from her usual blonde locks with a drastically darker black do which brings the emphasis on her big green eyes.\u00a0 These eyes are very important in the film as she passes a lot of her emotions through them, connecting with the audience with sometimes just one look.\u00a0 Her performance goes through many changes throughout the film which she shows through how she carries herself and presents herself.\u00a0 This is one of those performances that should make people pay attention to the actress as she is amazing here.\u00a0 Also giving a great performance is Leah McKendricks as Skye.\u00a0 Here McKendrick gives a more emotional performance, one that will pull at the viewer unless they have a heart of stone.\u00a0 She\u2019s good counterbalance to Eastwood as she seems to be evolving in the opposite emotional direction.\u00a0 The other strong female performance is Jess Nurse as Lindsey.\u00a0 Her performance is also emotional and it rounds out the story very well.\u00a0 Of course, these are just 3 of the performances.\u00a0 Clifton Collins Jr. and Peter Vack also give good performance as does most of the rest of the cast.<\/p>\n

M.F.A. is one of those movies that looks good and sounds good as well but is all about the story and how the performances.\u00a0 The film depends on these performances, mainly Francesca Eastwood\u2019s to pass an important message, one that here is taken in the rape-revenge direction but is no less important as many women (and men) go through similar rape situations as those portrayed in the film, something that seems to be kept silent on campuses to the advantage of the rapists who get away almost scott-free, something the film reminds the viewer is outrageous and angering.\u00a0 The way the film goes at it is entertaining which keeps the viewer watching and engaged, thus creating a successful message film.<\/p>\n

Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 13th to August 2nd.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An art student has a switch in her painting style and inspiration following the accidental death of her rapist.\u00a0 Following this, she paints more and more inspired pieces and is inspired to do something about other college rapists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2497,1284,12],"tags":[703,820,840,1013,1087],"class_list":["post-25883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasia-fest","category-festivalsevents","category-movie-reviews","tag-mystery","tag-rape","tag-revenge","tag-suspense","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25885,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25883\/revisions\/25885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}