20. PREDATORS, dir. DAVID OSIT

19. VIỆT AND NAM, dir. MINH QUÝ TRƯƠNG

18. BLUE SUN PALACE, dir. CONSTANCE TSANG

17. MISERICORDIA, dir. ALAIN GUIRAUDIE

16. MAGELLAN, dir. LAV DIAZ

15. ENDLESS COOKIE, dir. PETER SCRIVER and SETH SCRIVER

14. AFTERNOONS OF SOLITUDE, dir. ALBERT SERRA

13. WEAPONS, dir. ZACH CREGGER

12. CAUGHT BY THE TIDES, dir. JIA ZHANG-KE

Mayor | David Osit | 2020

Predators David Osit USA, 2025 ★★ the best thing I can say about this is that I appreciate the fact that the filmmaker himself is a victim of the crimes depicted, that's always a plus. that the end result is a lot of questions (well maybe not a lot) asked time and time again, that go unanswered, weakens the result. he knows the answers, we know the answers, but we also know that we're not getting them anyway, why keep going? a "gotcha" moment?

that reality tv exists only for entertainment is a truth known from the beginning, probably a consensus reached within minutes of the first ever "reality tv" content ever aired. what makes this different? is it the nature of the crimes? is it the exploitability* of the subjects on screen? everything is bad. to point things out here and there to make you question everything but when you yourself get questioned and your reply is a "well you tell me" is not great thought-provoking material.

the last few minutes are too perfectly tied together. feels more like patting oneself in the back, complete with a "you get everything you want?" and looking at the camera. it's only missing the finger-tenting and the turtleneck.

The scariest films I saw at this year’s Overlook Film Festival featured none of the ghouls, ghosts, goblins, demons, and vampires that typically populate the screen at the horror-leaning genre fest. I was mostly scared by the dark-sided media consumption habits of my fellow human beings, some of whom were in the audience of the very same theater as me. Personally, I can watch supernatural evil…