Muna otaru biography sampler
Toronto Film Festival: ‘Keeping Room’ a window into women, Civil War
Reporting from Toronto — The new film “The Keeping Room” opens with a quotation from Civil War Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, who declares, “War is cruelty ... the crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.” The story confirms the idea by opening with violent, disturbing depictions of humans acting inhumanely to other humans, but then proceeds to defy it by showing its main characters rising to the challenges of extraordinary situations to show their best selves.
As the Civil War nears its end, Augusta (Brit Marling in another fine performance), her younger sister Louise (Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld) and their family slave Mad (discovery Muna Otaru) are on a remote farm in the Carolinas trying to just wait things out, having already survived living on their own for some time. A pair of drifting soldiers (Sam Worthington, Kyle Soller) possibly in advance of many more men, suddenly put the three women under siege, pushing them to their limits to find newfound inner strengths.
“The Keeping Room,” directed by Daniel Barber, has its world premiere Monday as part of the Toronto International Film Festival and comes into the festival looking for distribution.
At a time when the lack of both female stories onscreen and female writers and directors to put them there has become an increasingly talked-about issue, “The Keeping Room” feels most of all like an announcement of debut screenwriter Julia Hart as a name worth scanning the credits for.
Though her father is screenwriter Jim Hart, who worked on the scripts for such films as “Hook,” “Contact” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” and her brother Jake Hart is a screenwriter as well, Julia Hart first went into teaching high school English for some eight years before finally turning to the family business.
Hart was visiting at a friend’s old farmhouse in the South and after hearing of some Civil War-era human skeletons discovered buried on the
5/10
Visually intriguing with unexpected twists, although poorly executed.
Replace (2016) has been on my watch list ever since the official poster came out, what motivated me to watch the film was the body horror genre and the potential this film had. I knew almost nothing about this film, other than the IMDb bio and the mixed reviews. I recently found the film on DVD in HMV without a price-tag. When I sat down and watched the film I was instantly stunned by the introduction, however I quickly found myself foreseeing a disaster after the introduction. What happens when two powerhouses sit down to challenge each other and their own hardbound ideas? A dialogue that sees tradition squaring off against transformation, shaped by individuality and a collective expression. We asked two fashion photographers—Delali Ayivi and Bhumika Sharma—to let us peek behind the curtain and discover more about their unique processes. Ayivi and Sharma weigh in on the responsibility that image makers bear when charged with documenting craft and community. Moving the cultural needle Bhumika Sharma: My love for photography began during my fashion communication studies, but the pandemic shifted my perspective. Stuck at home, I questioned my role in the industry and slowly began to explore documentary and lifestyle photography. I also travelled a lot, especially in India, where each state has a unique culture. These experiences helped me see fashion as a part of life’s layers. It’s not just about the garment but about the people, the environment and the culture behind it, and that’s what I bring to my shoots. I once used a lungi in a fashion shoot, where I paired it with a Prada Madras print for a blend of Indian culture and global fashion. Moments like that keep me inspired. Delali Ayivi: Fashion photography for me is more than capturing an image; it’s about creating a dialogue, about storytelling, history and purpose. My work explores the intersections of belonging, identity and community, whether through my personal projects or broader cultural narratives. But photography wasn’t something I studied formally, it was self-taught. What solidified my path was discovering my great-grandfather’s work. He was Togo’s first photographer. Seeing how he portrayed our people through his lens—especially compared to the colonial imagery of the time—made me realise the political power of the medium. There’s something about how quickly images can communicate a story that text often can’t. BEYOND THE LENS: Ayivi explores the intersecti [Male] Show yourself. [Augusta] Get inside. Go get inside now. [Mad] Wake up. [Augusta] Louise wake up. What's going on? We got men here. They're soldiers. Yankees. How do you know that? [Male] You shot the dog. (muffled singing) ♫ Now there's no more drink ♫ Then there's no more dog ♫ You only have his gun (muffled singing) Oh my (muffled talking). It is downstairs in one of the drawers. I'm gonna go get it and come back. Let's get to the keeping room. We ain't leaving this house. Too many doors and windows. We're gonna fight. [Louise] I don't wanna fight. We can hide. They don't know we're here. I just their dog. They're gonna come looking. How do you know what dog (mumbles) to a Yankee? Because they followed me. Don't leave us. Gusta. You want them up here? No. Then I gotta go down.
The execution of Replace is very amateur and bombastic, mainly the music choices, sound editing and the editing. The music was quite hyperbolized attempting its hardest to provoke any emotion that's intended, the problem is that the development for this film is lacking, so the soundtrack appears as bombastic. The sound editing was very baffling, you could clearly tell when a line was dubbed, however voices of the actors would echo randomly for no reason, the sound editing was very inconsistent and became a massive distraction.
The editing for this film is perhaps the worst aspect, the editing really damages the film stylistically. This film is utterly confused on what style it intends to illustrate, this is conveyed through the complete switch of style of music, initially the soundtrack choice is synthetic, although later the soundtrack becomes orchestral, with very stock violins and bombastic motifs utilised to force the emotion down your throat. The editing is also a problem due to its tendency to flicker uncontrollably. At times you have no idea on what's happening.
In terms of what this film accomplishes, the twists and gore effects are superbly done. The gore effects seem very organic, although these gore effects are juxtaposed by the unphased performance of the main character, the pain is barely felt.
As a whole, Replace is a student film that has some great cinematography a Brit Marling and Hailee Steinfeld Prepare for Battle in The Keeping Room