SIFF 2025 Spotlight: A Chat with Monarch City Director Titus Richard
NadaMucho.com Film Critic Tim Basaraba caught Monarch City at this year’s 2025 Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF). Here’s his chat with director Titus Richard. – Editor
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Color Book at SIFF: C’Mon A24, C’Mon Neon
It is a journalistic risk to start a review for a current film by immediately bringing up a film from the past as a comparison. It could be perceived as labeling the current film as a mere homage—or, even worse, a copycat of its predecessor. So let me get this out of the way: Color Book (2025), the first feature-length film from David Fortune, is not an homage or copycat of my favorite film of 2021.
Hovering Over Heartache in Monarch City
The first feature-length film from Titus Richard is a meandering melodrama that offers little exposition. Think the near-documentary realism of Sean Baker in Starlet (2012) and Tangerine (2015), mixed with the tone-poem style of Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2011) and Knight of Cups (2015).
Not THAT Fly Me to the Moon. The good one.
但願人長久 (Fly Me to the Moon) (2025)Directed by Sasha ChukStarring Wu Kang-ren, Carmen Chou and Sasha Chuk As seen at the 51st annual Seattle International Film Festival Optimum Immersion, a first-time…
The Balconettes: Not Your Mother’s Rear Window
The incredible actress who played Marianne in Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) is also a director — a fact I didn’t learn until after watching The Balconettes (2024) at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival. Chalk that up to my usual policy of going into movies cold. And honestly, it paid off.
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