writer
New York
Joined April 2009
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Rafaela Bassili retweeted
From @FilmFestLocarno's Critics Academy, letters exchanged between @sallyjaygorce, Vedant Srinivas and Alyssandra Maxine contour what was on screen—broken relations, recalcitrant presences—with their experiences of the festival beyond the frame.
mubi.com/en/notebook/posts/i…
Rafaela Bassili retweeted
"Both the classic biopic and the hypersanitized concert film are products of the IP money-making machine, using nostalgia and built-in audiences to ensure box office revenue and subscription engagement at home. They tend to reiterate the pop-star’s established mythos, whereas more recent approaches set out to challenge it by asking: How does a pop-star get made?"
Rafaela Bassili (@sallyjaygorce) writes on cinema and the story of pop-star personas: mubi.com/notebook/posts/pop-…
The year of the pop star movie:
Rafaela Bassili (@sallyjaygorce) writes on cinema's potential to uncover the pop star’s persona construction, from David Lowery's MOTHER MARY to Aidan Zamiri's THE MOMENT. mubi.com/en/notebook/posts/p…
Had hoped to share this in light of Brazil being one step closer to the hexa… but as my mom would say, losing is an inevitable part of the game. So happy to be among incredible company in this excellent issue of Golden Goal 💚💛
Brazilian football at the precipice goldengoal.world/2026/07/05/…
Rafaela Bassili retweeted
I loved this essay on Brazilian politics, culture and the nation's dream of finally winning the Hexa by @sallyjaygorce
Brazilian football at the precipice goldengoal.world/2026/07/05/…
The Love Story finale is a showcase for every questionable narrative instinct put to use throughout the season. More thoughts here:
Carolyn and John’s doomed flight to Martha’s Vineyard was set up as the grand finale from the very first minute of the show, so what explanation is there to drag this ending out for nearly 30 minutes after the plane hits a storm? vulture.com/article/love-sto…
Rafaela Bassili retweeted
"Though it has the force and scope of myth, it’s impossible to extract from it any neat lessons, or to answer with any confidence a simple question: What is Wuthering Heights about? Where Hollywood is concerned, Wuthering Heights is about love..."
Rafaela Bassili (@sallyjaygorce) writes on adaptations of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel, from William Wyler's WUTHERING HEIGHTS to Emerald Fennell's "WUTHERING HEIGHTS": mubi.com/notebook/posts/driv…
Rafaela Bassili retweeted
"The visual language of horror films is everywhere in The Secret Agent, and this, too, is an anthropophagic move: [Kleber] Mendonça Filho transposes the tropes of the American genre film to a place that operates, day in and day out, according to the logic of horror..."
Revisit Rafaela Bassili (@sallyjaygorce) on THE SECRET AGENT: mubi.com/notebook/posts/what…
Rafaela Bassili retweeted
Recently on @mubinotebook:
🔹 @danielkasman surveys @berlinale filmmakers on key moments from their new films
🔹 @adriancurry shares personal reflections on the posters of Béla Tarr; Katherine Franco (@kaththegr8) on Francisco Lezama, Martín Rejtman, and El Pampero Cine; Elissa Suh (@oddbarnacles) writes on feral eating in feminist cinema; @mattlloydturner traces a history of the cutscene; Rafaela Bassili (@sallyjaygorce) dives into adaptations of Emily Brontë’s WUTHERING HEIGHTS
🔹 Elena Lazic (@elazic) sits down with Simón Mesa Soto to discuss A POET; Adam Nayman (@brofromanother) talks with NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE director Matt Johnson; @mattlloydturner speaks with director Ross McElwee about his latest documentary REMAKE
(Pictured film: Martin Scorsese’s THE WOLF OF WALL STREET)
Rafaela Bassili retweeted
"The quotes around the title remind the viewer that the filmmaker is putting herself at a remove from her own material. Even the sex... absent of any darkness or longing, is vanilla."
Rafaela Bassili (@sallyjaygorce) on Emerald Fennell's WUTHERING HEIGHTS.mubi.com/en/notebook/posts/d…
Now up on @mubinotebook, my long-brewing consideration of Wuthering Heights across the centuries & Emerald Fennell’s, uh, thing… 🥀
I wrote about Suburban Fury, a strange, compelling documentary about Sara Jane Moore, who attempted to kill Gerald Ford in 1975. Over at @DefectorMedia: defector.com/suburban-fury-i…
Rafaela Bassili retweeted
Ironically, in attempting to argue for Jane Birkin as a secret visionary, a new biography neglects what about her life was most interesting, writes @sallyjaygorce: theatln.tc/a80a8GsP
For @TheAtlantic, I reviewed the new Jane Birkin biography. She was an extraordinary woman who lived a varied, intense, messy life; the book can't always make sense of it. theatlantic.com/culture/2025…
Rafaela Bassili retweeted
In arguing for Jane Birkin as a secret visionary, a new biography ironically neglects the most interesting thing about her life, @sallyjaygorce writes: theatlantic.com/culture/2025…
Rafaela Bassili retweeted
"It was damned if you do, damned if you don’t; or, as we’d say in Brazil, If you run, the beast will catch you; if you stay, the beast will eat you."
Rafaela Bassili (@sallyjaygorce) writes on the absurdity and horror peculiar to Brazil captured in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s paranoid thriller THE SECRET AGENT: mubi.com/notebook/posts/what…
Rafaela Bassili retweeted
Que país é esse?
Rafaela Bassili (@sallyjaygorce) writes on Kleber Mendonça Filho’s THE SECRET AGENT, a film that "anthropophagizes the American paranoid thrillers of the 1970s to make something funny, sad, grotesque, beautiful, and truly Brazilian." mubi.com/en/notebook/posts/w…
The Secret Agent opens today! When I watched it at @TheNYFF I thought it was suco de Brasil: KMF squeezed the juice out of the country and made a paranoid thriller of the essence. On @mubinotebook, my tour thru Brazilian history, culture, film, etc: mubi.com/en/notebook/posts/w…