ArteFact

The fiction of British-Maltese writer Fiorella De Maria depicts women in fierce struggle with the forces which undermine human dignity: yet they illustrate that God is not in the storm. He is in the silence, where we can hear Him, and furthermore, hear ourselves think. Above all, He is the safe harbor from which we are launched into a great, though sometimes painful adventure.

Lady Bird, 2018. Directed by Greta Gerwig.

Lighthouse of the Orcas (Lo Faro de las Orcas), 2017. Directed by Gerardo Olivares.

Clare Kipps, Sold for a Farthing (Frederick Muller, 1953).

Dunkirk, 2017. Directed by Christopher Nolan.

Wonder Woman, 2017. Directed by Patty Jenkins.

Logan, 2017. Directed by James Mangold

Looking back is a notoriously tricky business. Memories can entrap us, or themselves become distorted in our attempts to curate the past. In many ways, Kazuo Ishiguro's oeuvre is a study of human memory—falsified, true and otherwise. Writer Michalina Ratajczak traces the theme as it is woven into three of his novels, including his most recent, The Buried Giant.

In his acclaimed novel Silence, Shūsaku Endō questions the viability of the tree of Hellenized Christianity taking root in the “mud swamp” of Japan. What was once hospitable, fertile ground for the seed planted by St. Francis Xavier, becomes the land of a hunted and persecuted Christianity, as depicted in the story of two missionary priests and the community in their care.

As the Oscars pass Scorsese by, Mark Thomas thinks he knows why.