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The IndieWeb Movie Club

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I know this is a book blog, but this monthly movie club celebrating film and the independent web involves writing, so it counts, doesn't it? My site, my allowances!

Table Of Contents

How It Works

At each month's beginning, a host announces their film. After watching, participants write posts on their sites. When you publish your post, you notify the host!

At the month's end, the host compiles submissions, creating a collection of perspectives. Starting in 2026, there's also a monthly Zoom call to discuss the current pick and movies.

To participate, learn more, or host, visit the IndieWeb Movie Club's wiki page.

Movie List

Below is a running list of all editions, organized by month and year. Each entry links to the host's roundup post where you can explore all the wonderful submissions.

2026

2026

2025

2025

2024

2024

Host Interviews

Each month, if the hosts have the capacity, I ask them the following five questions about the film they chose. I love learning about how hosts think about their movie picks!

  1. What's a memory or feeling this film brings up for you?
  2. If you could pair this film with a meal, what would you serve?
  3. What scene or moment would you love to hear other people's takes on?
  4. Who in your life would you most want to watch this with, and why?
  5. What's a film you almost picked instead, and what tipped the scales?

Listed below are their responses, and what month and year they hosted.

Nov 2024: Sara Jakša

Nov 2024: Sara Jakša

In November 2024, Sara Jakša selected Vsi proti vsem / All Against All (2019) as the film. Sara answered custom questions.

Q1: Finding an internationally accessible Slovenian film took work! Do you think that burden should fall on individuals, or is there a structural fix that'd make a difference?

No structural fix is going to make people watch the movies that they don't have interest in watching them.

Even though it is a Croatian and not a Slovenian movie, let me take the example of Svadba, since it is currently in the cinema. The biggest grossing Croatian movie ever (and the biggest grossing in Croatia excluding Titanic). A comedy and romantic comedy. It is a very fun and easy movie to watch and I have greatly enjoyed it. It is made to be enjoyable by the masses. Here is a trailer with the English subtitles. It is a good indication of the tone and comedy. It is in the cinema currently in Austria, Germany, Great Britain USA and Australia. I doubt many people in the English speaking world are going to go and watch it, unless they are already having a connection to the Balkans.

Why would they?

In Psycho Therapy one of the characters puts the entire Balkan as 'you are all the same'. Which is probably how people here see us. That type of person will not understand the tension of the Croatian and Serbian couple marrying.

That's fine. All the media created is created within the certain culture. It should be that way. Very rare media can afford to try and pander to the other cultures and I have seen more cases when it is not done well than the reverse.

I want less movies that is going to be watchable to everybody.

It's not like countries themselves are not working on it. The Indian embassy, Czech embassy, French embassy (and French companies), Swiss embassy, Japanese embassy, German embassy and probably many more all support the movie showings here locally. It is part of the diplomacy and cross-cultural relationships.

On the structural level, it is always easier when I can simply share the link to the movie for people to watch. I think Slovenian is not that bad in this regard, as we do have the Slovenian Movie Database. While not every Slovenian movie is there to be watched or bought, a lot of them are, like Petelinji Zajtrk, one of the most watched Slovenian movie in the cinema in this century.

Even if not all of them have English subtitles. Let us not go into the topic of who needs to do the translation work at this point.

Structurally I think we have done enough that people that do want to watch them can watch them. As I started at the start, no structural fix is going to make people watch movies they have no interest in. That part is part of the individuals.

I think what we can do as the individuals is to make sure we recommend and be openly excited about things, regardless of whenever it we think it is going to be accessible to other people. Talk about the movie, even if it has local humour or talk about the book even if it does not have a translation to any of the big languages. What we can do as individuals is to hype what we already care about.

Otherwise by default the ones with the biggest marketing budget are going to the only winning ones.

(This answer, of course, ignores that most structural change happen because of individuals that did the work. They write books, they start festivals, they start the databases, they start the movie magazines, they provide translations, ...)

Q2: You describe the film as 'quintessentially Slovenian,' with comedy rooted in cultural specificity. How do you balance wanting to share something deeply local with the risk it won't land for outsiders?

You know, nobody asks that question for the US or French movies. All media is rooted in cultural specificity, some more than others, yet nobody asks if we will be able to understand Hollywood blockbuster or British comedy. Yet, when it comes to the smaller cultures, we need to be careful that it will land with the outsiders.

A bit unfair, don't you think?

I understand where it is coming from. Because we are unable to provide any good extrinsic reason why would you want to engage with our culture. If you ignore us, we don't have the power to influence your life. We are too small to make much of a difference in a profit of almost anything. Which means that if we want people interacting with our culture, then we need to make it palatable to the outsiders. Right?

While the movie is quintessentially Slovenian, I figured it should be quite accessible even without any cultural knowledge. I even picked something light and comedic for our standards.

I know of movies, that probably won't get a reaction outside of here, even if they are important for the region. That can be Kdor ne skače, which deals with how Slovenian used the sports to build our national identity or Mirotvorac, the movie about the murder of the head of the police and the start of the war. Even when the later movie caused the Croatian politicians to have a round table at the television discrediting the movie and it got the award for the most heroic movie in Belgrade.

I know that these movies require quite a lot of cultural knowledge to understand them. My pick does not.

After my hosting, a couple of people sent me an email that I should have been more considerate in picking the movie. Because of the US election. In reality, probably every month has problematic elections somewhere, which means that I should have never picked that movie. I mean, we have our own problematic election this week. But I have to be considerate of their country situation, while they will never be considerate of my country situation. Because, let's admit, nobody outside of the region knows it.

Did Zach, as the interviewer for this, consider that this would not be the best time to ask the questions? Probably not and frankly he shouldn't. As long as the same standards apply to everybody.

In Le Mage du Kremlin exists a scene, where the Saudi and Russian leaders have to pause and not move because the US delegation is driving through. I didn't think I would ever say that I agree with Putin, but I do agree with the fictional representation of Putin finding it problematic. Because when we visit them, it's their rules and when they visit us, it's their rules. This applies to multiple countries.

Somebody recommended me, that maybe I should have kept my original date (February 2025) and take my other pick for the movie. They probably would not like the result, since I would be again inconsiderate for picking the movie dealing with the time we erased the citizenship of people and cut them off from support and deported them.

I would have loved to pick the nuclear disaster and hopeful medical drama, except that was not available anywhere (later it became available on Amazon at least). I would have loved to pick the optimistic story about autism, still not available anywhere. I would have loved to go older and pick one of the fun young adult adventure movies, which everybody here had watched, except it does not have English subtitles.

I didn't have a choice of picking something that would not be quintessentially Slovenian, because I am limited by what is available in English. Though, I don't think I have seen a Slovenian movie that wasn't quintessentially Slovenian.

We are currently coming to the end of the almost half year of the Belo se pere na devetdeset being in the cinema, where over 100,000 people here watched it (that's 5% of the whole population), which makes it one of the top five Slovenian movies in the 21st century. Is it going to be available abroad? According to the official site, in Croatia and Serbia. Which means that even a popular movie like that might not be ever translated into any of the big languages.

I mean I wouldn't pick that one, since people had fainted when watching it because of the one scene with too graphic depiction of the medical procedure and also because I don't think I want to watch a long movie about cancer fight and Yugo-nostalgia. For the Movie Club, I would not even have the choice of picking it.

If I had to pick a current Slovenian movie, I would probably go with the Fantasy as the hopeful and soft option, or something more historical and political, if I wanted to go for the emotional impact. While I doubt either one is ever going to be available in any of the big languages, I am open that the queer and right-wing people would surprise me.

Q3: What was the inspiration behind widening the calls for participation beyond a 'watch post'?

Every single time I hosted the carnival, I have tried to widen the call for participation as much as I can.

Every time the hosts allow for the submission in the different languages, I take advantage of that — mostly to write in Slovenian (like the last one hosted by Alex), with one example of stretching myself with the number of languages.

The language of the IndieWeb community is English, as it is the current lingua franca and therefore default language for any international community, that does not mean that I ever wanted to restrict the participation to only people that would be comfortable in English or be willing to machine translate their language into English. If we are a solution to the current internet problems, then this solution will eventually have to be available regardless of English knowledge level.

While I am most comfortable with writing, that does not mean that everybody is the most comfortable with writing. Maybe other people prefer drawing or making movies or coding or talking. Why should the participation be limited to writing only?

I remember when I had hosted the Carnival of Aros on the topic of holidays, somebody participated because I had also allowed drawings. If I didn't specifically mentioned it, we might not see that nice art.

Plus, it's movie. The media. I am fanfiction writer, limiting it to a watch post would be very hypocritical of me, wouldn't it? Plus, if anybody would instead prefer do an essay or meta or AMV-like video or a reaction video or a fan art, that would only mean that the movie inspired more creativity. Why stop with the watch post? That seems limited.

I know most people will not take me on that offer. Somebody maybe will. I want to keep doing this for this somebody.

Q4: You write in English because more people will read it, and you name that as a conscious compromise. Where do you draw the line between pragmatism and principle regarding that?

I wonder what would happen, if I wrote the answers to these in Slovenian? It is an async interview with somebody that I am mostly sure don't understand Slovenian.

You know, when I did the blog exchange with Joe recently, one of his suggestions was also a topic of writing for myself. I decided not to do it, because I don't really take the time to write for myself as much as I want to.

Because these days I write in English, if it is a reply to somebody, where our common language in English, or it is a response in the challenge that was shared in English, or it is for the community that the shared language in English (my fanfiction). Or I already have a draft that I started in English.

Otherwise I try to write all my posts in Slovenian by default. Which is how you can know that I don't really write a lot of things that are unrelated to the upper categories. I don't really write for my own inspiration these days. At least not the things that I end up posting on the blog.

Because some of the writing in a conversation between people. Changing the language in the middle to make it less accessible can be very rude in real life. Even in real life it is very context dependent which language is used based on who is present. I am not sure about the online communication, I think we will still have this to figure out. There might be good reasons why somebody is unable or unwilling to use machine translation, even if I don't know about it.

That would be an interesting experiment — if I submit non-English entries to the different carnivals that don't specifically allow entries in languages beside English, what would happen to them? I won't do that experiment, it is interesting to think about. How would different people deal with multilingualism?

I mean, I have to deal with multiple languages, only some of which is my personal decision. I know how I would deal with this. I am not sure how somebody that doesn't have to use a foreign language on the daily basis would.

Put forward by the post I wrote for Joe for blog exchange and something one of my email penpals told me in an email, that I ended up a note about what language communication I accept and how I will try and read it. Maybe that convinces somebody to write me in a different language.

Q5: Critics called your pick a bad movie. You chose it anyway. How do you think about the difference between critical quality and personal resonance when recommending something to others?

The Adriatic festival movie goers had given the Adriatic reward to one of the few movies that I did not enjoy at the festival. Even if I did not watch all of them, I watched a couple of other movies that also competed. I had rated all of them higher.

I know that my taste in media is not always corresponding with what other people love. Either by it being popular or by being critically acclaimed.

When I recommend any creative work to somebody, it is always dependent on my own personal resonance. The only thing that can temper that is what the person is looking for. It is a lot easier to pick something, if the person knows what they are looking for.

That doesn't mean that critics don't have any role. Two years ago I have taken the movie cycle that also included the short talk with one of our most famous movie critics. Sometimes these conversations can layer additional meanings to the movie, which change how the movie is seen. The same is true for the conversations with the creators of the movie that sometimes happen at the festivals.

I remember hearing somewhere, that the Shakespeare that we are seeing performed is not the same Shakespeare that was performed back then, because we have layered all these different meanings on top of these plays.

It is the same reason why knowing the culture the movie was created in, or the previous work of the director, or knowing the inspirations for it can enhance the experience of the movie. The movie can be enjoyable without any of it as well, this makes it better.

I still think the personal resonance is the basis on which to build. That resonance, with or without these additional layers, is what the art is all about. It can be the most acclaimed movie, if I can't keep the concentration on it because I find it boring, it is a boring movie for me. Why would I ever recommend the movie that I didn't enjoy?

Knowing what the person is looking for can be more important in the recommendations than my personal resonance.

I have to admit, I basically never look up much information about the movie before I watch the movie. Unless it is a rare example that comes as direct or indirect recommendation, I usually only know what the cinema publishes on their website. Even then I usually ignore the quotes, that local art cinema sometimes includes in the movie description. In the majority of cases I don't check later either.

Do I watch a lot of acclaimed movies? I don't know. I don't much care either. If you want to know, you can always check my watched movies list.

Dec 2025: Dr. Matt Lee

Dec 2025: Dr. Matt Lee

In December 2025, Dr. Matt Lee selected Ghost World (2001) as the film.

Q1: What's a memory or feeling this film brings up for you?

Ghost World reminds me of myself at that age. I saw it around the time I'd be the same age as Enid and Rebecca. I used to spend every weekend at the local independent cinema in the bar drinking coffee and cocktails and hanging out with my friends. 16 years later I was back in my old home town and wrote the foreword to my book there.

Q2: If you could pair this film with a meal, what would you serve?

I don't eat fried chicken, so I would have to pair it with a "meal" of Red Vines, a single cupcake and some coffee. And no, I do not want a biscotti.

Q3: What scene or moment would you love to hear other people's takes on?

The most obvious scene is the art show, but my favorite scene is the party. I'd love to know what other people think the backstory of the other characters is.

Q4: Who in your life would you most want to watch this with, and why?

The movie played locally last year, so I finally got to watch it at the movie theatre with my wife. We've watched it many times before at home, but it was nice to watch it at the theatre. I noticed some things I hadn't noticed before too.

Q5: What's a film you almost picked instead, and what tipped the scales?

I have watched very few films more than once in my life. The others are the three Bill and Ted movies, Hackers, So I Married An Axe Murderer, Wargames, UHF and Short Circuit 2. I would probably pick So I Married An Axe Murderer just because I have a website about that movie.

Feb 2026: Fractalkitty

Feb 2026: Fractalkitty

In Feb 2026, Fractalkitty selected Winged Migration (2001).

Q1: What's a memory or feeling this film brings up for you?

This brings a similar feeling as to what I do when I find a sit spot and watch nature and contemplate the world.

Q2: If you could pair this film with a meal, what would you serve?

Mint tea.

Q3: What scene or moment would you love to hear other people's takes on?

This is one of those films that is either for you or not. A take would be whether you feel it has a plot. I do, but I think some don't.

Q4: Who in your life would you most want to watch this with, and why?

Honestly, watching most things is hard for my brain. I like to watch this with my heavy headphones and a blanket. I'm happy to just be alone with it and talk later if others want.

Q5: What's a film you almost picked instead, and what tipped the scales?

There wasn't another option. It was February and the geese are in the fields. I haven't watched a movie after it yet — still taking in the geese.

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