Will Madden – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

ERUPCJA – Review by Sarah Ward

April 10, 2026April 11, 2026 Sarah Ward Agata Trzebuchowska, Charli XCX, Erupcja, Jeremy O. Harris, Lena Góra, Pete Ohs, Will Madden

Brat summer came and went in 2024 in a wash of lime green and internet memes. Ever since, it has been cinema season for Charli xcx. The British singer and songwriter’s eruption across the big screen is no mere coincidence, acting in no less than seven films (Erupcja, 100 Nights of Hero, Sacrifice, The Moment, I Want Your Sex, The Gallerist and Faces of Death), and also helping to craft two of them as a writer and producer. (And then there’s her Wuthering Heights soundtrack album.) Such cinematic omnipresence sways with a tingle of fate, like forces colliding and conspiring to give xcx her celluloid moment. Erupcja even ponders how clinging onto patterns can feel exactly that way, and feel magical. Unlike in The Moment, she isn’t satirically stepping into her own shoes in this Warsaw-set romantic drama, but where Erupcja’s biggest name is concerned, it still offers commentary about her current career: that this is where xcx is meant to be right now.

Festivals Reviews

LOVE AND WORK (Slamdance 2024) – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

January 22, 2024January 22, 2024 Alexandra Heller-Nicholas Love and Work, Pete Ohs, Slamdance 2024, Stephanie Hunt, Will Madden

The scenario is simple enough. A woman enters a near-empty warehouse space, and tells a man behind a desk that she wants work. A brief yet uncomfortable interview of sorts follows, and she is welcomed to the team. Moving to a table where another man and woman fiddle with parts of abandoned shoes, both the new employee and we the audience discover what the new job entails: they are seemingly making new shoes out of remnants of the old. But quickly it becomes apparent that what the job is has less significance than the fact they are working at all. Breaking into a song about how happy they are to have a job, we soon realize the reason for their delight.