Amanda Matthews Enters Film with Purpose and Power

Some films whisper their truths; others carve them into the marrow of your bones. The Last Time Your Name is Spoken is the latter—a cinematic incantation that blurs the line between poetry and prophecy.

Amanda Matthews, in her audacious filmmaking debut, wields the screen like a sculptor chiseling raw anguish into something mythic. Her background in public art bleeds through every frame, crafting a world that feels both ancient and unnervingly present. Here, the primordial spirit Sophia does not merely inhabit a suffering artist she becomes the very sinew of their struggle, stretching across generations of erasure, abuse, and resilience.

The film is an ouroboros of time and trauma, folding past injustices into the present with striking visual metaphor. Its cinematography drips with shadow and reverence, each shot imbued with the gravity of an unspoken prayer. The writing cuts deep, its lyrical prose mirroring the cyclical torment it seeks to break. Editing stitches together eras, dreamscapes, and psychological echoes in a way that feels both fractured and deliberate—perhaps a nod to the very nature of survival itself.

Yet, in its ambition, the film occasionally stumbles. Its pacing, at times glacial, asks the viewer to surrender to its hypnotic rhythm—something not all audiences will be willing to do. Clarity, too, is sacrificed at the altar of abstraction, leaving some moments feeling like riddles wrapped in fog. But is that not the point? When the voices of the marginalized are systematically silenced, should their reclamation be tidy? Should it be easy?

What remains undeniable is the sheer weight of its atmosphere. Like the ghosts it invokes, The Last Time Your Name is Spoken lingers, an echo of pain, a hymn of defiance, a name too powerful to be forgotten.