Notebook 7: Threshold of the Visible

by Mubi

--no ISBN--

While cinema is a photographic art, many subjects and experiences fail to come across on film in the same way that we experience them in life, if they can be reproduced at all. Issue 7 is organized around this very theme of “the unfilmable,” which contributing editor Paolo Cherchi Usai explores in an introductory feature. UFOs, stuntwork, hypnosis, microscopic imaging, and speculative technologies of the future—all arise in these pages. A series of conceptual film scripts by Yoko Ono challenge the reader to make movies in their own imaginations; Guy Maddin shares stunning collages for a film of torrid psychosexual impossibility, and, in an era- and genre-spanning essay, Bilge Ebiri finds room to dream between film frames. Notions of “unfilmability” also prompt ethical questions: filmmaker Ing K recounts (and illustrates) her experiences facing censorship in Thailand. Elsewhere, an archivist working with Indigenous communities in Australia discusses the preservation of culturally sensitive anthropological films that still hold historical value. In original photography, artist-filmmaker Deborah Stratman shows us how an excess of light can transform an image (look no further than the magazine’s cover). Plus, in a bound insert, author Mark Leyner shares a novelistic treatment for a film that was never made, 8W, a singular and wildly funny prose fantasia. Kevin Jerome Everson contributes the next entry in our “Things a Filmmaker Should Know” series, and a scrapbook-esque feature on the preservation work undertaken by the Japanese Paper Film Project shows the radically different forms and formats that cinema can take.

46000 parole; 228 immagini; 136 pagine; ISSN: 2769-7681

128 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published July 1, 2025

About the author

MU•BI [mōō'bē] Adjective, verb, noun.
1. An online movie theater where you watch, discover, and discuss auteur cinema
2. A city in Nigeria

Five things that were on our minds when we first dreamt up MUBI in the early 2000’s:

1. Why can’t you watch In the Mood for Love in a café in Tokyo?
2. Why is it so hard to meet people who share the same love for Antonioni?
3. Wouldn’t it be great to instantly send Tati’s Playtime to a friend if you think they needed it? (There’s nothing like film therapy!) Why do films on the Internet just look awful (circa 2000’s it was truly bad)?
4. Why do films on the Internet just look awful?
5. Why are we talking as if we were John Cusack in High Fidelity?

And that was that. We simply couldn’t resist the idea of everyone having their own film library… Your own little cinema, anytime, anywhere.

After all, not everyone can make it to the Cannes Film Festival – especially if you are a school teacher or you live in Winnipeg (or both) – but that doesn’t mean you can’t recite all of Kubrick’s films in reverse chronological order, or that you are not desperate to watch the latest Kelly Reichardt film that’s definitely not going to be released in your local multiplex.

And that’s our point: Popular doesn’t always mean good.

MUBI is brimming with visionary films that wouldn’t fill a single cinema in Belgium for a week – not even a day. But if you searched the world (all of it), you might just find an audience of a thousand for these rare cinematic masterpieces. And we don’t think a thousand people should be ignored just because they happen to live in different time zones or far away from Belgian cinemas. If someone needed to make such a precise film, it means that someone, somewhere needs to watch it. More importantly, that someone might be you. Or Martin Scorsese (he happens to be a member too.) You’ll also find Hollywood favorites, from No Country for Old Men to The Royal Tenenbaums, or even The Substance. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter where films come from, as long as they come from someone’s mind.

MUBI is not just about discovering wonderful new cinema or classic masterpieces. It’s also about discussing and sharing these discoveries – which makes us like a small coffee shop... a place where you can gather and talk about alternative endings, directors’ cuts, and whatever those frogs in Magnolia meant. Heated debates and passionate arguments are welcome.

Are you in the mood for cinema? Welcome to MUBI.

P.S. By the way, we’ve worked hard on the quality of the streaming and we are very proud of it... just wanted to let you know...

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