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This week, Film Comment is on the ground at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, which began on September 5 and runs through September 15. This year, as ever, the festival’s lineup is full of buzzy titles, including new films from directors like Luca Guadagnino, Pedro Almodóvar, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Brady Corbet, Dea Kulumbegashvili, and more.
For our fourth and final Podcast from the shores of Lake Ontario, critics David Schwartz, Saffron Maeve, and Robert Daniels join Film Comment editor Devika Girish to discuss shorts from the boundary-pushing Wavelengths programs (3:05), as well as Muhammed Hamdy’s Perfumed with Mint (21:40), the final two installments of Wang Bing’s Youth trilogy (27:57), and Luca Guadagnino’s Queer (35:16).
Catch up with all of our coverage of TIFF 2024 at filmcomment.com -
This week, Film Comment is on the ground at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, which began on September 5 and runs through September 15. This year, as ever, the festival’s lineup is full of buzzy titles, including premieres of new films from directors like Luca Guadagnino, Pedro Almodóvar, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Brady Corbet, Dea Kulumbegashvili, and more.
For our third Podcast from the home of David Cronenberg, Drake, and the great Tim Hortons, Film Comment editor Devika Girish welcomes critics Adam Nayman and Beatrice Loayza to discuss some of the most anticipated films of this year’s festival. Kicking things off, Adam, the noted Torontonian, gives a rundown on the Toronto-based movies at this year’s edition (2:59) before the three critics move on to discuss Nicolás Pereda’s Lázaro at Night (6:05), Jessica Sarah Rinland’s Collective Monologue (12:32), Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Harvest (22:09), Joshua Oppenheimer’s The End (32:09), and Joseph Kahn’s Ick (39:33).
Catch up with all of our coverage of TIFF 2024 at filmcomment.com -
Saknas det avsnitt?
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This week, Film Comment is on the ground at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, which began on September 5 and runs through September 15. This year, as ever, the festival’s lineup is full of buzzy titles, including premieres of new films from directors like Luca Guadagnino, Pedro Almodóvar, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Brady Corbet, Dea Kulumbegashvili, and more.
For our second Podcast from the Great White North, Film Comment editor Devika Girish welcomes programmer and critic Madeline Whittle and critic Mark Asch to discuss Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths (2:56), Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cloud (19:24), Neo Sora’s Happyend (28:09), and Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door (40:10).
Stay tuned throughout this week for more Podcasts, dispatches, and more from TIFF 2024. -
This week, Film Comment is on the ground at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, which began on September 5 and runs through September 15. This year, as ever, the festival’s lineup is full of buzzy titles, including premieres of new films from directors like Luca Guadagnino, Pedro Almodóvar, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Brady Corbet, Dea Kulumbegashvili, and more.
For our first Podcast from the land of maple syrup, hockey, and Guy Maddin, Film Comment editor Devika Girish welcomes critics Mark Asch and David Schwartz to discuss Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl (3:23), Brady Corbert’s The Brutalist (14:45), Raoul Peck's Ernest Cole: Lost and Found (26:45), John Crowley’s We Live in Time (31:50), and Durga Chew-Bose’s Bonjour Tristesse (40:01).
Stay tuned throughout this week for more Podcasts, dispatches, and more from TIFF 2024. -
Last April, Film Comment invited writer Adam Shatz on the Podcast to talk about The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon, his new biography of the Martinican writer, psychiatrist, and anti-colonial revolutionary. The Podcast explored Fanon’s lasting impression on the world of cinema since his untimely death in 1961—and it became the basis for a four-day series of screenings and talks we presented last weekend, called The Rebel’s Cinema—Frantz Fanon on Screen. The series took place at four cinemas across New York City, beginning at Film at Lincoln Center with Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger (1975), moving to Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem for Gillo Pontecorvo’s Burn!, (1969), winding down to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for Ivan Dixon’s The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973), and finishing up at Anthology Film Archives with Sarah Maldoror’s Monangambeee (1969) and Assia Djebar’s The Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting (1982). Each screening was followed by a Q&A with special guests, which we’re excited to share this week on the Podcast.
For our fourth and final episode, Film Comment editor Devika Girish welcomes Adam and filmmaker and artist Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich to discuss Maldoror’s masterful 1969 directorial debut, Monagambeee, about a political prisoner in Portuguese-ruled Angola, as well as The Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting, novelist Djebar’s 1982 archival elegy to the Algerian freedom struggle and women’s place within it. -
Last April, Film Comment invited writer Adam Shatz on the Podcast to talk about The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon, his new biography of the Martinican writer, psychiatrist, and anti-colonial revolutionary. The Podcast explored Fanon’s lasting impression on the world of cinema since his untimely death in 1961—and it became the basis for a four-day series of screenings and talks we presented last weekend, called The Rebel’s Cinema—Frantz Fanon on Screen. The series took place at four cinemas across New York City, beginning at Film at Lincoln Center with Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger (1975), moving to Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem for Gillo Pontecorvo’s Burn!, (1969), winding down to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for Ivan Dixon’s The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973), and finishing up at Anthology Film Archives with Sarah Maldoror’s Monangambeee (1969) and Assia Djebar’s The Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting (1982). Each screening was followed by a Q&A with special guests, which we’re excited to share this week on the Podcast.
On today’s episode, Film Comment editor Devika Girish welcomes Adam, writer Clifford Thompson, and editor and organizer Cheryl Rivera about The Spook Who Sat by the Door, Ivan Dixon's explosive 1973 adaptation of the novel by Sam Greenlee about a black CIA agent who uses his specialized training to build a guerrilla revolutionary army. -
Last April, Film Comment invited writer Adam Shatz on the Podcast to talk about The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon, his new biography of the Martinican writer, psychiatrist, and anti-colonial revolutionary. The Podcast explored Fanon’s lasting impression on the world of cinema since his untimely death in 1961—and it became the basis for a four-day series of screenings and talks we presented last weekend, called The Rebel’s Cinema—Frantz Fanon on Screen. The series took place at four cinemas across New York City, beginning at Film at Lincoln Center with Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger (1975), moving to Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem for Gillo Pontecorvo’s Burn!, (1969), winding down to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for Ivan Dixon’s The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973), and finishing up at Anthology Film Archives with Sarah Maldoror’s Monangambeee (1969) and Assia Djebar’s The Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting (1982). Each screening was followed by a Q&A with special guests, which we’re excited to share this week on the Podcast.
On today’s episode, Film Comment editor Devika Girish welcomes Adam as well as Maysles executive director Kazembe Balagun and scholar and writer Brent Hayes Edwards to talk about the entanglements of race and class, and history and Hollywood in Pontecorvo’s period epic Burn!, which stars Marlon Brando as a British agent provocateur who overthrows a Portuguese colony in the Caribbean by fomenting a slave revolt. -
Last April, Film Comment invited writer Adam Shatz on the Podcast to talk about The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon, his new biography of the Martinican writer, psychiatrist, and anti-colonial revolutionary. The Podcast explored Fanon’s lasting impression on the world of cinema since his untimely death in 1961—and it became the basis for a four-day series of screenings and talks we presented last weekend, called The Rebel’s Cinema—Frantz Fanon on Screen. The series took place at four cinemas across New York City, beginning at Film at Lincoln Center with Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger (1975), moving to Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem for Gillo Pontecorvo’s Burn!, (1969), winding down to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for Ivan Dixon’s The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973), and finishing up at Anthology Film Archives with Sarah Maldoror’s Monangambeee (1969) and Assia Djebar’s The Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting (1982). Each screening was followed by a Q&A with special guests, which we’re excited to share this week on the Podcast.
On today’s episode, Film Comment editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute welcome Adam as well as critic and film editor Blair McClendon to discuss the Fanonian themes of alienation and objectivity in The Passenger, Antonioni’s 1975 epic that stars Jack Nicholson as an American journalist who assumes the identity of a dead gunrunner caught up in a revolutionary conflict in Chad -
As part of this year's Locarno Film Festival, scholars at the Università della Svizzera italiana organized a conference called Cinema Audiovisual Futures, with a series of panels and workshops exploring cinema's importance in constructing a new and alternative futures. As part of the conference, Film Comment editor Devika Girish moderated a panel with filmmaker Suneil Sanzgiri and writer and programmer Greg de Cuir called Digital Migrations. Their conversation delved into the ways in which digital media allows us to represent and respond to colonialism, diaspora, and violence, touching on Sanzgiri’s films At Home But Not At Home (2019) and Golden Jubilee (2021), among others.
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The Locarno Film Festival takes place every August in the Swiss town of Locarno, at the base of the Alps, with a robust mix of discovery titles, repertory selections, and premieres of films by major auteurs. Film Comment was on the ground this year, combing through the lineup for highlights, and this episode—featuring critics and curators Inney Prakash and Cici Peng in conversation with FC Editor Devika Girish—covers some of the notable titles: Kouté vwa (Listen to the Voices) by Maxime Jean-Baptiste, Fogo do vento (Fire of Wind) by Marta Mateus, Invention by Courtney Stephens, By the Stream by Hong Sangsoo, The Sparrow in the Chimney by Ramon Zürcher, and Youth (Hard Times) by Wang Bing.
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For the third and final installment of our Summer Rep Report series, Sam Fleischner and Courtney Muller, the founding programmers of the Rockaway Film Festival, join Film Comment editor Devika Girish to discuss this year’s edition, which runs from August 17 to 25. Launched in 2018 in the Queens, New York oceanside neighborhood, the festival draws upon the cultural history and environmental features of its location to offer a uniquely eclectic program that emphasizes the relationship between cinema and place. Courtney and Sam discuss the history of the festival and point out a few of this year’s repertory highlights, including Edward Lachman’s Report from Hollywood (1984), playing in a sparkling restoration at the festival; a wonderful retrospective program marking the centennial of pathbreaking animator Faith Hubley; the festival’s closing night selection, Gabriel (1976), the only film completed by painter Agnes Martin; and more.
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For Part 2 of our Summer Rep Report, film programmer Jessica Green joins to discuss Passing You By: Impostorism on Film, a new series she’s programmed titled at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The series opens today and runs through August 15 and focuses on movies that all explore the act of passing—be it for another race, gender, class, or nationality.
Film Comment editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish spoke with Jessica about some of the highlights from the lineup, including Rebecca Hall’s Passing (2021), which adapts Nella Larsen’s 1920s novel of the same name; Oscar Micheaux’s silent-cinema classic, The Symbol of the Unconquered (1920), which was made in response to The Birth of a Nation (1915) and now features a score recorded by Max Roach; Omar (2013), a Palestinian film by director Hany-Abu Assad; as well as some lighter, yet thematically rich fare, like White Chicks (2004) and Coming to America (1988). -
Early August is usually something of a lull in the film calendar, but this year, at least in New York City, it’s proved to be a goldmine—particularly for repertory programming. We had planned to record a single episode of our Rep Report series this week, but there was so much good stuff out there that we ended up recording three different conversations about three different programs, which we’ll be sharing over the next few days. Stay tuned!
On today’s episode, Jed Rapfogel, film programmer at Anthology Film Archives, joins Film Comment editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute to discuss Verbatim, a new film series he’s put together at the famed New York City theater. Verbatim features an exciting and wide-ranging lineup of titles, spanning features, shorts, experimental films, and made-for-TV titles that are all united by one theme: each of them makes verbatim use of a real-life transcript—be it a court document, a journalistic interview, a letter, or something else. Jed, Clint, and Devika share some of the highlights of the series, including James N. Kienitz Wilkins’s Public Hearing (2012), which uses the transcript of a municipal town-hall about the expansion of a Walmart, James Benning’s Landscape Suicide (1986), which recreates interviews with a pair of killers, and Elisabeth Subrin’s short film, Maria Schneider, 1983 (2022), which offers three different riffs on an archival television interview with the titular actress.
Verbatim runs at Anthology Film Archives through August 13. For interested viewers outside of New York City, check out filmcomment.com for streaming links to some of the featured films. -
The guest on this week’s episode will need little introduction to anyone who reads film criticism or follows film culture. Jonathan Rosenbaum, one of the most prolific and respected critics of the last half-century, began his career at publications like Film Comment and Sight and Sound in the ’70s, and later became known for his writing at The Chicago Reader. More recently, he’s gained notice for his website, jonathanrosenbaum.net. He is known for his erudite yet accessible writing, and his championing of international cinema, among other things. No less a figure than Jean-Luc Godard once compared him to Andre Bazin.
Jonathan is also the author of numerous books and collections of film writing, the latest of which, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, has just been published by Hat & Beard Press. He describes the career-spanning, chronologically arranged collection as an autobiography of sorts, opening with his earliest published film review from his college days at Bard, before diverging into his many non-film interests. The collection also includes his writings on jazz and literature, and emphasizes Jonathan’s uniquely syncretic approach to criticism.
Jonathan joined FC editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute via Zoom from his home in Chicago to discuss this new book, his time as Film Comment’s Paris correspondent, his appearance as an extra in a Bresson film, and much, much more. -
In April, Film Comment published an article by Phillip Vance Smith II, titled “Streaming Behind Bars.” Phillip is an incarcerated writer, and his piece delves into the ways in which people in prison watch movies—the technology they’re able to use, the programming they can access, and the exorbitant costs involved. That piece was facilitated by Empowerment Avenue, an organization that supports incarcerated artists and writers. Empowerment Ave was founded by Rahsaan Thomas, a journalist who launched the initiative while he was himself in prison. Rahsaan is also an award-winning filmmaker who started making movies while he was behind bars—and now works with other incarcerated and system-impacted filmmakers to help them tell their stories.
On today’s episode, Film Comment Editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute are joined by Rahsaan and fellow filmmaker and organizer Thanh Tran, who also started making films while incarcerated at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center in Northern California. The two of them share insights from their experience of directing films while imprisoned—the resources that made it possible, the unique challenges they faced, and why they felt it was important for them to take their narratives into their own hands. They also discuss Rahsaan’s short film Friendly Signs, currently making its way around the festival circuit, Thanh’s in-production documentary, Finding Ma, and the upcoming San Quentin Film Festival, which is being organized by Rahsaan and will take place at the prison. -
In a recent essay, critic Isabel Stevens writes: “There is much discussion of childishness—popular cinema is often described as ‘infantilized’—but how often do we consider what children want and need from films, and what they are watching and where (outside the usual narrow, artificial controversies about the dangers film poses to their innocent minds)? How are their critical faculties and understanding of cinema being nurtured, or not…?”
For this week’s episode, Film Comment managing editor Clinton Krute invited Stevens, managing editor of Sight and Sound, and FC contributor Genevieve Yue—both parents as well as critics—to discuss what they watch with their own kids, and why they choose the films they do. Of course, the kids themselves also jump in, with Isabel’s 6-year-old son Rai offering his (very positive) assessment of Star Wars, and Genevieve’s daughter Harriet discussing her experience working with her mother on a program of experimental films for children at Light Industry in Brooklyn. Unfortunately, Clint’s daughter Agnes was tied up with summer camp, so we’ll all have to wait to hear why the dreamy visuals of Frozen II make it a better film than the original.
Check out the show notes at filmcomment.com for links to the many articles and films discussed—recommended, of course, for all ages. -
The Flaherty Film Seminar is one of the nonfiction film world’s most interesting events. Founded by Frances Flaherty in 1955 in honor of her late husband, Robert—the documentarian best known for Nanook of the North (1922)—the Seminar brings together scholars, artists, programmers, critics, and more to watch and intimately discuss a selection of works curated by rotating guest programmers. But here’s the twist: none of the films are revealed to the audience in advance of the screenings, in accordance with a principle that Frances Flaherty described as “non-preconception”—an open-minded encounter with the unknown. Typically, the Seminar is held in Upstate New York, but this year’s curators, Julian Ross and May Adadol Ingawanij, decided to host it in a new location—in Thailand, at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya. It’s added a whole different dimension to the Flaherty experience, with audiences and films drawn primarily from Southeast Asia.
On today’s episode, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish, who’s been on the ground as a Fellow at the Seminar for the last week, invites May and Julian—as well as Thai Film Archive deputy director Kong Rithdee and Thai filmmaker Anocha Suwichakornpong—to discuss the making of this year’s seminar. Their engaging conversation charts how the works of featured artists—Jumana Manna, Chikako Yamashiro, Riar Rizaldi, Ho Tzu Nyen, Saeed Taji Farouky, Korakrit Arunanondchai, and more—elucidate overarching themes of solidarity and communion. -
In April 2021, Film Comment published a Trans Cinema Roundtable Podcast, in which two trans film critics and two trans filmmakers answered questions submitted by listeners on what constitutes a cinema of transness. Now, two of those panelists—Caden Mark Gardner and Willow Catelyn Maclay—are about to publish a new book on that very subject. Corpses, Fools and Monsters is a thorough inquiry into the history, present, and future of what Caden and Willow call the “trans film image”—not a fully developed cinema, yet, but gestures, glimpses, and traces that have been visible in film from its earliest days and have now gained a renewed creative force.
On today’s episode, Caden and Willow join Film Comment Editor Devika Girish to talk about the extensive research they understood for the book, why representation can be a complex term for trans cinephiles, and films from reappraised classics like Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Toshio Matsumoto's Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) to new works by trans filmmakers, including Vera Drew’s The People’s Joker and Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow. -
Critics have been buzzing about Richard Linklater’s Hit Man since it premiered at festivals last year. A charming mix of screwball and noir, the film takes inspiration from the real-life story of Gary Johnson, a schoolteacher who for years moonlighted as a pretend hit man in Houston, helping local police entrap folks who would reach out to him to order a killing. Hit Man stars Glen Powell, who also wrote the script with Linklater, and it adds a sexy twist to the true tale. In the movie, Gary falls for one of his targets—a beautiful woman (played by Adria Arjona) who asks him to kill her abusive husband. A game of secrets, twists, and multiple identities follows, as dark and thrilling as it is hilarious.
On today’s episode, Linklater joins Film Comment Editor Devika Girish to discuss the movie’s genesis, how it draws unexpectedly from his activism for criminal justice reform, his fascination with the flexibility of identity, and his underrated talent for writing great twists. -
For the last two weeks, our on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors has been reporting from the 2024 Cannes Film Festival with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.
Before the festival officially drew to a close last Saturday, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish moderated a panel about documentary ethics in the Cannes Docs section of the Marché du Film. Curated by the Documentary Association of Europe and presented with American Documentary, the live event featured a stellar lineup of speakers, including Kiyoko McCrae from Chicken and Egg Pictures; Adam Piron from the Sundance Institute’s Indigenous Program; Alemberg Ang, a Philippines-based producer and filmmaker; and Viv Li, a Chinese filmmaker based in Berlin. Titled “Towards a Universal Values System in Documentary,” the panel explored a number of fascinating questions, such as what equitable collaboration looks like in nonfiction filmmaking, what it means to gain the consent of your subjects, and who gets to tell which stories. - Visa fler
