A deadly heatwave stretches across Paris; on TV, civilians in the West Bank and Beirut speak out against fatal Israeli bombings; and an aging gay…
For Steven Spielberg, the cinema is a rebuilding, again and again, of the childhood bedroom. There is some portion of prelapsarian bliss involved: a desperate,…
When you first see Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl that became a local New York City legend, appear on a hotel sidewalk, you immediately comprehend his…
Three years ago, I wrote an essay arguing Allen Fong’s Ah Ying (1983) paints a more realistic picture of 1980s Hong Kong than Wong Kar-wai’s…
Nicolas Winding Refn resists containment. His earliest films (the Pusher [1996-2005] trilogy and Bleeder [1999]) channel a forceful neo-realist intensity, while his subsequent works venture…
Through a career of empathetic, patient character studies, Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda has developed many running fascinations. Gaps in families, how we fill those, and…
Premiering all the way back during 2024’s festival season, Lorena Alvarado’s Lost Chapters has been a film I’d been looking forward to for quite some…
The castles of Ludwig II seem to resound with that Wagnerian mystery: here time becomes space. They seem to distend from some turreted past; a…
Ross McElwee is no stranger to candor in its most pure and intimate form. Decade after decade, his long, episodic filmography has one distinct and…
The buzz around Connor Sen Warnick’s first feature, Characters Disappearing, has been humming since it screened at last year’s New/Next Film Festival in Baltimore. In…
For over 40 years, Beth B has been a singular force in independent filmmaking. The pioneer of the No Wave filmmaking movement, along with Scott…
It’s been five years since RS Benedict’s essay “Everyone Is Beautiful and No One Is Horny” was published by Blood Knife. While Benedict focused on…
Among the standout films that played at this year’s Cannes Film Festival was The Dreamed Adventure, which earned Valeska Grisebach the Jury Prize and marked…
The sun rises every morning with the same indifference. It shines over moments of happiness and devastation alike, untouched by the private tragedies unfolding beneath…
Guy Maddin’s Careful is newly restored and once again bringing its unique, alpine, psycho-sexual mania to cinemagoers, who are perhaps a little better prepared for…
Il Cinema Ritrovato, the annual cinephile pilgrimage in Bologna, has reached its 40th edition. As ever, it brings an ample assortment of newly restored films…
For a certain kind of action movie fan, DTV action has long been where the real hidden gems lie. From the long-touted Universal Soldier: Day…
Carla Simón’s parents passed away when she was only six years old. As an adult, she’s spent her filmmaking career unpacking what that’s meant to…
Xue Ma’s films are radically unique. There’s a strange romance, explicit and implicit, and a profane magic that permeates the Chinese ex-pat’s White River (2023),…
If what Emmanuel Levinas said about the human face is true — that it “orders and ordains” us — then sudden, violent facial destruction signals…
Argentinian filmmaker Lucio Castro likes it when you don’t quite know what you’re looking at. His first feature, End of the Century, was a time-travel…