Several of Kalil Haddad’s films begin with a school picture. An adolescent boy poses for the camera, his hair neatly brushed, his shirt clean, a…
The mid-to-late ’90s into the early 2000s felt like a boom period for scrappy, singular, and DIY indie queer cinema. From Go Fish to Watermelon…
For over a decade, many cinephiles’ one touchpoint for the high watermark in martial arts cinema has been The Raid. It’s for good reason. Gareth…
The godfather of punk cinema, Jon Moritsugu, unleashes his vision of the contemporary art world in his seventh feature film, Numbskull Revolution (2026), which relates…
Before you lies a choice, a selection of fates. In one possibility, you are Tsarina of all the Russias, you are caparisoned in gemstones, wrapped…
Film festivals can feel like these nebulous, sometimes exploitative, labyrinthine constructs. At their best, however, they should hopefully be a place to foster creation and…
In his 2020 dark comedy Dinner in America, director Adam Carter Rehmeier captured the stifling stagnancy of life in suburban America and the simmering urge…
Allow me to posit a cinephilic contention: that cinema is perhaps the most formally complete of all art forms — or rather, a blistering confection…
In 2021, the Tolkien barrel was finally empty — it was less than empty. Christopher Tolkien, hitherto guardian of his father’s legacy, had died the…
I observe a Dry January most years. Usually, I drink to a moderate level, and prefer alcohol as a sedative rather than as a party…
A woman gazes out a window before heading to an event to receive an award. As the pleasantries die down, her smile fades, and she…
Renoir went relatively unnoticed when it premiered in competition at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, its squat, youthful perspective perhaps lost amid the crowd of…
A commonly held belief about Chinese documentary cinema is that, prior to the 1990s and the “New Documentary Movement,” the work of their filmmakers consisted…
“His parents were already in bed and asleep, the clock on the wall struck its uniform beat, the wind whistled by the rattling windows; the…
A ghost story doesn’t always have to manifest in slamming doors and falling objects. A possession might not send your body writhing in manic contortions…
By way of disclaimer, some years back I collaborated with one of the lead organizers of Spectacle Theater’s STRUCTURE. WAVE. YOUTH. CINEMA. (SWYC) series (and…
Patrick Wang has been operating on his own terms since his filmmaking career began in 2011 with In the Family. The nearly three-hour story of…
Koki, Ciao, the award-winning Dutch experimental short film, is dictated by an unusual protagonist with a storied life, known for charming the likes of Sophia…
While some cinema traditionalists may wring their hands at the prospect of YouTubers taking over the world, we’re at a point where it’s no longer…
It is not a steady wind that brings Nietzsche to the criticism of Magnificent Obsession, a film whose slavish self-sacrifice would doubtless atomize the long-dead…
The plant world is a marvel of sight and sound, this Ildikó Enyedi knows. Across several features, the Hungarian writer-director has been steadily uprooting the…