Beijing’s Tiananmen Square is a place made out of dates. Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1 —…
The “YouTuber-to-filmmaker” pipeline is becoming a viable pathway to Hollywood success in 2026, particularly in the horror genre. In some notable cases, like with movie…
“They say that long ago, on hilly Crete, the Labyrinth contained a weaving course among blind walls and countless twisting paths, impossible to trace or…
The Super-8 camera is light like a feather. In order to employ it well, the filmmaker should be light as a feather. To watch a…
In an introduction for Bill Morrison’s new film darker, Nitrate Picture Show festival director Peter Bagrov joked that when archivists and preservationists come across reels…
The 10th Nitrate Picture Show, programmed by the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, is predicated on a technology both out-of-date and incendiary: the…
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 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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
“Living out of a suitcase” and splitting her time between New York and Madrid, Isabel Sandoval arrived in Manila in early February. She returned to…
In some respects, the “officially sanctioned” of the SWYC Collective’s productions — it was scheduled for broadcast in China, before it was pulled by its…
When a long-suppressed work of art finally surfaces, it generates unexpected conceptual ripples. We understand that the work was made in a particular time and…
Frédéric Da wants to make it known that his new social drama, isaiah’s phone, is a work of complete fiction. This despite the film’s unsettling…