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,…
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…
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…
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…
If what Emmanuel Levinas said about the human face is true — that it “orders and ordains” us — then sudden, violent facial destruction signals…
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…
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Picture Show, programmed by the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, is predicated on a technology both out-of-date and incendiary: the…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…
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…
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…