John Maclean’s first feature, the grimy, spare Western Slow West, established him as a clever manipulator of genre tropes, and capable of stretching a…
Critiquing the directorial efforts of well-known actors is trickier than it seems. For example, it’s impossible to ignore, especially at a festival as prestigious…
On the most basic level, Graham Swon’s second feature, An Evening Song (for three voices), could be called a pre-war domestic melodrama, a gothic…
Coming-of-age films are rarely as frank about the relationship between sex and politics as André Téchiné’s Wild Reeds. The film traces the lives of…
It makes sense that Joel Potrykus has remained a Michigan filmmaker his entire career. His rebellious, don’t-ask-permission attitude is right at home in a…
Joel Potrykus offered viewers a kind of hell on earth in 2014 when he released Buzzard, a crusty cumrag of a movie about the…
There are few genuinely pleasurable elements in Daniel Minahan’s On Swift Horses. Adapted by Bryce Kass from Shannon Pufahl’s novel of the same name,…
In Fire Island, director Andrew Ahn and writer/actor Joel Kim Booster retrofitted Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, not just as a means to reflect…
Michael Angarano’s Sacramento carries through it a familiar refrain of millennial angst and light comedy, exploring themes of anxiety about adulthood, personal loss, and…
About halfway into Courtney Stephens’ new film Invention, a lawyer (filmmaker James Kienitz Wilkins) tells our protagonist, Carrie(Callie Hernandez, co-screenwriter with Stephens), that ideas…
Shot on grainy 16mm and scored by loopy, synth approximations of classical instruments, Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy’s Dead Mail sets up a dialectical…
Alexandra Simpson’s debut feature, No Sleep Till, is hardly a typical disaster movie. There’s no panicked fleeing, no looting, no screaming and crying. Her…
The middle class context of Kostis Charamountanis’ Kyuka: Before Summer’s End gives its story of a languid, European summer vacation a refreshingly dressed-down feel.…
Filmmaker Pete Ohs’ working methods prioritize flexibility, openness, and spontaneity. As with all of his features so far, his latest, The True Beauty of…
The opening shot ofTrương Minh Quý’s Việt and Nam depicts two men in enveloping darkness. One carries the other on his back as he…
When Armand Yervant Tufenkian worked as a fire lookout in the forests of Central California, his protracted, expectant gazing into the distance made him…
In Lee Anne Schmitt’s latest feature, Evidence, which premiered at the Berlinale earlier this year, the conspiracy theory adopts a progressive slant. With Schmitt’s…
Thoughtful film curation asks us to consider films in a new light. Alexander Horwath knows this better than most, having served as director of…