The Film Comment Podcast

For a while now, we’ve been wanting to do an episode on the curious art form known as the TV movie. For a lot of people, the TV movie couldn’t be less of an art form, the term itself having become a byword for hokey or schlocky storytelling, even long after TV movies were being made in any great number. But why do so many remember these movies vividly for so many years afterward? And what might th...

Welcome to another edition of the Rep Report, our regular roundup of retrospectives, repertory cinema, and other film series in New York. This week, we turn our attention to a remarkable series at Film Forum titled The Hour of Liberation: Decolonizing Cinema, 1966–1981. The series looks at landmark works from around the world that pushed cinema and political critique into bold new directions, and...

In her feature on Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir in the May-June issue of Film Comment, Sheila O’Malley writes,“The autobiographical origins of The Souvenir are obvious (Hogg doesn’t try to hide them), yet she allows for free-floating associations, creating a kind of space where connections are possible, where there can be a wincing kind of recognition, a remembrance of first love and first heartbreak...

For our latest Film Comment Free Talk, the director of I Shot Andy Warhol and American Psycho sat down for a conversation about at her latest, Charlie Says. The film looks past the mythology of the Manson Family murders to focus on the experiences of three women under the charismatic cult leader’s spell, both at the time of the crimes and in prison. Harron and FC Editor-in-Chief discuss the genesi...

The end is nigh! For our final salvo from the Riviera, we welcome guest Manohla Dargis, critic for the New York Times, for a wrap-up of all the festival goings-on. Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold sat down with Dargis to discuss a Cannes line-up that was widely considered a success. The two run through their highlights of the festival, including Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornell...

The Film Comment Podcast takes you into the closing weekend of Cannes with guest Rasha Salti, programmer for the Marrakesh International Film Festival. Salti joins FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold for a closer look at Middle Eastern and African films, including Alaa Eddine Aljem’s The Unknown Saint, Amin Sidi-Boumédiène’s Abou Leila, Ala Eddine Slim’s Tlamess, as well as Bertrand Bonello’s Zombi...

We're back from Cannes, this time with a recording of a live Film Comment event at the American Pavilion. Joining Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold on the stage were Film at Lincoln Center Deputy Director Eugene Hernandez, FC contributing editor Amy Taubin, and FC contributor Jonathan Romney. Through the fog of ”baguette overdose,” the four take a big-picture look at the festival and discuss the 2019...

It’s two-fer Tuesday! We’re back with a fresh-out-of-the-oven special episode on two of the most anticipated films at the festival: Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life. Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold is joined by critic and programmer Giulia d'Agnolo Vallan and Eric Hynes, FC contributor and curator of film at the Museum of the Moving...

The Film Comment Podcast returns for another day of fun, sun, and Cannes-versation from the French Rivieria. For day 7, Italian critic Carlo Chatrian, recently named Artistic Director of the Berlin Film Festival, sat down with Film Comment Editor-in-Chief to discuss Bertrand Bonello’s Zombi Child, Albert Serra’s literally Sadistic Liberté, Bruno Dumont’s Joan of Arc, and Corneliu Porumboiu’s uncla...

Welcome back for day 6 of our podcast from Cannes. We’re kicking the week off with guests Dennis Lim, director of programming at Film at Lincoln Center, and Film Comment contributor Jonathan Romney. They join FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold for a discussion of three Cannes sensations: Corneliu Porumboiu’s dream-like The Whistlers, Albert Serra’s “radical,” La Liberté, and Robert Eggers’s “intens...

We’re back from Cannes with day 5 of our podcasts covering all the cinematic goings-on in the south of France. For today’s episode, Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold is joined by FC contributing editor Amy Taubin and Justin Chang, critic at the Los Angeles Times. The three kick things off a conversation about Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory before taking a look at Mati Diop’s Atlantique...

We’re back from Cannes for day four of our series of podcasts on the cinematic goings-on on the Riviera. For today’s episode, Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold is joined by Brazil-based critic and FC contributor Ela Bittencourt. The two discuss the young Russian filmmaker Kantemir Balagov’s Beanpole, which tells the story of two young women navigating the ruins, both emotional and enviro...

Welcome back for day 3 of our podcasts from Cannes 2019. Joining us on the Riviera for today’s episode are Bruno Dequen, critic and Director of Programming at Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal and Eric Hynes, Film Comment contributor and Curator of Film at the Musuem of Moving Image. Along with host and FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold, the two dive into the depths of Kleber...

For day 2 at Cannes, Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold sits down with Eugene Hernandez, Deputy Director of Film at Lincoln Center, to chat about a handful of the most impactful films they've seen so far. The two take a look at the breakout immigration drama Les Misérables, from Cannes rookie Ladj Ly. The film, set in a rough Parisian banlieue, builds to an explosive confrontation between...

Let the games begin! We’ve touched down in Cannes and, for our first of many podcasts from the festival, Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold found a quiet corner with FC contributing editor Amy Taubin to talk over some of the titles—both big and small—that we’re most excited about. On this episode, we focus on the opening film, Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die, and chat about the expectat...

In our May-June issue (out now!), Aliza Ma writes about the new film Olivier Assayas’s Non-Fiction, a comedic portrait of a Paris literary set struggling to adapt to the digital age. Her essay begins, “In the cinema of Olivier Assayas, we find a laboratory of the world.” We had the good fortune to visit that laboratory in a new interview with the director. Film Comment contributor (and Curator of...

The Rep Report is our regular roundup of current retrospectives and film series. This week, we're focusing on an important and fun series at the Brooklyn Academy of Music called Black ’90s: A Turning Point in American Cinema. It's a carefully curated look at major works by black filmmakers in the 1990s, such as the late John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood, Charles Burnett’s To Sleep With Anger, Kasi...

In our March-April issue, Michael Koresky writes about history of a movie magazine with a humble name: Films and Filming. Koresky writes about the importance of this long-defunct publication as both a classic movie journal and a cultural phenomenon for gay readers. He writes, “Our culture instills mighty shame in us for knowing what we want, and that shame has long been magnified to the point of o...

For our latest Film Comment Free Talk, Claire Denis and Robert Pattinson joined FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold to discuss their singular new film High Life, which graces the cover of Film Comment’s March-April issue. In his feature on the film, Nick Pinkerton writes that, “While High Life is the biggest and most expensive movie that Denis has ever made, it gives little indication of its scale h...

New Directors/New Films has always been a vital for, well, new directors and new films. Over the course of its nearly 50 years, the festival has introduced audiences to filmmakers like Spike Lee, Chantal Akerman, Bi Gan, Valerie Massadian, Gabriel Mascaro, RaMell Ross, and Kelly Reichardt. The 2019 edition continued in this tradition, bringing a bracing selection of films, many still without distr...

They say that "democracy dies in darkness," but a handful of new films, including Mike Leigh's Peterloo and Jordan Peele's Us, argue otherwise, providing evidence that the subject is alive and well in darkened theaters across the country. This week, we discuss how these films—along with the work of Agnès Varda, Agnieszka Holland, and Frederick Wiseman—portray democracy on screen. Film Comment Edit...

The Rep Report returns with an in-depth conversation about the upcoming Nelly Kaplan retrospective at the Quad Cinema, along with other rep highlights. This week, Film Comment Editor in Chief Nicolas Rapold is joined by FC contributing editor Nellie Killian and first-time guest Chris Wells, director of repertory programming at Quad Cinema for a look at an underappreciated filmmaker whose work is p...

High Life, the new movie from Claire Denis, comes to theaters on April 5. With a cast featuring Film Comment cover subject Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, and André Benjamin as members of a group of death-row convicts trapped on an experimental, interstellar journey, High Life tells a story of intimacy, isolation, and taboo. Though it touches on themes of family and group identity that may be...

For our latest Film Comment talk, Academy Award-winning director László Nemes sat down to discuss his latest film, which opened Film Comment Selects last month. The film, Sunset, tells the story of an orphaned young woman, Irisz, searching for her mysterious brother in the nightmarishly labyrinth of pre-World War I Budapest. Sunset opens in theaters on March 22. Nemes joined Film Comment editor Ni...

Over the years, the True/False festival (based in the college town of Columbia, Missouri) has grown into one of the most outstanding annual showcases for documentary film. This year, Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold returned to moderate “Toasted,” the True/False festival’s very late-night wrap-up event, in front of a lively audience. Rapold was joined by a crew of filmmakers and program...