The Film Comment Podcast

This week, Film Comment is reporting from Berlin, where the 2024 Berlinale kicked off on February 15. Throughout the festival, we’ll be sharing daily podcasts, dispatches, and interviews covering all the highlights of this year’s selection, including new films by Olivier Assayas, Mati Diop, Bruno Dumont, Hong Sangsoo, and many more. Subscribe to the Film Comment Letter here to stay up-to-date. On...

This week, Film Comment is reporting from Berlin, where the 2024 Berlinale kicked off on February 15. Throughout the festival, we’ll be sharing daily podcasts, dispatches, and interviews covering all the highlights of this year’s selection, including new films by Olivier Assayas, Mati Diop, Bruno Dumont, Hong Sangsoo, and many more. Subscribe to the Film Comment Letter to stay up-to-date. One of t...

This week, Film Comment is reporting from Berlin, where the 2024 Berlinale kicked off on February 15. Throughout the festival, we’ll be sharing daily podcasts, dispatches, and interviews covering all the highlights of this year’s selection, including new films by Olivier Assayas, Mati Diop, Bruno Dumont, Hong Sangsoo, and many more. Subscribe to the Film Comment Letter here to stay up-to-date. On...

This week, Film Comment is reporting from Berlin, where the 2024 Berlinale kicked off on February 15. Throughout the festival, we’ll be sharing daily podcasts, dispatches, and interviews covering all the highlights of this year’s selection, including new films by Olivier Assayas, Mati Diop, Bruno Dumont, Hong Sangsoo, and many more. Subscribe to the Film Comment Letter to stay up-to-date. On today...

The Finnish filmmaker Ilkka Järvi-Laturi, subject of an ongoing retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, made only three features in his life, each of which is maverick in its own right. His 1989 debut, Homebound, is a gritty realist film about a young man struggling to escape a cycle of violence; City Unplugged sets a heist in the wake of Estonia’s independence in the 1990s. And History Is Made...

Last week, FC Editor Devika Girish attended the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)—a Dutch festival that, since its inception in 1972, has become known for showcasing independent and experimental cinema by both emerging and established filmmakers. This year was no exception, with a lineup that spanned feature debuts like The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire by Madeleine Hunt-Erlich; wacky Ameri...

It’s January, which means that your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of the 2024 edition. For the next week, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast. On today’s episode, Film Comment Co-Editor Devika Girish is joined by cr...

It’s January, which means that your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of the 2024 edition. For the next week, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast. On today’s episode, Film Comment Co-Editor Devika Girish is joined by cr...

It’s January, which means that your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of the 2024 edition. For the next week, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast. Today, Film Comment Co-Editor Devika Girish is joined by critics Abby Su...

It’s January, which means that your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of the 2024 edition. For the next week, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast. Today, Film Comment Co-Editor Devika Girish is joined by critics Robert...

It’s January, which means that your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of the 2024 edition. For the next week, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast. To kick things off, Film Comment co-editor Devika Girish invited critics...

More than thirty years ago, director Nancy Savoca premiered what the New York Times described as a “miracle” of a film. Household Saints was adapted from a novel by Francine Prose about three generations of an Italian-American family navigating faith and modernity in post–World War II New York City. The movie brought together an incredible ensemble cast, including Tracey Ullman, Vincent D’Onofrio,...

Every January, Film Comment editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute like to take stock of holiday multiplex offerings with an episode they call "New Year, New Releases." For the 2024 edition, they invited FC podcast veteran Alissa Wilkinson, staff critic at the New York Times, and first-time guest Robert Daniels, an editor at RogerEbert.com. They started off this year’s haul with a pair of sports...

Last night, Film Comment Editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish headed a panel of special guests—Bilge Ebiri (critic, Vulture), and Amy Taubin (critic and FC contributing editor)—for a real-time countdown of the films topping our year-end critics’ poll. The evening featured a lively discussion (and some hearty debate) about the films as they were unveiled—and now it’s here in Podcast form, for yo...

In the epigraph to his new book, writer-slash-film programmer-slash-performance artist Stanley Schtinter succinctly describes his project: “Last Movies is a dedication to the absence of choice, to chance. If there is any bias in the cast-list it is a bias coded into the tell-ing of the first century of cinema (that I parasitise); the result, a forensic of the last earthly dance of a star, and the...

This year’s Berlinale saw the filmmaking debut of acclaimed philosopher Paul B. Preciado with the feature, Orlando, My Political Biography. Born in Spain and based in France, Preciado is the author of a number of groundbreaking texts about gender and sexuality—including his 2008 work of "auto-theory," Testo Junkie, in which Preciado weaves reflections on his experience of taking testosterone with...

After a three-year hiatus induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2023 Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival returned this year with a new curatorial team and a robust lineup of independent and art-house work from all over South Asia and beyond. One of the major international film festivals in the region, MAMI (as it is colloquially known) is a unique combination of corporate glitz and die-hard indie cineph...

Midway through the new documentary Little Richard: I Am Everything, actor and singer Billy Porter says something that distills one of the film’s major themes: “In the face of insurmountable challenges, sometimes simply existing is a revolutionary act.” The film, directed by the multi-hyphenate filmmaker Lisa Cortés, tells the story of one of the great American artists, a global celebrity whose sim...

It’s once again that time of year when ghosts, ghouls, and goblins are on the prowl. That’s right: it’s Halloween. And as much as we are scared to admit it, that means it’s also time for another Halloween Hangover episode of the Film Comment Podcast, where co-editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute confront one of their greatest fears—horror movies—with the help of some masters of the macabre. For...

The 61st New York Film Festival closed up shop last weekend, which means that it was once again time for Film Comment’s Festival Report, our annual live overview of the NYFF that was. FC co-deputy editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute convened an all-star team of critics—Molly Haskell, Adam Nayman, and Kelli Weston—for a spirited wrap-up discussion about the highlights and lowlights from the NYF...

“Every film is a documentary of its own making,” Jacques Rivette famously said, pointing to the mix of fabrication and truth that lies at the heart of every movie. As images increasingly permeate our lives, these questions are ever more complex. What constitutes truth when the camera intervenes? How do we decide to accept—or question—what we see? Film Comment editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krut...

As this year’s historic strikes by the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have shaken up the entertainment industry and film festivals, they’ve brought to the forefront a truth sometimes elided by cinema’s glamorous facade: that movies are made by workers. In a business increasingly dominated by massive corporations, what is the...

“To be Black is the greatest fiction of my life. Yet I’m still bound to its myth.” The filmmaker and photographer RaMell Ross shares this excerpt from an artist statement in a conversation with Jason Fox, the editor of nonfiction journal World Records, in a new audio series called Trust Issues. Produced by World Records, the series explores how images can both bring us together and alienate us fro...

We’re reporting this week from one of the major film events of the fall: the Toronto International Film Festival, which runs from September 7 to 17. Throughout this year’s festival, we’ll be on the ground, covering all the highlights (and lowlights) from the lineup with a rotating crew of critics and special guests. For our fourth (and final!) podcast dispatch from Toronto, Film Comment Co-Deputy...

We’re reporting this week from one of the major film events of the fall: the Toronto International Film Festival, which runs from September 7 to 17. Throughout this year’s festival, we’ll be on the ground, covering all the highlights (and lowlights) from the lineup with a rotating crew of critics and special guests. For our second podcast dispatch from Toronto, Film Comment Co-Deputy Editor Devika...