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 your home-listening pleasure. Consider it a holiday gift from us to you, our loyal listeners.

Read the full list, plus Best Undistributed Films, individual ballots, and more, here: https://www.filmcomment.com/best-films-of-2023/

The Best Films Of 2023, with Bilge Ebiri and Amy Taubin

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 critic and programmer Monica Castillo (The Jacob Burns Film Center) and critics Robert Daniels (RogerEbert.com) and Vadim Rizov (Filmmaker) for a documentary-centric discussion of festival selections including DEVO, Eno, Power, Union, and Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, along with the narrative feature Kneecap.

Catch up on all of our Sundance 2024 coverage here:
https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/category/festivals/sundance/sundance-2024/

Sundance 2024 #5, with Monica Castillo, Robert Daniels, and Vadim Rizov

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 American indies like Dream Team; Mario, a new documentary by L.A. Rebellion luminary Billy Woodberry; as well as a robust shorts selection, including Frank Sweeney's Few Can See and Valentin Noujaïm's To Exist Under Permanent Suspicion. 

To discuss these highlights and more titles to look out for in the coming months, Devika is joined by critics Jordan Cronk and Beatrice Loayza.

IFFR 2024, with Beatrice Loayza and Jordan Cronk

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 at Night, the strangest of the bunch, is an international, star-studded spy-thriller-slash-screwball-comedy set between New York City and Helsinki.

The films together represent a unique creative vision—one that combines genre ambitions with a defiantly indie sensibility and unexpected sense of humor. To learn more about Järvi-Laturi’s career, Film Comment editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish invited Steve Macfarlane, one of the curators of the MoMA retrospective, and Hannu Björkbacka, a Finnish critic, to the join Podcast. And if you live in New York, don’t miss the screenings this week at MoMA.

The Films of Ilkka Järvi-Laturi, with Steve Macfarlane and Hannu Björkbacka

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’s episode, FC Editors Devika Girish is joined by critics (and FC stalwarts) Jordan Cronk, Jessica Kiang, and Jonathan Romney to talk about the festival's change in leadership, before turning to the cinematic haul of the first couple days, including Tim Mielants’s Small Things Like These, Assayas’s Suspended Time, Alonso Ruizpalacios’s La Cocina, Nicolas Philibert’s At Averroes & Rosa Parks, P. S. Vinothraj’s An Adamant Girl, and Ruth Beckermann’s Favoriten.

Stay up to date with all of our Berlinale coverage here:
https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/category/festivals/berlin/

Berlinale 2024 #1, with Jordan Cronk, Jessica Kiang, and Jonathan Romney

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 today’s episode, our second from Berlin, FC Editor Devika Girish is joined by critics Erika Balsom, Giovanni Marchini Camia, and Beatrice Loayza to talk about the political situation in Germany and how it’s affecting the festival, before digging into films including Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor’s No Other Land, Dimitris Athiridis’ exergue – on documenta 14, Bruno Dumont’s The Empire, Ruth Beckermann’s Favoriten, and Diop’s Dahomey.

Stay up to date with all of our Berlinale coverage here: https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/category/festivals/berlin/

Berlinale 2024 #2, with Erika Balsom, Beatrice Loayza, and Giovanni Marchini Camia

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 the early and most anticipated premieres of this year’s festival was Olivier Assayas’s new film Suspended Time. It’s a kind of companion piece to his 2008 movie Summer Hours, not to mention his recent TV series Irma Vep, although Suspended Time is the filmmaker’s most direct foray yet into autofiction. The film is based on the time that Assayas spent during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020 confining with his brother Etienne—and their two partners—in their childhood home in the French countryside. The film stars Vincent Macaigne as a thinly veiled onscreen surrogate for Assayas (as in Irma Vep) and features dramatized scenes of the two brothers bonding, clashing, and reminiscing on the ways in which this house and home shaped them as artists and as men. Assayas also weaves interludes throughout the film, narrated by the director himself, in which he reflects on the objects and the landscapes of his youth, and how they’ve influenced his cinema. 

On today’s Podcast, FC Co-Editor Devika Girish interviewed Assayas about the making of the film, his thoughts on the genre of autofiction, and his relationship with his leading man, Vincent Macaigne, who he describes as an “agent of chaos.”

Berlinale 2024 #3, with Olivier Assayas on Suspended Time

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 today’s episode, our fourth from Berlin, FC Editor Devika Girish is joined by an international cadre of programmers and critics made up of Jonathan Ali, Frédéric Jaeger, and Antoine Thirion to talk about Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias’s Pepe, Hong Sangsoo’s A Traveler’s Needs, Malaury Eloi Paisley’s L’homme-vertige, Dag Johan Haugerud’s Sex, Victor Kossakovsky’s Architecton, and Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell’s Direct Action.

As if that weren’t enough! This episode also features a special, short interview by FC Publisher (and President of Film at Lincoln Center) Lesli Klainberg with super-producer Christine Vachon of Killer Films, the production company behind two standout hits of 2023, Past Lives and May December. The two dig into the contemporary and historical importance of the Berlinale for American independent film and how Christine is able to adapt her business to ongoing changes in the industry.

Stay up to date with all of our Berlinale 2024 coverage here: https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/category/festivals/berlin/berlin-2024/

Berlinale 2024 #4, with Jonathan Ali, Frédéric Jaeger, and Antoine Thirion + Christine Vachon

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 today’s episode, our fifth from Berlin, FC Editor Devika Girish is joined by critics Ela Bittencourt and Frédéric Jaeger to talk about their recent viewing, with a focus on the German cinema at this year’s edition. They discuss Eva Trobisch Ivo, Julia von Heinz’s Treasure, and Andreas Dresen’s From Hilde, with Love, among others, before turning to a selection of films directed by women, including a retrospective of films by Helke Sander, and new films including Christine Angot’s A Family, Nele Wohlatz’s Sleep with Your Eyes Open, and Anja Salomonowitz’s Sleeping with a Tiger.

Stay up to date with all of our Berlinale coverage here:
https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/category/festivals/berlin/

Berlinale 2024 #5, with Ela Bittencourt and Frédéric Jaeger

The 2024 Berlinale wrapped up on Sunday, February 25, after a fortnight of buzzy premieres and fraught political controversies. The Film Comment crew was on the ground throughout the festival, reporting on each day’s goings-on via daily Podcasts, dispatches, interviews and more. On the final Friday of the festival, FC Editor Devika Girish gathered critics Jordan Cronk, Giovanni Marchini Camia, and Beatrice Loayza to discuss a last haul of films from the lineup—including Encounters prizewinner Direct Action, Generation 14plus prizewinner Who By Fire, Victor Kossakovsky’s Architecton, Kazik Radwanski’s Matt & Mara, Christine Angot’s A Family, and Travis Wilkerson’s Through the Graves the Wind Is Blowing. Catch up with all our other Berlinale coverage on filmcomment.com—there’s more coming this week!

Berlinale 2024 #6, with Jordan Cronk, Giovanni Marchini Camia, and Beatrice Loayza

It’s once again that time of year: that’s right, the Academy Awards are just around the corner. Before the winners are revealed on Sunday, Film Comment Editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute teamed up with some colleagues from Tinseltown—the editors of the Los Angeles Review of Books—to preview this year’s nominees. Eric Newman, editor-at-large at LARB, and Annie Berke, the publication’s Film & TV editor, joined us for a special collaboration with their podcast, the LARB Radio Hour. We had spirited debates about all the Best Picture nominees—from Oppenheimer to Killers of the Flower Moon to The Holdovers—and also talk about trends, surprises, and snubs.

The Los Angeles Review of Books is a reader-supported online magazine and quarterly print journal that publishes incisive, rigorous, and engaging writing on contemporary literature and culture. If you’re interested in supporting their mission, consider becoming a member at lareviewofbooks.org/membership, where you can get access to LARB’s exclusive book club, featuring members-only chats with editors and luminary authors, in addition to a subscription to their quarterly journal.

Oscars Preview with The Los Angeles Review of Books

In our May-June 2020 issue, the scholar Aboubakar Sanogo wrote of Med Hondo, the late, great Mauritanian-French filmmaker: “For Hondo, decolonization and independence were not simply a matter of regime change from colonial to postcolonial, but rather a radical geopolitical and avant-gardist project. The cinema had its part to play in the realization of this emancipatory vision by liberating itself from all varieties of dominance, including those of form and tradition.” Hondo’s brilliant and idiosyncratic ouevre is a testament to that emancipatory vision. From his debut feature Soleil O to the grand anti-colonial musical West Indies; from the collaborative immigrant documentary My Neighbors to the anti-police noir Black Light, Hondo’s films are both formally ingenious and politically audacious. On March 22, Anthology Film Archives will kick off a weeklong retrospective of Hondo’s works, including some brand-new restorations. The series is organized by none other than Aboubakar Sanogo, who joined us on today’s episode to discuss Hondo’s life and legacy.

The Films of Med Hondo, with Aboubakar Sanogo

Every spring the New Directors/New Films festival at Film at Lincoln Center and MoMA puts on an exciting showcase of movies by the best emerging filmmakers around the world. It’s always a reliable sign of the trends to come and the talents to look out for—past editions have featured early films by Spike Lee, Christopher Nolan, Kelly Reichardt, and others.

Over the past few years, Film Comment has established our own annual tradition of previewing the best movies in the New Directors/New Films lineup with local critics. This time around, FC editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute were joined by Vadim Rizov (Filmmaker Magazine) and Alissa Wilkinson (The New York Times)  for a rundown of some of the gems in the 2024 edition, including including A Good Place, Dreaming & Dying, The Day I Met You, Explanation for Everything, and more.

New Directors/New Films 2024, with Vadim Rizov and Alissa Wilkinson

Last fall, director Bertrand Bonello’s latest, The Beast, was a thrilling highlight of the festival circuit. The film is a loose, two-and-a-half-hour, time-and-space-jumping adaptation of Henry James’ 1903 novella The Beast in the Jungle, in which a man refuses love believing that he is destined for a catastrophe. In The Beast, a woman named Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) is thwarted in her quest for romance with Louis (George MacKay) across three different historical periods by multiple catastrophes: in 1910, by the Great Flood of Paris; in 2014, by incel culture; and in 2044, by a world dominated by artificial intelligence in which people are purified of their traumatic memories. All this spells doom for love.

It’s an unpredictable and expansive film that brings together references from cinema, literature, art, and internet culture into a movie that feels classical in its construction and, at the same time, extremely contemporary in its subject matter and narrative twists—a vision of what it feels like to be alive today. And boy, is it creepy! On today’s Podcast, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish was joined by Bonello to talk about the film, which arrives in theaters on Friday, April 5.

Bertrand Bonello on The Beast

Christine Smallwood’s new book on Chantal Akerman’s Proust adaptation, La Captive, is, among many things, a meditation on the act of criticism. Published as part of The Decadent Editions series from Fireflies Press, this slim, pocket-sized volume takes Akerman’s year-2000 feature as a jumping-off point for an exploration of the great Belgian filmmaker’s monumental career and life, Marcel Proust’s autobiographical tendencies, and Smallwood’s own turbulent, pandemic-era homelife. Blending criticism, biography, and memoir, Smallwood beautifully shows how watching, reading, and writing are inextricable from lived experience.
 
On today’s Podcast, Film Comment editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute sat down with the writer to talk about her book, the role of memory in their watching and reading, their favorite Akerman films, and, of course, La Captive itself: a brilliant, ambiguous, and Vertigo-inflected interpretation of what might be the most disturbing volume of In Search of Lost Time.

Christine Smallwood on Chantal Akerman’s La Captive

In his new book The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon, Adam Shatz writes that, “The American poet Amiri Baraka described James Baldwin, who was born a year before Fanon, as ‘God’s Black revolutionary mouth.’ What Baldwin was for America, Fanon was for the world, especially the insurgent Third World, those subjects of European empires who had been denied what Edward Said called the ‘permission to narrate.’” Shatz’s book explores, in lucid detail, the complex life and thought of the Martinican psychiatrist and anticolonial theorist,  whose life was tragically cut short in 1961.

Fanon’s epochal books Black Skin, White Mask and The Wretched of the Earth have long been a source of inspiration for politically minded filmmakers, including Med Hondo, Claire Denis, and many others. Film Comment Editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute invited Adam on the podcast to talk about Fanon’s interest in cinema, filmmakers who’ve engaged the theorist’s works, and what exactly makes a movie “Fanonian.” In addition to films by Hondo and Denis, we talked about Ivan Dixon’s The Spook Who Sat by the Door, Antonioni’s The Passenger, Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers, Ousmane Sembène’s Black Girl, and more.

Adam Shatz on Frantz Fanon in Cinema

From the early ’70s onwards, Indian cinematographer Navroze Contractor—who passed away last year at age 80—blazed a trail of radical image-making. Trained in fine arts, photography, and cinematography, Contractor wielded the camera as a weapon and a paintbrush, capturing both the thrills and the throes of popular uprisings in films that defined political documentary in India, and giving stunning form to the bold adventures in fiction undertaken by India’s Parallel Cinema filmmakers. 

Last Monday, Film Comment presented a double-feature program of two films shot by the cinematographer—Mani Kaul’s rapturous Duvidha (1973), and Sanjiv Shah’s unique musical satire Love in the Time of Malaria (1992)—along with an extended conversation with Deepa Dhanraj, Contractor’s partner in life and work, with whom he founded the feminist Yugantar Film Collective in the 1980s. 

The talk, available today on the podcast, delves into the challenging and low-budget conditions that Duvidha was shot under, the influence of Indian miniature painting and still photography on its look, and Contractor’s extraordinary visual felicity with both documentary and fiction.

Tribute to Navroze Contractor, with Deepa Dhanraj

Every year, Film at Lincoln Center honors a luminary of the film industry with the Chaplin Award. This year’s honoree is a beloved screen icon: the Dude, the Starman, the legend—Jeff Bridges. In advance of the 49th Chaplin Award Gala, taking place on April 29, Devika sat down with Bridges for a look back at the actor’s long career. Taking inspiration from a painting Bridges made many years ago, titled Jeff Makes a Decision, which depicts him as a stick figure navigating a river full of whirlpools, their conversation touched upon several of Bridges’s iconic roles—The Last Picture Show, Tron, Crazy Heart, and more—and how the actor ended up in those movies, often in spite of himself. Bridges also discussed the lasting influence his parents, both actors, have had on him; some of the crazy on-set stories behind his most memorable performances; and the television shows he is currently enjoying.

Jeff Bridges Makes a Decision

Avant-garde cinema emerged in direct conversation with the film criticism that contextualized, championed, and critiqued it. Writing about work that is premised on defying formulaic intelligibility, and which invites us to reach beyond language to other modes of interpretation, can be both challenging and thrilling—requiring the critic to draw on a deep historical knowledge and a finely-tuned sensory awareness. And reading such criticism can be at once an eye-opening entryway into better appreciating experimental cinema, and its own creative encounter with connections across image and thought.

On May 9, Film Comment Editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish sat down with Amy Taubin, Genevieve Yue, and Ayanna Dozier, some of the best critics of the avant-garde working today, to discuss the history of the craft, the nitty-gritty of this niche beat, what good writing on avant-garde cinema looks and sounds like, and what to even call the genre—avant-garde? Experimental? The other cinema? The talk took place at DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema in Downtown Manhattan as part of this year’s edition of Prismatic Ground, an exemplary and boundary-pushing festival dedicated to experimental documentary. Throughout the inspired conversation, the group referred to a few exemplary passages written by the esteemed panelists. Go to Film Comment's website to read:  https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/the-film-comment-podcast-writing-about-avant-garde-cinema

Writing About Avant-Garde Cinema, with Ayanna Dozier, Amy Taubin, and Genevieve Yue

Cannes 2024 has arrived—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors is high-tailing it from screening to screening, ready to cut through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

To kick things off, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish sat down with our contributor Beatrice Loayza (stay tuned for her dispatch next week) and Sight and Sound’s Isabel Stevens. The three critics debated their differing reactions to the festival’s opening night selection, Quentin Dupieux’s The Second Act, as well as Sophie Fillières’ This Life of Mine, Agathe Riedinger’s Wild Diamond, and Abel Gance’s newly-restored silent epic Napoléon (1927), before looking ahead to the films they’re most excited to see as the festival continues.

Subscribe today to the Film Comment Letter for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2024 edition: https://www.filmcomment.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Cannes 2024 #1, with Beatrice Loayza and Isabel Stevens

Cannes 2024 has arrived—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors is high-tailing it from screening to screening, ready to cut through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

For this episode, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish is joined by Cannes veterans and all-star FC critics Bilge Ebiri and Jonathan Romney, whose dispatch on the festival’s early days will be in Friday’s Film Comment Letter. The three discuss and debate some of the most buzzy titles that have screened to date, including George Miller’s would-be blockbuster Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Magnus van Horn's The Girl With the Needle, Jonathan Millet’s Ghost Trail, Rungano Nyoni’s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, Roberto Minervini’s The Damned, and Rúnar Rúnarsson’s When the Light Breaks.

Subscribe today to the Film Comment Letter for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2024 edition: https://www.filmcomment.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Cannes 2024 #2, with Bilge Ebiri and Jonathan Romney

Cannes 2024 has arrived—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors is high-tailing it from screening to screening, ready to cut through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

For today’s episode, critics Kelli Weston and Jessica Kiang join Film Comment Editor Devika Girish to unpack three of the most highly anticipated premieres of the festival: Francis Ford Coppola’s operatic fable Megalopolis, Andrea Arnold’s magical realist Bird, and Yorgos Lanthimos’s macabre anthology film, Kinds of Kindness.

Subscribe today to the Film Comment Letter for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2024 edition: www.filmcomment.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Cannes 2024 #3, with Jessica Kiang and Kelli Weston

Cannes 2024 has arrived—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors is high-tailing it from screening to screening, ready to cut through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

On today’s episode, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish sat down with Canadian filmmakers Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson to discuss their new film Rumours, one of the true delights of the festival so far. It’s a horror comedy set during a G7 Summit, with a dynamic ensemble cast including Cate Blanchett as the German chancellor, Charles Dance as the American president with an explicable British accent, and Roy Dupuis as the Canadian prime minister sporting a man bun. These and other leaders of the world’s richest democracies gather in a gazebo in the German forest to draft a statement addressing an unnamed political crisis, but soon sinister noises and figures emerge from the shadows around them. Rumours is a satire that is as whip-smart and timely as it is unabashedly silly, featuring hijinks such as a giant brain and an AI bot that traps sex predators.

Subscribe today to the Film Comment Letter for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2024 edition: www.filmcomment.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Cannes 2024 #4: Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson on Rumours

Cannes 2024 has arrived—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors is high-tailing it from screening to screening, ready to cut through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

On today’s episode, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish is joined by Kevin B. Lee, Abby Sun, and Vadim Rizov to debate their differing reactions to Jia Zhangke’s Caught by the Tides, Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada, Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson’s Rumours, Patricia Mazuy’s Visiting Hours, and Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language.

Subscribe today to the Film Comment Letter for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2024 edition.

Cannes 2024 #5, with Kevin B. Lee, Abby Sun, and Vadim Rizov

Cannes 2024 is in full swing—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors has been high-tailing it from screening to screening, cutting through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

For our latest episode from the shores of the Riviera, critics Robert Daniels, Miriam Bale, and Mark Asch join Film Comment Editor Devika Girish for a discussion of their recent festival viewing, including David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds, Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice, and Claire Simon’s Elementary.

Subscribe today to the Film Comment Letter for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2024 edition: www.filmcomment.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Cannes 2024 #6, with Robert Daniels, Miriam Bale, and Mark Asch

Cannes 2024 is in full swing—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors has been high-tailing it from screening to screening, cutting through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

On our latest episode from the sunny shores of Southern France, critics Guy Lodge and Adam Piron join Film Comment Editor Devika Girish for a lively conversation, touching on two of the most buzzy recent premieres—Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez and Sean Baker’s Anora—before offering some personal recommendations for deserving films that aren't getting the same hype treatment, including Sandhya Suri’s Santosh, Carson Lund’s Eephus, and Soi Cheang’s Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In.

Subscribe today to the Film Comment Letter for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2024 edition: www.filmcomment.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Cannes 2024 #7, with Guy Lodge and Adam Piron

Cannes 2024 is in full swing—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors has been high-tailing it from screening to screening, cutting through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

On our latest episode from the sunny shores of Southern France, critics Beatrice Loayza, Giovanni Marchini Camia, and Caitlin Quinlan join Film Comment Editor Devika Girish to dig into their recent festival viewing, including Miguel Gomes’s Grand Tour,  Alain Guiraudie’s Misericordia, Mahdi Fleifel’s To a Land Unknown, and Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope.

Subscribe today to the Film Comment Letter for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2024 edition: www.filmcomment.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Cannes 2024 #8, with Beatrice Loayza, Giovanni Marchini Camia, and Caitlin Quinlan

Cannes 2024 is in wrapping up this weekend—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors has been high-tailing it from screening to screening, cutting through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

For our (nearly) final episode from the sunny shores of Southern France, Dennis Lim, Artistic Director of the New York Film Festival, and Justin Chang, film critic for The New Yorker, join Film Comment Editor Devika Girish to discuss some late-festival selections and highlights, including Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light, Mohammed Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, and Truong Minh Quý’s Viet and Nam, before debating what the Cannes 2024 lineup says about the current state of cinema.

Subscribe today to the Film Comment Letter for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2024 edition: www.filmcomment.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Cannes 2024 #9, with Justin Chang and Dennis Lim

For the last two weeks, our on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors has been reporting from the 2024 Cannes Film Festival with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

Before the festival officially drew to a close last Saturday, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish moderated a panel about documentary ethics in the Cannes Docs section of the Marché du Film. Curated by the Documentary Association of Europe and presented with American Documentary, the live event featured a stellar lineup of speakers, including Kiyoko McCrae from Chicken and Egg Pictures; Adam Piron from the Sundance Institute’s Indigenous Program; Alemberg Ang, a Philippines-based producer and filmmaker; and Viv Li, a Chinese filmmaker based in Berlin. Titled “Towards a Universal Values System in Documentary,” the panel explored a number of fascinating questions, such as what equitable collaboration looks like in nonfiction filmmaking, what it means to gain the consent of your subjects, and who gets to tell which stories.

Cannes 2024 #10, with Kiyoko McCrae, Adam Piron, Alemberg Ang, and Viv Li

Founded in 1962, Film Comment has been the home of independent film journalism for over 50 years, publishing in-depth interviews, critical analysis, and feature coverage of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world. The Film Comment Podcast, hosted by editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute, is a weekly space for critical conversation about film, with a look at topical issues, new releases, and the big picture. Film Comment is a nonprofit publication that relies on the support of readers. Support film culture. Support Film Comment.

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