Birth of Light

Feb 22, 2013 — The writer shares his memories of his friendship with the great writer and Japanese cinema expert, who passed away this week.

Oct 24, 2025 — We’re revisiting work by Ken Russell, Chantal Akerman, Billy Wilder, and Abel Ferrara.

Jul 22, 2024 — RaMell Ross’s Nickel Boys will open the NYFF, and TIFF and Venice Critics’ Week have unveiled lineups.

Dec 28, 2018 — Ulysses S. Jenkins’s Two-Zone Transfer By this time in December, the usual onslaught of critics’ polls and nomination lists has given movie lovers a feeling of consensus about what was unmissable over the past twelve months. We were curious about...

Apr 6, 2018 — The thirty-second edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato will run in Bologna from June 23 through July 1, and directors Gian Luca Farinelli, Mariann Lewinsky, Cecilia Cenciarelli, and Ehsan Khoshbakht have sent out a sneak peek of what’s in store: Portrait...

Nov 8, 2011 — Upon its release in the U.S. in 1983, the theatrical version of Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander generated a wealth of controversy. Bergman has always seemed to breed conflict among cineastes (Phillip Lopate, for example, has written recently about the...

Nov 13, 2025 — The director of Rat Trap and Monologue was an uncompromising artist who helped establish the Indian state of Kerala as a hub of bold political filmmaking.

Jan 21, 2025 — In his first Hollywood film, British director Stephen Frears dives into the nihilistic world of Jim Thompson’s fiction, delivering an adaptation profoundly attuned to the novelist’s sense of ineluctable suffering.

Jan 3, 2024 — The new year will bring us new work from Leos Carax, Bong Joon Ho, Francis Ford Coppola, Mike Leigh, David Cronenberg, Celine Song . . .

Sep 4, 2020 — Tilda Swinton stars in a free adaptation of Jean Cocteau’s 1930 play.