Portrait from Life

Jun 8, 2020 — When she was asked to profile a director for the long-running French docuseries Cinéma, de notre temps, Chantal Akerman wondered: what better subject than herself? The producers agreed, and the Belgian-born filmmaker was inspired to edit together from her existing...

Jan 14, 2020 — There’s been a whole of kvetching, but also a bit of celebrating since the nominations were announced on Monday.

Oct 9, 2019 — This year’s program has taken NYFF attendees to Soviet Russia, Lebanon, Chile, back home to the Big Apple, and behind bars.

Aug 28, 2019 — Check out what’s in store next month on our streaming service!

Jul 30, 2019 — One Scene Though he works in the highly stylized realm of the horror genre, Ari Aster’s acute attention to the fraught dynamics of intimate relationships—evident in his psychologically penetrating new film Midsommar—makes it easy to see how he draws inspiration...

May 2, 2019 — When I first saw My Brilliant Career, when it was released in New York in 1980, I was ignorant of director “Gill” Armstrong. I assumed she was a man, because at the time I could count the female directors I...

May 1, 2018 — Working within the strict rules and tight budget of a commissioned television project, one of France’s finest contemporary directors made an artistic breakthrough that would go on to define his career.

Apr 15, 2018 — La Semaine de la Critique, or Critics’ Week, has announced the lineup for its fifty-seventh edition, running from May 9 through 17 in Cannes. The opening film will be Paul Dano’s Wildlife, and I gathered a first round of reviews...

Mar 15, 2018 — In what Tim Adams, profiling Tacita Dean for the Guardian, calls “an unprecedented collaboration” between “three of the nation’s most prestigious institutions,” two exhibitions are opening in London today—Portrait at the National Portrait Gallery and Still Life at the National...

Feb 12, 2018 — In “Twin Peaks: The Return, or What Isn’t Cinema?,” a four-part essay at Reverse Shot, Nick Pinkerton first stakes out a position. Referring to one of Marcel Duchamp’s most famous pieces, he writes: “For a hundred years now it’s been...