Chihayafuru: Part I

Nov 27, 2017 — On May 1, 2001, Dieter Kosslick took over as director of the Berlin International Film Festival, following Moritz de Hadeln, who’d held the job for twenty years. On May 31, 2019, the day after his seventy-first birthday, Kosslick’s current contract...

Mar 12, 2017 — With his new film Personal Shopper now in theaters, we’re sharing a conversation we had with the acclaimed French filmmaker during his visit to the Criterion office last October.

Nov 29, 2016 — Anahita Ghazvinizadeh’s short film Needle, which won the 2013 Cinefondation prize at Cannes, premieres today on the Criterion Channel as part of our weekly Short + Feature. I first met Anahita through programming the short at the Chicago International Film...

Nov 15, 2016 — Harrod Blank shared a few words in remembrance of legendary singer-songwriter Leon Russell, the subject of his father Les Blank’s film A Poem Is a Naked Person.

Jul 24, 2014 — Everyday life gets a musical makeover in Jacques Demy’s tale of chance and love, a film of exquisitely sad happiness.

Sep 17, 2013 — The author sheds some light on the fascinating life of the American scriptwriter behind Roberto Rossellini’s Paisan.

Dec 5, 2012 — The following is excerpted from an interview that originally appeared in the February 1, 1981, issue of L’avant-scène: Cinéma. It was conducted by Olivier Eyquem and Jean-Claude Missiaen. Eyquem is a documentalist and former staff member at Positif; he blogs...

May 23, 2012 — Iranian master director Abbas Kiarostami voyaged to Italy to make a film that questions love, relationships, and Western art cinema.

Oct 19, 2009 — Though known primarily for her wildly varied, continent-hopping features (Salaam Bombay!, Mississippi Masala, Vanity Fair, The Namesake), Indian director Mira Nair has for the past three decades also been forging a parallel career of short filmmaking. Both fiction (Migration, How...

Aug 18, 2009 — Jacques Tati’s masterpiece converts work into play so pleasurably that it turns the very acts of seeing and hearing into a form of dancing.