Her First Mate

Feb 16, 2021 — “Me myself, I prefer literature,” the Senegalese author-filmmaker Ousmane Sembène tells a group of African students in the 1994 documentary Sembène: The Making of African Cinema. “But in our time, literature is a luxury.” Sembène’s historical conjuncture—Africa’s putative transition from...

Sep 9, 2020 — Performances In the mid-1960s, the Bengali director Mrinal Sen reportedly accused his contemporary Satyajit Ray of selling out. “Mrinal said—now he has sunk to the level of using a matinee idol!” Ray would later laugh to his biographer, Andrew Robinson....

Feb 18, 2020 — From the making of Chinatown, through fresh memoirs and ongoing biographies, here’s this month’s overview of new and noteworthy titles.

Jan 30, 2020 — Elisabeth Moss plays Shirley Jackson, but Decker’s fourth feature is anything but a conventional biopic.

Feb 6, 2019 — Ten forward-looking features and a few intriguing revivals will screen from today through Sunday in New York.

Mar 7, 2018 — A Wrinkle in Time, the adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 science fiction classic, “directed by Ava DuVernay from a screenplay by Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell, has been a long time coming,” writes A. O. Scott in the New York...

Feb 28, 2018 — A few days ago, we ran an essay here by Pico Iyer on Satyajit Ray’s The Hero (1966), followed by Meheli Sen’s comments on Uttam Kumar’s performance within the context of his stardom. Iyer has more to say and, writing...

Jan 31, 2018 — The SXSW Film Festival, whose 2018 edition runs from March 9 through 18, has announced a lineup of 132 features—with more on the way. With descriptions from the festival . . . Narrative Feature CompetitionFamily. Director/Screenwriter: Laura Steinel. When an...

Oct 11, 2017 — The shower scene in Psycho remains one of the most iconic scenes in film history. Alexandre O. Philippe, director of the new documentary 78/52,explains why it touched a nerve with audiences.

May 24, 2017 — “Sofia Coppola delivers a very enjoyable southern melodrama, the tale of a handsome, badly wounded Union soldier in enemy terrain during the American civil war who throws himself on the mercy of a ladies’ seminary—of all the outrageous things.” The...