This Is Not a Film

Feb 13, 2023 — Desperately seeking community in her college years, the writer discovered the world of experimental cinema when she stumbled on a short-film program at an art-house in Manchester, England.

Mar 18, 2022 — Ukrainian cinema, suspense vs. dread, and the opposite of synesthesia are on our minds this week.

Nov 24, 2021 — Mike Leigh, Hayao Miyazaki, Céline Sciamma, and Jessica Beshir discuss their work, and Farran Smith Nehme launches a newsletter.

Feb 5, 2021 — This week we’re reading Nick Pinkerton on Fassbinder’s problems with Chabrol and revisiting films by Marguerite Duras, Lizzie Borden, and Béla Tarr.

Dec 11, 2020 — A new Film Quarterly, a Reverse Shot symposium, and the return of Artavazd Pelechian are among this week’s highlights.

Aug 21, 2020 — A free film school in a French banlieue, a nineteenth-century inventor, and a lesbian classic are among this week’s highlights.

Jun 23, 2020 — In Céline Sciamma’s unabashedly romantic and fiercely political film Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), two women fall in love and set each other free, if for only a few glorious days or weeks. It is one of the...

Jul 12, 2019 — This week: Michael Mann, Peter Strickland, Pedro Almodóvar, Luc Moullet, and a forgotten chapter of film history.

Mar 14, 2018 — Bette Davis struck a blow against expectations of pliant female loveliness and grace with her role as a no-nonsense teacher in The Corn Is Green.

Feb 14, 2018 — With her acclaimed new film Western opening in theaters this week, we spoke with German director Valeska Grisebach on the romantic ideals of the quintessential American genre.