Portrait from Life

Aug 8, 2018 — The selection of thirty films features highlights from Cannes, Locarno, Venice, and Toronto.

Mar 20, 2018 — The careers of three iconic German artists—Bertolt Brecht, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Volker Schlöndorff—converged in this unflinching portrait of destructive genius.

May 27, 2026 — Is it possible to look without trying to grasp the object of one’s gaze? Traditional ethnographic documentaries, much like the written ethnographies that preceded them, have attempted to explain a given culture to those who don’t belong to it, assuming...

May 8, 2026 — Jean Rouch said they created “a new cinematographic language,” and a retrospective touring North America begins in Toronto.

Jan 21, 2026 — New films by Angela Schanelec, Lance Hammer, and Mahamat-Saleh Haroun will premiere in the competition.

Apr 11, 2025 — We’re paging through the new Millennium Film Journal and reading elsewhere about William S. Burroughs, Pauline Kael, and John Ford.

Aug 20, 2024 — In the late 1980s, filmmakers Gregorio Rocha and Sarah Minter set out to capture the rebellious subculture of youth in Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, a slumlike suburb synonymous with the worst failures of urban expansion in Mexico.

Feb 15, 2024 — Ten Japanese family portraits will screen in New York over the next ten days.

Jun 21, 2023 — The Method, riffs on pop culture, and a fist fight with Lawrence Tierney all figure in this month’s roundup on new and noteworthy titles.

Mar 28, 2023 — Described by director Joan Micklin Silver as “a kind of weird romantic comedy,” this defiantly ambiguous exploration of amour fou presents its obsessive antihero in all his contradictions.