From the Ground Up

Oct 27, 2021 — Stephen Winter’s subversive, imaginative work simultaneously celebrates Black queer culture and fiercely threatens cinematic and societal conventions. In conversation as in his work, the director, producer, and writer deftly balances a warm wit with strikingly incisive honesty. Winter has played...

Nov 5, 2017 — New York. “It’s probably pure coincidence that BAM is presenting a week of Sam Shepard films right as the Metrograph screens five days of Dennis Hopper–directed titles,” writes Bilge Ebiri. “No two actors of their generation better expressed the modern...

Aug 29, 2023 — Exalting Black women’s self-invention with DIY effervescence, Drylongso (1998) is a gorgeously generous study of friendship, creativity, violence, and survival. The multidisciplinary artist Cauleen Smith developed the idea for the project from her habit of taking Polaroid photographs. Shot on...

Aug 31, 2011 — French sociologist Roger Caillois proposed that every form of human recreation could be placed somewhere on a continuum between two terms: ludus and paidia. The first of these represents games defined almost wholly by their rule systems. Crossword puzzles and...

Jun 9, 2026 — The screenwriter, director, and novelist will take an active part in all ten screenings in a TIFF Cinematheque series.

Apr 29, 2024 — The festival presents restorations of films by Renoir, Hawks, Malick, and more in Sydney and Melbourne.

Feb 7, 2018 — “Paul Clipson, the San Francisco-based experimental filmmaker once described as a ‘poet of cinema,’ died unexpectedly Saturday at the age of fifty-three,” reports Kevin L. Jones for KQED. “Clipson made dozens of short films and collaborated frequently with experimental musicians...

Apr 20, 2012 — Cabbage soup for the soul.

Oct 12, 1987 — Akira Kurosawa’s thrilling Cinemascope epic is set squarely within the traditions of the Japanese film genre known as the “Chambara.”

Jul 9, 2024 — Both Columbia Pictures and Marcello Mastroianni turn 100 this year, and Locarno and Venice are set to celebrate.