Transitioning Together: Amy Jenkins and Adam Sieswerda on “Adam’s Apple”
As someone who was born four decades ago, any fragments of home movie footage that exist from my childhood—most of which was recorded on a cumbersome camcorder borrowed from my aunt—are priceless. Thanks to the new millennium’s technological advancements, people born within the past quarter century can have the entirety of their evolution from child […]
Pushing the Boundaries: Emily Robinson on “Ugly Cry” and “Consumed”
If she could, Amber would be a wall painted nondescript grey. Paint isn’t like wallpaper. It can’t be removed completely. No matter how much sanding down, they would still be forced to cover her with white to clear the slate before the next shade splayed atop her. She would haunt the walls and infuse the […]
Berlinale 2026: “Mouse” Destined to be Hailed Among the Year’s Best Films
There is no filmmaking duo whose work I await with greater anticipation than Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson. In 2019, Thompson made his debut feature, “Saint Frances,” written by and starring O’Sullivan as a thirty-something nanny with an unwanted pregnancy, who forges a bond with the six-year-old she looks after. O’Sullivan brought her next script, […]
Sundancing on My Own: My Four Extraordinary Days in Park City
Sundance has always been a festival I had admired at a distance. How Robert Redford had gone about using his platform to launch the careers of countless filmmakers for over four decades had always left me in awe. So many of my favorite films had premiered at Redford’s festival nestled in the snow-capped mountains of […]
Attracted to Abstraction: Lucile Hadžihalilović on “The Ice Tower”
“If you can’t play with the language, you are not reinventing the language.” This is what Argentine director Gaspar Noé told me when I interviewed him fifteen years ago about his 2009 masterpiece, “Enter the Void.” There is perhaps no filmmaker who has crafted more visceral portrayals of primal human experiences, particularly sex, violence and […]
It Was All a Miracle: Embeth Davidtz on “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight”
I was ten years old when Danny DeVito’s euphoric screen adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1988 novel Matilda arrived in theaters. I had read the book so many times that the cover had fallen off, and in the character of Miss Honey, I found an embodiment of all the teachers who had been an invaluable, nurturing […]
Disrupt the Dopamine: Lily McInerny on “Bonjour Tristesse”
Throughout human history, few things have discomforted patriarchal societies quite like the candid thoughts of women. French author Françoise Sagan was only 18 when she published her wildly popular 1954 debut novel, Bonjour Tristesse, which translates as Hello Sadness. Her tale of a teenage girl, Cécile, whose freedom she enjoys with her widowed father, Raymond, […]
SXSW 2025: “Baba I’m Fine” explores the angst of an Arab teenage girl
I was fortunate to discover Karina Dandashi and her work at the Indy Shorts Film Festival in 2023. Her short film, “Cousins,” which screened at the festival, was about a queer Arab American woman and a night she spends with her long distance cousin in New York City. It was a slice of life film, […]
This Was the Fight: Emily Sheskin on “JessZilla”
One of my favorite films I saw in 2024 is finally kicking off its limited theatrical run before arriving on VOD. Last year, I had the privilege of serving on the documentary nomination committee for Slamdance’s inaugural awards ceremony, The Indies. As a result, I screened numerous magnificent pictures, yet none delivered a knockout punch […]
An Aliveness Behind the Eyes: Shuchi Talati and Preeti Panigrahi on “Girls Will Be Girls”
I have always had a fondness for coming of age films that vividly recall how intense our emotions are during pivotal moments of growth and transition. In many ways, we as humans are coming of age throughout our entire lives. It is an experience not merely confined to our adolescence, and that is a truth […]
A Sense of Authenticity: Olivia Edward on “Better Things”
When Pamela Adlon released her marvelous directorial feature debut, “Babes,” earlier this year, my husband Matt and I had not yet been acquainted with the filmmaker’s Peabody Award-winning FX series, “Better Things.” Adlon plays a fictionalized version of herself named Sam, and loosely based the series on her own experience of raising three daughters while […]
Sundance 40: Mel Eslyn’s coming-of-age debut series “Penelope” will have you yearning for simpler times
Have you ever stood on a bridge and been tempted to throw your phone down into the water? Or chuck it right out the car window, letting it smash into little pieces behind you? When’s the last time you hugged a tree, or felt grass beneath your fingers? Living in a constant state of technology […]