The Film Comment Podcast

On our final podcast from this year’s Sundance Film Festival, FC co-editor Devika Girish talks to filmmakers Deborah Stratman, Mary Helena Clark, and Mike Gibisser about their fantastic new films, which premiered in the festival’s New Frontier section. Stratman’s Last Things explores the history of our universe through the point of view of rocks. She combines stunning images of rocks with interviews with a geoscientist and excerpts from various sci-fi texts—read by the filmmaker Valerie Massadian—to craft a narrative of the past and the future that decenters humans, and invites us to think beyond ourselves. Mary Helena Clark and Mike Gibisser's A Common Sequence, explores how our ideas of the commons have changed in our capitalistic, tech-driven present. The film uses three case studies: the first focuses on efforts to conserve and study the achoque salamander in Mexico, known for its regenerative properties; the second explores the use of artificial intelligence in apple picking and harvesting; and the third digs into the ways in which genetics is fast becoming a prime site for data mining.  The filmmakers joined for a wide-ranging conversation about the ideas behind their films, how they approach questions of time and perspective, and what it felt like to be an experimental filmmaker at Sundance. It turns out that Clark and Gibisser were once students of Stratman’s—so the three had much to say about each other’s work. Catch up on all of our Sundance 2023 coverage here: https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/category/festivals/sundance/sundance-2023/

The Sundance Film Festival triumphantly returns to in-person screenings this year, which of course means that your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches and podcasts covering all the highlights of the 2023 edition. On today’s podcast, Dessane Lopez Cassell (SEEN), Poulomi Das (The Playlist), and Jessica Kiang (Variety) join FC’s Devika Girish for another round of Sundance conversation. This time around, the critics discuss festival selections Passages, Shortcomings, A Thousand and One, and Milisuthando. Catch up on all of our Sundance 2023 coverage here: https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/category/festivals/sundance/sundance-2023/

The Sundance Film Festival triumphantly returns to in-person screenings this year, which of course means that your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches and podcasts covering all the highlights of the 2023 edition. On today’s podcast, Miriam Bale (Indie Memphis Film Festival) and Abby Sun (International Documentary Association) return for another round of Sundance conversation with Film Comment’s Devika Girish. This time, they discuss festival selections Fair Play, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, Rye Lane, and The Tuba Thieves. Catch up on all of our Sundance 2023 coverage here: https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/category/festivals/sundance/sundance-2023/

The Sundance Film Festival triumphantly returns to in-person screenings this year, which of course means that your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches and podcasts covering all the highlights of the 2023 edition. On today’s podcast, Film Comment Co-Deputy Editor Devika Girish talks to critics Justin Chang (The Los Angeles Times and Fresh Air) and Jessica Kiang (Variety and elsewhere) about Sundance selections Eileen, You Hurt My Feelings, Past Lives (pro-side this time), and Cat Person. Catch up on all of our Sundance 2023 coverage here.

The Sundance Film Festival triumphantly returns to in-person screenings this year, which of course means that your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches and podcasts covering all the highlights of the 2023 edition. On today’s podcast, Film Comment’s Devika Girish talks to Vadim Rivov(Filmmaker Magazine) and Dan Sullivan (Film at Lincoln Center) about Sundance selections Fremont, Gush, Polite Society, and A Common Sequence. They also dig into the festival’s New Frontier section and whether or not there’s such a thing as a “Sundance film.” Catch up on all of our Sundance 2023 coverage here: https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/category/festivals/sundance/sundance-2023/

The Sundance Film Festival triumphantly returns to in-person screenings this year, which of course means that your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches and podcasts covering all the highlights of the 2023 edition. On today’s podcast, Film Comment’s Devika Girish talks to Miriam Bale (Indie Memphis Film Festival) and Abby Sun (International Documentary Association) about Sundance selections Earth Mama, Past Lives, Against the Tide, Little Richard: I Am Everything, and Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project.

The Sundance Film Festival triumphantly returns to in-person screenings this year, which of course means that your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches and podcasts covering all the highlights of the 2023 edition. On today’s podcast, Film Comment’s Devika Girish invited FC friends and critics Alissa Wilkinson (Vox), Sam Adams (Slate) and Kayla Myers (Indie Memphis Film Festival) to chat about the buzzy titles of Day Two, including Justice, Earth Mama, To Live and Die and Live, Mami Wata, Animalia, the documentary shorts program, and more.

With the Sundance Film Festival triumphantly returning to in-person screenings this year, your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches and podcasts covering each day's new highlights and lowlights. To kick things off, FC editor Devika Girish invited Abby Sun (International Documentary Association) and Alissa Wilkinson (Vox) to talk about some of the opening night films, including The Longest Goodbye, Kim’s Video, and The Pod Generation, and the titles they're most excited to see in the coming days.

Last week, ThousandSuns Cinema, an online screening initiative by the Media City Film Festival, launched a unique virtual series devoted to Indigenous cinema. Co-presented with the artist-run collective COUSIN, the program brings together a vibrant selection of short and feature-length works by Indigenous filmmakers—all of which are free to stream online until January 30. The series features landmark films by established directors like Alanis Obomsawin, as well as more recent, dynamic work from emerging artists like Fox Maxy. Though the films are eclectic, with a variety of forms and themes on display, they’re united by one principle: they center Indigenous audiences and decenter the white gaze. On today’s episode, Film Comment editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute interview two members of COUSIN Collective, filmmakers Adam Piron and Sky Hopinka, about the series, the origins of their collective, and the community of artists that they’ve cultivated.

Every January, to ring in the new year, Film Comment editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute take a look at some of the major new releases of the holiday season. This year, they were joined by critics Sam Adams and Nicholas Russell to run down some of the blingier titles that have recently graced the marquees of multiplexes and streaming sites alike, including Avatar: The Way of Water, Babylon, Glass Onion, and the A.I.-horror flick M3GAN. Needless to say, opinions ran as hot as the blood of a vengeful space whale.