The Film Comment Podcast

Join Eric Newman, editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, and senior editor Paul Thompson as they dissect the buzzing Academy Awards landscape. Expect lively predictions on Best Actor contenders, including Timothée Chalamet and Adrien Brody. They tackle the film industry's future amid AI and recent guild strikes, explore the controversial rise of 'Wicked', and reflect on compelling films like 'Nickel Boys' and 'Anora'. Their discussions offer keen insights into the ever-evolving world of awards and cinematic excellence.

On January 31, Film at Lincoln Center opened a landmark new retrospective titled Frederick Wiseman: An American Institution. The series showcases new 4K restorations of over thirty of the filmmaker’s works, which together form a monumental survey of modern American life—with a frequent focus on the intersections of individuals and institutions. Wiseman just turned 95 on New Year’s Day, and the FLC series comes on the heels of similar retrospectives in Chicago, Portland, Maine, and Vancouver—with more planned for Paris, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Boston, and beyond. How does one even begin to consider a body of work so sprawling, so rigorous, and so significant? For today’s episode, Film Comment hosted a “Wiseman Potluck,” where each guest was tasked with bringing one film that especially resonates with them to the discussion. Film Comment Editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish were joined by Andrew Katzenstein, the author of a terrific new essay on Wiseman for the New York Review of Books; Genevieve Yue, who interviewed the legendary filmmaker for the Film Comment Letter in 2022; and FC‘s very own Michael Blair. The group covered the films Central Park (1990), At Berkeley (2013), Basic Training (1971), Aspen (1991), Blind (1986), and more, and reflected on Wiseman’s politics of observation and striking eye for beauty. The Mains: Central Park (3:30) At Berkeley (17:30) Law and Order + Basic Training (23:10) Aspen (35:20) Blind (47:31) Some Desserts: The Store (1983) Un Couple (2022) Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros (2023)

When it comes to love and desire, the movies have always had a powerful sway: as a mirror, as a site of fantasy, and as a perfect backdrop for date night. For Valentine’s Day this year, Film Comment Editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish invited author Haley Mlotek and filmmaker Matthew Rankin, two highly trained experts in the parallel worlds of cinema and romance, onto the Podcast for a love-centric edition of You’re Projecting, our advice column for cinephiles.  We call them experts for good reason: Haley’s new book No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce brilliantly captures the highs and lows of falling in and out of love, and she’s just programmed the upcoming series The Divorced Women’s Film Festival at Metrograph. Matthew’s surreal new movie, Universal Language, is all about yearning, connection, and the many forms that love can take. The group weighs in on queries, pleas, and confessions submitted by our readers and listeners, lovelorn and lovestruck alike.

The International Film Festival of Rotterdam, which ran from January 30 through February 9 this year, is a festival with a uniquely wide-ranging and eclectic program of new and repertory films; narrative, documentary, and experimental work; and installations, performances, and expanded cinema. One of the highlights of this year’s festival was a special focus section called Through Cinema We Shall Rise! The event marked the 70th anniversary of the historic Bandung Conference of 1955, where 29 Asian and African countries gathered in Indonesia to announce the birth of a new anti-colonialist “Third World.” The conference inspired the creation of the Afro-Asian Film Festival, which took place in Tashkent in 1958, Cairo in 1960, and Jakarta in 1964. The program at Rotterdam features 15 titles selected from those three editions, spanning films from China, Tibet, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Ghana, and more.  Today’s episode delves into these films and the context from which they emerged. For the first half, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish sits down with two Indonesian curators and artists, Bunga Siagian and Yuki Aditya, to sketch out the history of the Bandung Conference and the three Afro-Asian Film Festivals. In the second half, critics and programmers Cici Peng and Inney Prakash join the group to discuss the films shown at Rotterdam—their aesthetics, politics, and relevance to the present. Films discussed: Turang (Bachtiar Siagian, 1958), Freedom for Ghana (Sean Graham, 1957), Law of Baseness (Aleksandr Medvedkin, 1962), A Phu and His Wife (Loc Mai, 1960), The Open Door (1963), The Red Detachment of Women (Xie Jin, 1961), Serfs (Li Jun, 1965), Five Golden Flowers (Wang Jiayi, 1959)

Real-life stories of grisly crimes have always had a primal pull on our collective imagination. It’s now axiomatic that if there’s anything that sells better than sex, it’s true crime. In the last decade, the genre has blown up into a media behemoth, with more and more cliffhanger podcasts, television shows, and documentaries released each year, spinning murders and mysteries into engrossing narratives. Yet these stories also raise uncomfortable questions—about the role of the media in criminal justice, the objectivity of nonfiction filmmaking, and our voyeuristic fascination that fuels this phenomenon. At this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish moderated a conversation with three nonfiction filmmakers from the festival's lineup whose works question and subvert the expectations of the true-crime mode: Charlie Shackleton (Zodiac Killer Project), David Osit (Predators), and Geeta Gandhbir (The Perfect Neighbor). The panelists explored the origins and popularity of the true-crime trend, and its implications for both audiences and media-makers. Catch up with all of our Sundance 2025 coverage at filmcomment.com

The great French actress Isabelle Huppert is a mainstay at many international festivals, but seeing her grace the screens at Sundance in Park City, Utah was a uniquely pleasant surprise. Huppert stars in LUZ, the second feature from Hong Kong director Flora Lau, which premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at this year’s edition. The film follows two characters who turn to virtual reality to attempt to reconnect with estranged loved ones. One of them is a reformed gangster in Chongqing trying to find his daughter who was taken away from him years ago; the other is a Hong Kong gallery owner who goes to Paris to visit her stepmother (played by Huppert) who is facing a terminal diagnosis. Huppert carries the role with her typical combination of flair and subtlety, portraying a woman who faces mortality with quiet, even irreverent self-assuredness.  Last week, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish chatted with Huppert about how she came to be a part of LUZ, what it’s like to communicate across language barriers on and off-screen, and how Apichatpong Weerasethakul introduced her to virtual reality. Catch up on all of our Sundance 2025 coverage at filmcomment.com

It’s late January, which means that the intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of this year's Sundance Film Festival. For the next week, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast. On today's episode, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish is joined by critics Lovia Gyarkye (The Hollywood Reporter), Alana Pockros (The Nation), and Lisa Wong Macabasco (Vogue) to discuss two of the best films to premiere at the festival so far—Kahlil Joseph's BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions (2:45) and Mary Bronstein's If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (14:07). The group also debates Katarina Zhu's Bunnylovr (23:18), Hailey Gates's Atropia (35:40), and Charlie Shackleton's Zodiac Killer Project (46:42). Catch up on all of our Sundance 2025 coverage at filmcomment.com

It’s late January, which means that the intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of this year's Sundance Film Festival. For the next week, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast. On today's episode, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish is joined by Vadim Rizov (Filmmaker Magazine) and Ruun Nuur (co-founder of Evil Eye Cinema; features programmer at Cleveland International Film Festival) to discuss festival selections Predators (2:30), The Stringer (20:10), Khartoum (29:25), Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) (34:58), and Peter Hujar's Day (45:30). Catch up on all of our Sundance 2025 coverage at filmcomment.com

It’s late January, which means that the intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of this year's Sundance Film Festival. For the next week and a half, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast. Today, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish is joined by critics Robert Daniels (rogerebert.com) and Tim Grierson (Screen International, Los Angeles Times, and more) to discuss early festival selections Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore (2:35), Rabbit Trap (11:40), Twinless (25:40), and By Design (36:26). Catch up on all of our Sundance 2025 coverage at filmcomment.com

It’s late January, which means that the intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of this year's Sundance Film Festival. For the next week and a half, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast. To kick things off, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish gathered Maddie Whittle (programmer at Film at Lincoln Center; FC contributor), Ruun Nuur (co-founder of Evil Eye Cinema; features programmer at Cleveland International Film Festival), and Vadim Rizov (Filmmaker Magazine) to share their responses to the films premiering during the first few days of the fest. The group discusses SLY LIVES! (aka the Burden of Black Genius) (3:07), Pee-wee as Himself (20:48), All That’s Left of You , and The Perfect Neighbor.  Stay tuned for more of our Sundance 2025 coverage!