The Film Comment Podcast

For this week’s podcast, Film Comment co-deputy editor Clinton Krute sat down with filmmakers Stewart Bird and Deborah Shaffer, the duo behind the 1979 documentary The Wobblies. The film tells the story of the Industrial Workers of the World, the radical labor union that nearly brought American industry to its knees in the early years of the 20th century. With The Wobblies, Stewart and Deborah painted a moving, and eye-opening portrait of a movement. Weaving together remarkable oral histories with stunning archival material, the film stands out as much for its subtle formal innovations as for the history it details—much of which still retains the power to shock. With a new restoration coming to theaters on May 1, or International Workers’ Day, and the film’s recent induction into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, The Wobblies is once again in the public eye, and the story it tells remains as relevant as ever.

We look forward to the Art of the Real festival every year, and 2022 is no exception. In fact, a spotlight on the work of French filmmaker Alice Diop makes this year’s roundup of groundbreaking nonfiction and hybrid filmmaking especially exciting. Diop’s We (2021),  a perceptive and beautifully wrought exploration of national identity, was a highlight of last year’s festival circuit. Her previous films, screening as part of the spotlight, are no less revelatory. For today’s podcast, Film Comment editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish invited critics Leo Goldsmith and Chris Boeckmann to join us for an overview this year’s Art of the Real, opening March 31 at Film at Lincoln Center. We kicked off the conversation with Diop’s early films ​​Towards Tenderness and The Death of Danton, before turning to other standouts including Jacquelyn Mills’s Geographies of Solitude, Sharlene Bamboat’s If from Every Tongue It Drips, David Easteal’s The Plains, Peter Tscherkassky’s Train Again, and more.

With Ahed’s Knee, the rawest, most autobiographical entry in Nadav Lapid’s blistering filmography (The Kindergarten Teacher; Synonyms), the director crafts a stylized and self-lacerating portrait of an Israeli filmmaker railing at the censorship, hypocrisy, and violence of his government. Last week, we welcomed Lapid for a Film Comment Live Talk exploring Ahed’s Knee and the questions it raises about state censorship of cinema, the politics of self-critique, and the political role and responsibility of the artist. We were also joined by Jamsheed Akrami, scholar of Iranian cinema and director of several documentaries, including A Cinema of Discontent. Listen all the way to the end for Jamsheed’s translation of a recent viral video in which the legendary Iranian filmmaker Dariush Mehrjui excoriates government censorship.

The ongoing horrors of war in Ukraine have raised questions for art communities around the world: How can we meaningfully respond to this crisis? How can we support and defend artists and art in the face of cultural and material destruction? And how can art, and cinema in particular, help us grapple with our collective past and present? To delve into these questions, Film Comment editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish invited two scholars, Anastasiya Osipova and Lukas Brasiskis, to the podcast. Lukas, a curator at e-flux, recently programmed films by the contemporary Ukrainian artists Piotr Armianovski and Mykola Ridnyi as a fundraiser event. With these two films as a starting point, Osipova and Brasiskis describe the cinema of Ukraine—from the archival documentaries and searing fictions of Sergei Loznitsa, to the work of Sergei Parajanov, Larisa Shepitko, and many more—and its relevance to the current moment. The two also discuss ongoing efforts by the Dovzhenko Film Center to protect the material culture of Ukraine, and much more. For a list of resources, links, and suggestions for donations, visit: https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/the-film-comment-podcast-ukrainian-cinema

A common term in nonfiction filmmaking and criticism, “point of view” connotes a number of different meanings: a perspective on the world, a camera position, an assertion of subjectivity. Last week, at the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri, FC co-editor Devika Girish led a special Film Comment Live Talk with filmmakers Reid Davenport (I Didn't See You There) and Joe Hunting (We Met in Virtual Reality) to explore the material, aesthetic, and political implications of a cinematic point of view, and how documentaries make and unmake our ways of seeing.

The work and legacy of the late Jonas Mekas have been on our minds even more than usual, with a recent retrospective of his films at Film at Lincoln Center and an ongoing exhibit at the Jewish Museum. So, for today’s podcast, Film Comment Editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish wanted to discuss a form of which Mekas was a true master: the Diary Film. Devika and Clint welcomed Anthology Film Archives Archivist John Klaccsman and critic and FC–contributor Gina Telaroli for a conversation about films that document their makers’ intimate lives. They discussed Mekas’s kaleidoscopic As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, Ed Pincus’s influential Diaries, films by Anne Charlotte Robertson and Jim McBride, as well as a the work of a more contemporary diarist: John Wilson, of the critically acclaimed HBO show.

Against all odds, the 2022 Berlin International Film Festival returned to cinemas this year after last year’s virtual edition. For this week’s podcast, Film Comment Editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute invited two of FC’s Berlinale correspondents, Jessica Kiang and Edo Choi, to discuss (and debate) some of the highlights from the festival. Our spirited conversation touched upon some highly anticipated titles like Claire Denis’s Fire and Bertrand Bonello’s Coma, as well as some surprise standouts: Ulrich Seidl’s Rimini, Cyril Schäublin’s Unrest, Alain Guiraudie’s Nobody’s Hero, and more. For more on this year’s Berlinale, including dispatches from Jonathan Romney and Erika Balsom, subscribe to the Film Comment Letter on filmcomment.com

This week, Film Comment co-editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish sit down with Steven Soderbergh, whose latest film, KIMI, premiered on HBO Max last week. The film follows an agoraphobic tech worker played by Zoë Kravitz as she uncovers evidence of a crime and becomes ensnared in an increasingly deadly corporate conspiracy.  KIMI takes narrative and aesthetic cues from paranoid classics like Rear Window, The Conversation, and Blow Up. But Soderbergh’s typically sleek, imaginative thriller is also utterly contemporary, capturing a world where the twin threats of COVID and surveillance have become part of the fabric of our everyday lives. Clint and Devika chatted with Soderbergh at length about his productive pandemic, his collaboration with screenwriter David Koepp, how Big Tech can make bad ideas even worse, and much more. They also got a little insight into Steven’s next project: Magic Mike’s Last Dance.

For the last week and a half, your intrepid Film Comment crew has been watching, writing, and podcasting round the clock from this year’s virtual Sundance Film Festival. We hope you’ve been enjoying our coverage so far. More is on its way this week! For today’s episode, the final one in our Sundance 2022 series, editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish invited Film Comment contributors Abby Sun and Violet Lucca to join for an overview of the festival that was. They talked about standouts like We Met in Virtual Reality, Dos Estaciones, I Didn’t See You There, Leonor Will Never Die, Every Day in Kaimuki, and more. Find all our coverage of Sundance coverage here: https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/category/festivals/sundance/

The Sundance Film Festival is once again in full swing, which of course means that your intrepid Film Comment crew are watching, writing, and podcasting round the clock to bring you coverage of the annual showcase for independent cinema. Though we had hoped to be reporting live from the snow-covered streets of Park City, this year’s edition is all online. But not to worry: for the next two weeks, we’ll be bringing you dispatches and podcasts covering the virtual festival right from our homes, with some help from our trusty correspondents. For today’s conversation, Film Comment’s Devika Girish and Clinton Krute were joined by two hardened Sundance vets: Alissa Wilkinson, film critic at Vox, and Violet Lucca, web editor at Harper’s Magazine and a longtime friend of the podcast. With Alissa and Violet’s expert guidance, they sifted through some of the festival’s standout fiction features, including Nanny, Master, and The Cathedral, as well as some more under-the-radar fare, including Sirens, The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future, Emily the Criminal, a new short film from Sky Hopinka, and more. To stay up to date on all our Sundance 2022 coverage, keep your eyes on this space, and subscribe to the Film Comment Letter.