The Film Comment Podcast

First Cow is the movie on the lovely cover of our March-April issue, directed by Kelly Reichardt. The setting of the movie is an Oregon frontier town in the 1820s, when newcomers are busily trying to get a foothold in life and in business. Two such newcomers are at the center of First Cow, a cook named Cookie and a fugitive he befriends named King Lu. It’s another chapter in Reichardt’s richly imagined vision of America, a portrait of outsiders and of friendship which also accounts for the unruly forces of commerce and greed. First Cow is now in theaters and it screened last year in the New York Film Festival, where FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold spoke with Reichardt between events at Film at Lincoln Center. She generously went into detail about images and the sounds that compose the film’s historical snapshot, as well as the artistic influences. Be sure to check out our features on First Cow in the print magazine as well as our discussion on last week’s podcast.

In the cover story of our March-April issue, out now, Film Comment Digital Editor Clinton Krute writes “Kelly Reichardt’s deceptively modest epic First Cow opens with a wide, static shot of a barge, heavy with consumer goods, pushing down the Columbia River. Like the story that follows, this shot is deceptively straightforward, gesturing toward one of the themes—nature vs. society, with the human being somewhere in-between—that the filmmaker has been worrying since her 1994 debut, River of Grass. With First Cow, Reichardt has managed to weave together the various concerns—social, philosophical, economic, and cinematic—that have haunted her films to date, producing a work of remarkable beauty and startling complexity.” Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold sat down with Krute and Phoebe Chen, a regular contributor, to talk about Reichardt’s career and her latest, in theaters this week.

The Berlin International Film Festival is now over, but there were a few more films we wanted to share with you. We’ve talked about highlights such as new films from Christian Petzold and Hong Sangsoo. For our final Berlinale episode, we’re discussing new work from Tsai Ming-liang; the Golden Bear award-winner, There Is No Evil, from Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof; and a couple of films that will be appearing in New Directors / New Films here in New York, The Trouble with Being Born and Los Conductos. This podcast also has a bonus feature for you: our conversation about documentary ethics with Orwa Nyrabia, artistic director of IDFA, the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam. For this episode, Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold was joined by Devika Girish, assistant editor at Film Comment.

Director Christian Petzold discusses his latest film 'Undine' at the Berlin International Film Festival. The film explores themes of love, betrayal, and the mystical undertones of a water nymph myth. Petzold reflects on the influence of literature, like Moby Dick, in shaping the film's narrative and talks about the potential for a new fairytale movie trilogy.

This week, The Film Comment Podcast reports from the Berlin International Film Festival, straight from, you guessed it, Berlin. It’s one of the year’s major festivals, and the 2020 edition has been highly anticipated because of its new leadership and impressive slate. We’ll be talking about the highlights including new films from Christian Petzold, Hong Sangsoo, and Abel Ferrara, as well as Natalia Meta’s El Prófugo and Victor Kossakovsky’s Gunda. Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold is joined on this episode by FC Assistant Editor Devika Girish and FC contributing editor Jonathan Romney, to discuss Ilya Khrzhanovskiy and Jekaterina Oertel’s DAU. Natasha, Hong Sangsoo’s The Woman Who Ran, Fabio & Damiano D'Innocenzo’s Bad Tales, and Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern’s Delete History.

This week, The Film Comment Podcast reports from the Berlin International Film Festival, straight from, you guessed it, Berlin. It’s one of the year’s major festivals, and the 2020 edition has been highly anticipated because of its new leadership and impressive slate. We’ll be talking about the highlights including new films from Christian Petzold, Hong Sangsoo, and Abel Ferrara, as well as Natalia Meta’s El Prófugo and Victor Kossakovsky’s Gunda. Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold is joined on this episode by FC Assistant Editor Devika Girish and Jessica Green, programmer and Artistic Director of the Houston Cinema Arts Society, to discuss Caetano Gotardo and Marco Dutra’s All the Dead Ones, Ferrara’s Siberia, Bassam Tariq’s Mogul Mowgli, and Bastian Günther’s One of These Days.

This week, The Film Comment Podcast reports from the Berlin International Film Festival, straight from, you guessed it, Berlin. It’s one of the year’s major festivals, and the 2020 edition has been highly anticipated because of its new leadership and impressive slate. We’ll be talking about the highlights including new films from Christian Petzold, Hong Sangsoo, and Abel Ferrara, as well as Natalia Meta’s El Prófugo and Victor Kossakovsky’s Gunda. Film Comment Editor in Chief Nicolas Rapold is joined on this episode by FC Assistant Editor Devika Girish, and a few special guests. Also check out our website for more in-depth coverage on the festival and filmmakers. Let’s go now to our latest conversation in Berlin.

Last fall saw the release of Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, which joins a long tradition of marital dramas while adding its own fresh sense of candor. After featuring the film in our September-October 2019 issue, we launched our hit podcast series Marriage Stories. Actually, we’ve only done one so far, but we are excited to present another installment. The premise is simple: we invite couples on the podcast to talk about movies relating to marriage. So for the latest installment, FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold sat down with R. Emmet Sweeney, a regular contributor to Film Comment, and Andrea Janes, a writer, entrepreneur, and past contributor to the magazine.

Last fall saw the release of Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, which joins a long tradition of marital dramas while adding its own fresh sense of candor. After featuring the film in our September-October 2019 issue, we immediately thought, why not invite married couples on the podcast to talk about movies about marriage? We’re calling the series Marriage Stories, and the results have been wonderfully illuminating conversations freely weaving together critical and personal experiences across a wide selection of movies. For this special Valentine’s Day episode of Marriage Stories, Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold sat down with Chris Wisniewski, who wrote an essay on film education for FC last fall, and FC regular Michael Koresky. Be sure to look out for more Marriage Stories coming soon to The Film Comment Podcast.

The achievements of actors and actresses of color have long gone under-recognized in Hollywood. It’s a fact of the industry that has only gotten more glaring as the years go by. For the latest Film at Lincoln Center Talk hosted by Film Comment magazine, we gathered together to celebrate the craft of our favorite performers of color from current cinema. We also talked about key figures and overlooked talents from across film history. Our critical appreciation of specific actors naturally gave rise to a range of topics including issues of authenticity and gatekeeping. For the discussion, FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold was joined by Soraya Nadia McDonald, writer for The Undefeated and contributing editor at Film Comment; Mayukh Sen, James Beard Award–winning food and culture writer; and Devika Girish, assistant editor at Film Comment.