Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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“A Trippy, Psychedelic Musical Odyssey”: Josef Gatti on Phenomena
“I found a way to look into the universe,” says non-fiction Australian filmmaker Josef Gatti in his feature debut Phenomena. Paradoxically, it turns out that the wonders of the universe are perceptible right here on Earth—so long as one has a laissez-faire approach to homemade (and often dangerous) science experiments and access to high-tech camera equipment capable of capturing molecular reactions in real-time. These reactions, subatomic as they may be, possess a staggering beauty. Guided in part by his father, a physics professor, Gatti trains his cinematic eye on the hypnotic (and yes, most would say downright “trippy”) visual effects […]
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“I Wanted the Film to Have the Vignetted Existence of a Fable”: Sarmad Sultan Khoosat on his Genre-bending Berlinale Premiere Lali
A bullet grazes the shin of matriarch Sohni Ammi (Farazeh Syed) at her beloved son’s wedding. It was a celebratory bullet; shooting guns into the air replaces fireworks in this part of provincial Pakistan. Even though Sohni Ammi just needed stitches, the groom’s family blamed the freak mishap on the ongoing curse of Zeba, the bride (Mamya Shajaffar), whose previous two marriages never materialized because the grooms-to-be died under mysterious circumstances. Her last fiancé was stung by a scorpion when the couple was making out on a dune, Zeba would later admit to her new husband, Sajawal (Channan Hanif), who […]
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Scandalous Forms, Political Candor: Highlights from Berlinale’s 2026 Forum Documentaries
Before the Berlinale announced its official selection, it presented a remarkable retrospective entitled Lost in the 90s. Spanning wide geographies, with particular emphasis on narratives surrounding the Soviet collapse and the fall of the Berlin Wall, it brought together an eclectic cohort of documentaries and fiction—from Farocki and Godard to an underscreened Belarusian doc Orange Vests and the first fiction feature on the Chornobyl catastrophe Collapse. Such a politically charged program of films by formally daring directors with an activist spirit could serve as an inspiring point of departure for the festival to adopt an openly political rhetoric. More precisely, […]
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“I Really Wanted to Create a Chekhovian World”: Kornél Mundruczó on the Amy Adams-starring Berlinale Competition Film At the Sea
Drumroll: Amy Adams stares at you. It’s intense—not haunting, but certainly not inviting. The camera pulls away, and it’s her character Laura who’s playing the drums. It’s daytime, there’s unremarkable company around. Music, no dance. Soon, she will leave the facility. Soon, she will return to her Cape Cod home, to her devoted yet frustrated husband Martin (Murray Bartlett), to her barely tolerant teenage daughter Josie (Chloe East), to her young son Felix (Redding Munsell) who scurries away from her embrace, to her dance company that made her famous but which she now wants to quit, and to the forbidden […]
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“The Underbelly of Lagos”: Olive Nwosu on Lady
Lady, the titular lead of Olive Nwosu’s neo-noir feature debut about a taxi driver’s gradual solidarity with a group of Lagosian sex workers, possesses a piercing gaze. She’s not scanning you as much as she is preemptively fending you off. In her red taxi she stalks the nocturnal streets of the largest city in Nigeria, very much her own person, the only lady cab driver in a city on the verge of revolution around eradicating gasoline subsidies. Played with fiery commitment by Jessica Gabriel’s Ujah, Lady doesn’t even necessarily care that she’s a “woman in a man’s world,” or if […]
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Cinéma Du Cashiers Begins at BAM This Week—Watch an Exclusive Promo by David Cardoza
As we reported last week, the NYC-based, cinema worker-centric zine Cashiers Du Cinéma has curated a 10-film program at Brooklyn’s BAM Cinema that spotlights the oft-unappreciated labor of front of house theater staff. Today, filmmaker David Cardoza shares an exclusive promo for our readers that stars Bill Heidbreder, a NY writer/critic and subject of the 2002 documentary Cinemania. The promo features Heidbreder playing a character named Terry. He dons a movie usher’s red vest, black sunglasses and a microphone headset as he implores commuters in the 6th Ave subway tunnel to check out the BAM series, which is entitled Cinéma […]
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Caroline Golum’s Revelations of Divine Love Finds a North American Distributor in Several Futures—Take a First Look at Exclusive Photos
Several Futures announces today that it has acquired North American distribution for Revelations of Divine Love, New York-based filmmaker Caroline Golum’s sophomore film. Following her 2017 debut A Feast of Man, Golum’s 14th century-set feature had its world premiere at FIDMarseille last summer. Several Futures, which specializes in “auteurist and anti-imperialist work,” picks up Revelations of Divine Love a few weeks after its North American premiere at the Montreal Critics’ Week film festival. “Caroline Golum’s film is totally unique in the current landscape of American independent film—not only in its ambition, but in its sincerity and artistry,” said Several Futures […]
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What I Saw, Heard, and Felt as Sundance Bid Farewell to Park City—and Robert Redford
“What I’m saying is, if you want to go, I won’t stop you.” At the final Park City edition of Sundance last week, my 14th consecutive one, I contemplated this line from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid daily. That’s because a gorgeous, Western-style artwork painted on plywood by local artist Ryan Williams stood not far from The Library Theater, displaying the dearly departed Sundance Kid Robert Redford (who passed away last September at age 89) next to these famous words spoken by his character. The quote felt like a homegrown farewell steeped in bittersweet resignation, an ingenious marking of […]
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Barbara Forever, The Lake, Closure and Other Sundance Docs Still Seeking Distribution
For me, the fun of Sundance—and all festivals—is seeing not the films that everyone is buzzing about pre-fest (I can wait for the streaming release), but discovering the quieter gems that US distributors would do well to take a chance on. While this year’s nonfiction crop was weaker overall than 2025’s exceptional slate—which saw such cinematic revelations as Life After, The Perfect Neighbor and Seeds all competing in the US Documentary Competition—the docs that rose to the top, most notably the handful below, have continued to stay with me long after the final credits rolled in Park City. Barbara Forever […]
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Watch the Trailer for Cashiers Du Cinéma’s 10-Film BAM Series—and Enjoy an Exclusive Comic by Co-Editors Dan Welch and David Cardoza
Dan Welch and David Cardoza, self-described “editors-for-life” of the NYC-based Cashiers Du Cinéma zine, are taking over Brooklyn’s BAM Cinema for a 10-film series “contemplating cinema work in works of cinema,” running from February 13-19. For those unfamiliar with the pair’s publication, each edition features a variety of comics, essays, and short fiction “about the ragged glory of working at movie theaters,” all penned by current or former movie theater employees. The first issue was published in 2023, and the most recent fourth issue was released back in December to substantial buzz, complete with a shout-out in The Strategist’s “Best […]
