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The Popcorn List Releases Second Annual Survey of 19 Recommended Feature Films
The Popcorn List has released its second annual survey of recommended feature films. From the press release: The Popcorn List (TPL), an annual survey of acclaimed feature films returns for its second year with 19 film recommendations. TPL was founded in 2024 as a discovery and visibility initiative to amplify independent films that deserve to be seen more widely, highlight the discovery nature of film festivals and the craft of film curation, and respect audiences’ desire for story-driven movies. The result is an open-source database of acclaimed films without U.S. distribution (theatrical, VOD, self-distributed), as recommended by festival programmers across the country. In addition to compiling the list, a component of the project is tracking and amplifying the films’ distribution pathways. The… Read more
Visions du Réel 2025: Choose Your Illusion
David Ekwe-Ebobisse in Soldiers of Light
In 2002, a George W. Bush aide coined the phrase “reality-based community”—a label meant pejoratively, anticipating the present belligerent moment. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” that (still!) anonymous official ranted. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” This psychotic assertion is paraphrased—nearly word-for-word, surely inadvertently—by the subjects of Julian Vogel and Johannes Büttner’s immaculately depressing Soldiers of Light, the first noteworthy film I saw at this… Read more
“We Literally Burned Our Actual Set”: Writer-Director Ryan Coogler and Producers Zinzi Coogler and Sev Ohanian on Sinners
Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Coogler on the set of Sinners (Photo by Eli Adé)
Even before its smashing opening weekend theatrical success, Sinners, Ryan Coogler’s first original directorial outing since his 2013 indie hit Fruitvale Station, was knocking loud on the box office doors. Early reviews praised the film’s unique genre-bending vision, weaving vampire lore and Irish songs into a 1932-set horror-musical dramatic thriller about identical Black twin brothers leaving behind their Chicago gangster lives to return to their sharecropper roots in the Mississippi Delta and start their own juke joint—that is, before the vampires come a-seducing. Before that, Smoke and Stack, twins played by Michael B. Jordan in a bravura dual performance, throw a party about which less said, the better—go experience it in theaters—other than to extol Ludwig Göransson’s (Black Panther) score. DP… Read more
“Me and My Friends and a Bunch of Romanians”: Isaiah Saxon on The Legend of Ochi
The Legend of Ochi
Back in 2008, Isaiah Saxon and his collaborators—Daren Rabinovitch and Sean Hellfritsch—appeared on Filmmaker’s annual 25 New Faces of Film list based on the strength of their impressive work on indie rock music videos. Saxon himself had a direct hand in helming iconic filmic accompaniments for Björk’s “Wanderlust,” Grizzly Bear’s “Knife” and Panda Bear’s “Boys Latin.” All three narratives hinge on an intensely surreal collision of human and natural forces—utilizing puppetry, animation, stop-motion and special effects—endearingly lo-fi yet intensely meticulous in its execution. The same can be said of The Legend of Ochi, Saxon’s feature debut. Produced by A24 after receiving seed money from The Russo Brothers’ AGBO production studio, the film weaves an intricate tale about a mystical primate species… Read more
Conspiracy of the Dead: David Cronenberg on The Shrouds
The shroud in The Shrouds
“Long live the new flesh.” The most famous line in any Cronenberg picture, uttered by Videodrome’s Max Renn (James Woods), is also something of a mission statement for much of the Canadian master’s work. The technological and corporeal fuse across his filmography, resulting in new sensations, desires and ways of being in the world. In Videodrome, unusual orifices form, as stomachs become insertion points for violent VHS tapes. Real and virtual worlds blur in eXistenZ as videogame controllers jack directly into spinal cords; more recently, in Crimes of the Future, the surgical removal of surreal organs is the latest form of performance art. But in The Shrouds, the flesh is not new or even living. Six feet under, the bodies in… Read more
“Coziness was a Creative North Star”: Andrew Ahn on The Wedding Banquet
Joan Chen in The Wedding Banquet
In approaching The Wedding Banquet, director Andrew Ahn knew his reimagining of the 1993 romantic comedy directed by Ang Lee had to navigate nuances of queer and cultural identity that he still wrestles with today. So, in updating the original story—about a bisexual Taiwanese immigrant who tries to convince his traditionally-minded parents that he’s straight—Ahn chose to expand it, focusing on a foursome of queer friends who live together in Seattle and become unlikely co-conspirators in a similarly elaborate ruse. Involving not one but two same-sex couples navigating milestone moments, this version of the story (in theaters April 18) goes beyond since-legalized gay marriage to contemplate queer family frameworks and the complex nature of belonging in queer communities of color. Faced with… Read more
Inaugural Henry Awards for Public Interest Documentary Announce Grand Prize Winner, Finalists and Honorable Mentions
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The inaugural Henry Awards for Public Interest Documentary, awarded by the Documentary Film in the Public Interest Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, have been announced, including a grand prize of $100,000 for While We Watched, whose director Vinay Shukla contributed an essay to our fall 2023 issue about his creation of the best-selling board game Shasn. The awards were decided by a jury consisting of Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, Mandy Chang, Petra Costa, Ron Nixon and Michèle Stephenson. From the press release: The Documentary Film in the Public Interest Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy is delighted to announce the Grand Prize Winner, Finalists, and Honorable Mentions for the… Read more
Tribeca Festival Announces 2025 Features Including New Films by RZA, Mariska Hargitay
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The Tribeca Festival, which runs from June 4 to 15 in 2025, has announced the feature film lineup for this year's edition, including the debut feature from 25 New Face of Independent Film 2022 Walter Thompson-Hernández. From the press release: The final selections were chosen from a record-breaking number of submissions (13,541). This year’s program includes 118 feature films representing 95 world premieres, 135 filmmakers and 36 countries. 48 (40%) of the features are directed by women and 42 (36%) are directed by BIPOC filmmakers. 44 filmmakers are making their feature debut at this year’s Tribeca Festival and 32 directors are returning with their latest projects. The lineup: OPENING NIGHT GALA Billy Joel: And So It Goes (United States) - World Premiere. A sweeping portrait… Read more
