Authors — Natalia Keogan
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“I Wanted to Make a Black, Gay Paris, Texas“: Shatara Michelle Ford on Their BlackStar-Premiering Sophomore Feature Dreams in Nightmares
Three cross-coastal best friends reunite for a spontaneous road trip across the American underbelly in Dreams in Nightmares, the sophomore feature from writer-director Shatara Michelle Ford. Though a significant pivot in theme and scope from their lean yet intense debut feature Test Pattern, Ford’s latest continues to plainly indicts the oppression that finds Black, femme, queer bodies at a stark institutional disadvantage. After being laid off from their respective jobs in academia and finance, Z (Denée Benton) and Tasha (Sasha Compère) hop on the phone to reschedule a planned trip to the Dominican Republic. Instead of lounging in paradise, Tasha […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 2, 2024 -
“Suspense Comes From Air Conditioning”: Lucy Kerr on Family Portrait
“I thought about The Exterminating Angel,” Lucy Kerr says over coffee as she describes the origins of Family Portrait, her hypnotic feature debut. Indeed, the film’s central conceit hews closely to Luis Buñuel’s 1962 satire, but instead of posh partygoers being inexplicably stuck in a single room, an extended Texas family is unable to get everyone to gather for the titular photo. In particular, Katie’s (Deragh Campbell) pleas for everyone to assemble are frustratingly ignored or otherwise thwarted, especially when the family matriarch (Silvana Jakich) is suddenly nowhere to be found. Wandering around the vast property in search of her […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jun 28, 2024 -
Offscreen Dialogue: India Donaldson on Good One
In writer-director India Donaldson’s feature debut, Good One, 17-year-old Sam (outstanding newcomer Lily Collias) embarks on a weekend camping trip with her father Chris (James LeGros) and his lifelong pal Matt (Danny McCarthy). For Sam, a meek college-bound lesbian, the interactions with the two adult men with whom she treks through the forest fall back on conventional gender dynamics ranging from idly domestic to outright degrading: She cooks dinner, washes utilitarian dishware and fields insensitive comments about her sexuality without protest, demonstrating the extent of her excellent manners, so defining of her character that they’re referenced in the film’s title. […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jun 27, 2024 -
“Polaroids Were Certainly a Key Touchstone Into This World”: Osgood Perkins on Longlegs
It’s somewhat apt to say that Osgood Perkins owes much of his cinematic success to Satan. His 2015 debut as a writer-director, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, explores the sinister presence of the occult at a Catholic boarding school in Upstate New York. He leaned into a gothic ghost story for his 2016 follow-up, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, eschewing devil worship for a clear nod to novelist Shirley Jackson. Longlegs, his third effort as sole writer and director, veers staunchly back toward Satanism, this time revolving around a series of murders committed by the eponymous killer. […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jun 19, 2024 -
“What It Means to be Constantly Coming of Age”: Writer/Director Noah Schamus on Summer Solstice
Leo, a 20-something aspiring actor, is navigating a creative crisis in Summer Solstice, the feature debut from writer-director Noah Schamus. More aptly, Leo (Bobbi Salvör Menuez) is frustrated with the reductive and trite roles he is constantly up for, compounded by the reality that these seem to be the only gigs available to him as a trans actor. It appears that much-needed distraction arrives when Elenor (Marianne Rendón), his best friend from college, pays a visit to his NYC apartment on her way upstate for a house-sitting job. After convincing Leo to join her, the duo drive to the Hudson […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jun 14, 2024 -
“We Had a Real Permit For Once in Our Lives”: Joel Potrykus on His Tribeca-Premiering Vulcanizadora
Vulcanizadora, the latest film from Grand Rapids-based guerilla filmmaker Joel Potrykus, is predicated on a conceit that’s faithful to his overarching artistic interests. Two volatile buddies (Potrykus muse Joshua Burge and Potrykus himself) embark on an extended hike to a remote beach, where they plan to execute a plan fit for a Faces of Deathsequel (indeed, the film’s newly-released poster even emphasizes this parallel). While the complicated lives they’ve seemingly fled—a pending jail sentence and the crushing weight of having lost child custody—suggest warranted comeuppance, the men nevertheless retreat into childishness. They set off snake fireworks, gorge themselves on convenience […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jun 8, 2024 -
“I Was Trying to Illustrate What It Was Like to Lose My Mind”: Elizabeth Sankey on Her Tribeca-Premiering Essay Doc Witches
Witches, the sophomore feature from English filmmaker Elizabeth Sankey, poses an interesting hypothesis concerning the link between the English witch trials and maternal mental health. Sankey illustrates this correlation by utilizing filmic portrayals of sorceresses (from Häxan to The Craft) and “psychotic women” (from Rosemary’s Baby to Unsane), their historical accuracy and cultural relevance buttressed by insight from doctors, historians and those who’ve been diagnosed with postpartum mental illnesses. Sankey is perfectly poised to tackle the topic given that she spent several months in a mother and baby psychiatric unit after experiencing severe postpartum anxiety and depression that made her […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jun 7, 2024 -
“I Was a Teenage Theater Nerd”: Rachel Wolther on Her Tribeca-Premiering Feature Debut The French Italian
The New York City nightmare of giving up a rent-stabilized apartment inspires (literal) dramatic vengeance in The French Italian, writer-director Rachel Wolther’s feature debut. Long-term couple Doug (Aristotle Athari) and Valerie (Catherine Cohen) live in a gorgeous brownstone on the Upper West Side—that is, until they’ve had it with their raucous downstairs neighbors oscillating between screaming matches and belching off-key karaoke renditions of “La Bamba.” They move out after obsessively peeping and eavesdropping on their newfound enemies; their hatred drives them to Rye, New York, where they take over Doug’s parent’s house while they’re in Boca. Now forced to shuttle […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jun 6, 2024 -
“This Is a Safe Space for People Who Are Against Genocide, And Who Want to See a Liberated Future for All”: Inney Prakash Previews Prismatic Ground 2024
Returning for its fourth edition, the experimentally-focused Prismatic Ground film festival will once again host a series of screenings across several NYC theaters and via a free streaming platform. Running from May 8 through 12, the program kicks off with an appropriately urgent Opening Night screening at the Museum of the Moving Image of Palestinian filmmaker Michel Khleifi’s Fertile Memory (1981), preceded by a reading from poet Hala Alyan and concluding with a post-film discussion between Bidoun magazine’s Tiffany Malakooti and researcher, writer and curator Adam HajYahia. “Most of my energy and attention in the last several months has been focused […]
by Natalia Keogan on May 8, 2024 -
“I Was Definitely Paying Homage to Stories Set in Chicago”: Minhal Baig on We Grown Now
Through chronicling a critical turning point for the residents of Chicago’s now-defunct Cabrini-Green public housing project, writer-director Minhal Baig’s We Grown Now explores how the reverberations of this bygone time and place continue to register today. Set in 1992 amid the real-life death of 7-year-old Dantrell Davis—who was walking to school with his mother when a stray bullet struck him—Baig’s film follows young boys Malik (Blake Cameron James) and Eric (Gian Knight Ramirez) as they grapple with the aftermath of the tragedy. Despite the oppressive living conditions due to Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) negligence, Malik’s home life is replete with […]
by Natalia Keogan on May 1, 2024
