Authors — Natalia Keogan
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“It Did Feel Like a Conjuring”: Avalon Fast on Her Witchy Sophomore Feature CAMP
After a tragic loss, college dropout Emily (Zola Grimmer) is desperate for some distance in CAMP, the sophomore feature from 25-year-old writer-director Avalon Fast. While her father (Michael Tan) is patient and supportive, the comfort of returning home only seems to make Emily regress into a volatile depression. On a lark of sorts, he suggests that she apply to work as a counselor at a summer camp deep in the Canadian wilderness. Though skeptical of the overt Christian slant espoused on the promotional pamphlet, something draws her in. When she arrives after a long journey, she is surprised to see […]
by Natalia Keogan on Nov 10, 2025 -
“It Doesn’t Feel Like There’s a Collective Reality Anymore”: Lee Anne Schmitt on “Evidence”
Documentary essayist Lee Anne Schmitt’s latest feature Evidence is, artistically speaking, both a concerted continuation and marked departure. On the one hand, it furthers her career-long penchant for braiding political rhetoric, environmental portraits and American mythology; on the other, it filters these observations through a distinctly personal lens, even featuring a rare on-screen appearance for the director. The film opens with Schmitt showcasing an impressive collection of dolls, childhood gifts that her father brought back from frequent international business trips. Their national diversity and craftsmanship is impressive—most adorn traditional garb, some possess the ability to blink—yet they all translate the […]
by Natalia Keogan on Sep 30, 2025 -
“We Knew This Chemistry Is Something That We Could Count On”: Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki on NYFF Animated Feature, Bouchra
In Bouchra, 3D animated anthropomorphic animals may populate the world, but the intricacies of their lives are unmistakably human. This approach is par for the course for the film’s co-directors, the Brooklyn-based visual artists Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki, whose bite-size episodic project 2 Lizards captivated viewers during the early stages of lockdown in 2020—and landed them on our 25 New Faces of Film list the same year. In the latter project, the eponymous 3D-rendered lizards (voiced by Bennani and Barki) shoot the shit about celebrities, news coverage, pandemic-era anxieties and the morbid relief of being able to shirk social […]
by Natalia Keogan on Sep 29, 2025 -
“Grief in a Beautiful Place”: Lucía Aleñar Iglesias on Her TIFF World Premiere Forastera
The carefree, meandering pace of summertime suddenly takes the form of a depressive stupor in Forastera, the feature debut from Los Angeles-based, Spanish-born writer-director Lucía Aleñar Iglesias. During an annual vacation to visit their maternal grandparents in Mallorca, Cata (Zoe Stein) and Eva (Martina García) engage in typical teenage shenanigans: they aimlessly ride bikes along the coast, go to beach bonfire parties and flirt with the boys they encounter there. Basically, all is as it should be—at least until the day that Cata discovers her grandmother’s unresponsive body. The girls’ mother Pepe (Núria Prims) arrives in order to help with […]
by Natalia Keogan on Sep 19, 2025 -
Motherload: Mary Bronstein on “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”
With If I Had Legs I’d Kick You opening today from A24, we’re unlocking from behind our paywall Natalia Keogan’s interview with Bronstein, which is the cover story of our Fall, 2025 edition. — Editor “Something very bad is happening,” young mother Caroline (Danielle Macdonald) whimpers amid oncoming tears during a routine therapy appointment. In the throes of a severe bout of postpartum depression exacerbated by a lack of support from her husband, Caroline’s hour-long sessions at Montauk’s “Center for Psychological Arts” are a brief respite from a world that, in her mind, is more violent and evil than anyone […]
by Natalia Keogan on Sep 17, 2025 -
“I Finalized the Script Two Weeks Before the Crew Arrived”: Alexandra Simpson on No Sleep Till
Against the darkening skies of an imminent hurricane in Atlantic Beach, Florida, disparate characters become unmoored in No Sleep Till, the feature debut from French-American filmmaker Alexandra Simpson. Shot in the coastal enclave where she partially grew up with her father, Simpson’s film casts a “European gaze” (she was largely raised in Paris and attended film school in Geneva) tinted by a palpable nostalgia for a place she never truly knew and that she believes could one day disappear as a result of a natural disaster. There’s a laconic quality to No Sleep Till, but the absence of narrative-driving dialogue […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jul 18, 2025 -
“Everybody Involved in This Was a Total Loser”: Alex Ross Perry on His Exhaustive Essay Doc Videoheaven
Part eulogy for a bygone commercial space, part rigorous investigation of its origins and subsequent representation in popular culture, Alex Ross Perry’s Videoheaven leaves virtually no stone unturned during its nearly three hour runtime. Composed entirely of clips that take place in or otherwise center video stores—from Body Double to Seinfeld to Stranger Things—the essayistic documentary features droll narration from Maya Hawke (who stars in the latter) waxing poetic about their rise and fall, both physically and on screen, in six chapters. The role of pornography, corporate chains and the front-facing employees within these spaces is exhaustively charted; notably, Perry […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jul 2, 2025 -
“Freedom Could Stem From the Experience”: Nicole Chi on Her Student Short Film Showcase Winner Los Mosquitos
In the absence of their mothers, two foster siblings slowly fortify a sisterhood in Los Mosquitos, Nicole Chi’s lushly atmospheric short. Made as part of her graduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin, the film centers on women within the local Honduran community—which Chi has closely worked with in the past—and is largely composed of a cast of non-professional actors. This includes protagonists Abby (Abigail Hernandez), a rebellious 15-year-old, and Nata (Natalia Rodríguez), her younger cousin who’s freshly arrived in the US. As the girls navigate this stark change in their living situation, tensions naturally arise: Abby begins […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jun 26, 2025 -
“My Tendency Is to Prioritize Collaboration”: Eva Steinmetz on Her Student Short Film Showcase Winner Marina
A father-daughter relationship finds eventual catharsis through conflict in Marina, writer-director Eva Steinmetz’s MFA thesis film completed during her studies at Temple University. The titular character (Grace McLean) struggles as the sole caretaker for her mentally and physically declining father (Peter Friedman). Indeed, their shifting roles has caused quite a rift in their relationship—and even rehashes past resentments—causing both parties to simmer with perpetual frustration. With the help of an ice cold Klondike bar, the two are able to enjoy each other’s company for the first time in a while; a moment so uncanny that it takes place during an […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jun 26, 2025 -
“The Version of My Homeland That I Was Robbed of”: Reem Jubran on Her Student Short Film Showcase Winner Don’t Be Long, Little Bird
While on a tense mother-daughter trip, a young woman (Banna Bazzarie) contends with her desire to broaden her horizons while also recognizing the importance of her heritage in Reem Jubran’s UCLA thesis film Don’t Be Long, Little Bird. Seeking some much-needed space from her mother (and a sneaky smoke), the young woman stumbles upon a secluded swimming hole. After taking a dip, she emerges in a different time and place altogether: Ramallah, Palestine circa 1936, a dozen years before the Nakba that would displace civilians and destroy their villages in order to create the state of Israel. Unsure of how […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jun 26, 2025
