A film for cinephiles generally and New York theater dwellers in particular, Ira Deutchman’s documentary, Searching for Mr. Rugoff, brings attention to the late Donald R. Rugoff, head of influential East Coast theater chain and distribution company Cinema 5. An intimidating figure, Rugoff was responsible for bringing much of the best in international arthouse cinema to audiences on the Upper East Side via his moviehouses, including the the Gramercy, the Cinema I and Cinema II, the Paris and the Sutton. When he later opened the company’s distribution wing, their acquired films collected a combined 25 Academy Award nominations, lead by […]

In June Dedza Films and Kino Lorber announced their first collaborative release, an anthology picture, Who Will Start Another Fire, containing nine independent short films by young emerging filmmakers hailing from underrepresented communities. Dedza’s first curatorial and distribution project, the film has already been released through Kino Lorber’s virtual cinema platform, playing day-and-date on TVOD and in select arthouse theaters. And this week there’s physical media: a DVD that features an introduction by Charles Burnett. All told, it’s a robust roll-out that augurs well for the vitality of this new voice in discovery and distribution. The filmmakers included in the […]

Barbara Crampton has been acting in horror movies for almost 40 years now and has classics like Body Double and Re-animator on her resume (alongside more recent cult favorites such as Lords of Salem and You’re Next), but she’s never had a part that utilizes her talents as thrillingly as the title role in Jakob’s Wife. An insightful meditation on the precarious difficulties of maintaining a marriage that also manages to deliver the horror movie goods with terrifying and often hilarious gusto (imagine Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes From a Marriage crossed with early Sam Raimi), Jakob’s Wife tells the story of […]

After the spiritual teacher Ram Dass suffered a stroke in 1997, he said, “Up until now my life has been dedicated to helping people. I even wrote a book called How Can I Help?, but now I’m confined to a wheelchair and my life is filled with people taking care of me. If I wrote it now it would have to be called, How Can You Help Me?” I love Ram Dass for his brilliance and vulnerability. His teachings on acceptance and loving awareness have been a lifesaver for me and so many. But in the wake of his stroke, it […]

1. After 15 months in pandemic NYC, with no trip out of town longer than six hours during that time, it was imperative to leave and go elsewhere—anywhere—as soon as possible. The easiest way to do this was to pay a visit to James Hansen, a friend who teaches experimental film at Alfred University, logically located in the previously-unknown-to-me town of Alfred, NY. Getting to Alfred, however, is not super simple, so I needed a ride to get from the halfway point of Binghamton to my final destination. Because I try to maximize the value of every visit I take, it […]

“If I could log in right now I would,” Dawn Porter raved in one of the many enthusiastic testimonials sprinkled throughout Full Frame’s engaging “The Creative Power of BIPOC Editors,” an online launch/celebration of the BIPOC Documentary Editors Database. Expertly edited (surprise surprise), the swift-moving event (approximately an hour long) took place on June 3rd but is still well worth checking out. Whether you’re a veteran producer looking to hire beyond the usual (white) suspects or a student just beginning to build your reel, this database instruction manual/guide to best BIPOC hiring practices/panel discussion/showcase of the diversity of BIPOC work […]

As the first major festival to return in person as the pandemic recedes, Tribeca gave us one more sign that New York is coming back. In the Heights, which opened the festival at the United Palace on June 9, was a joyful celebration of community (even for those of us who watched at home), and even in a reduced capacity the festival was a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with the movies. It also seemed that after shuttering the 2020 festival, this year’s event was fairly bursting at the seams with new types of content—of course the short and feature films […]

“Dad, I want to be a filmmaker,”  I pronounced at 12 years old, from our home in rural Ohio. “You can’t be a filmmaker,” my father responded.  You’re Palestinian. No one will care what you have to say.”  I was shocked. You’re wrong, I said to myself, rejecting his statement outright. Yet his words have continued to haunt me.  My first memory of traveling to Palestine to visit our native village was when I was eight years old. Armed Israeli soldiers held my family at the border for 12 hours. They picked through the contents of our suitcases. My father […]