The following interview was originally published during our Sundance 2023 coverage and is being republished today ahead of birth/rebirth hitting theaters via IFC Films and Shudder this weekend. — Editor The narrative kernel of birth/rebirth, Laura Moss’s debut feature, was originally planted in the writer-director’s mind 20 years ago. The filmmaker (and former EMT) was creatively stirred after reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and feeling that its interest in unnatural procreation could translate well to an all-female retelling. As the decades passed, Moss began negotiating integral facets of their identity—namely coming out as non-binary and becoming increasingly convinced they would never have […]

A breakout at Sundance, Berlinale and New Directors/New Films this year, Chilean-Serbian writer-director Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s debut feature Mutt is as scrappy and charming as its canine title. Following a frenzied 24 hours in the life of New York trans man Feña (Lío Mehiel, the first trans actor to win the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting at Sundance), Mutt explores the constant micro-aggressions that trans people face daily—even in a supposedly hyper-tolerant locale, especially from loved ones—and the connections and community that make these encounters sting a little bit less. Even when Feña faces his capricious ex-boyfriend, moody tween […]

“Have you ever seen Romanian TikToks?” It’s a torrid afternoon in Locarno and Radu Jude and I are sitting in a container repurposed as an interview booth, a couple of days after the premiere of his latest, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World. Social media play a prominent role in the film, an electrifying snapshot of life in the 21st century designed to both immortalize our back-to-front digital zeitgeist and dissect its textures. A collage straddling black comedy and road movie, Do Not Expect centers on Angela (Ilinca Manolache), an overworked production assistant whose company […]

Gaining access to an underrepresented community comes with a great amount of responsibility. There are countless examples of a director visiting a site for a few days, getting what they need, then hightailing it out only to use their subsequent press tour to emphasize the “raw grittiness” they observed while filming on location. It’s crucial to question who benefits from this exchange. Does the filmmaker gain authenticity for their work merely by virtue of who they put in front of the camera? Does the portrayed community benefit from being used to confirm an outsider’s predetermined perception? Gina Gammell and Riley […]

Ventriloquist demons go viral in Talk To Me, the feature film debut of twin brothers and co-directors Danny and Michael Philippou. While the A24 horror venture marks their first official foray into feature filmmaking, the duo have been uploading action-packed videos onto their YouTube channel, RackaRacka, since 2013. Unlike Kyle Edward Ball, another YouTuber-turned-filmmaker whose chilling feature debut Skinamarink released earlier this year, the Philippou’s prior output wasn’t necessarily horror-focused. To date, their channel is mostly comprised of stunts, comedy sketches, satirical vlogs and prank videos. This decade-spanning commitment to making content is likely what primed the brothers to helm Talk […]

“It was a highly anticipated scene for me,” Hannah Gross told me with a laugh. “It’s just so absurd. For anyone who has a complicated relationship, spoken or unspoken, with a sibling, it’s the ideal scenario: to get to express your grievances through the safety of these voices.”  I’d asked her about a memorable moment near the end of The Adults, Dustin Guy Defa’s follow-up to Person to Person (2017). Gross, Michael Cera and Sophia Lillis star as estranged siblings still reckoning with the death of their mother and still adjusting, unsuccessfully for the most part, to the disappointments of […]