The Film Comment Podcast
Founded in 1962, Film Comment has been the home of independent film journalism for over 50 years, publishing in-depth interviews, critical analysis, and feature coverage of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world. Our podcast is a weekly space for critical conversation about film, with a look at topical issues, new releases, and the big picture. Film Comment is a nonprofit publication that relies on the support of readers. Support film culture and subscribe today.
Episodes
August 4, 2022 • 59 min
This week's podcast initially began as a sequel to our episode about Irma Vep from a few weeks ago, in which Adam Nayman and Beatrice Loayza joined us to discuss Olivier Assayas's new HBO series. We had only seen four episodes at the time, and we wanted to reconvene our guests, now that the miniseries has finished its run of eight episodes. But as we dug into the film-within-a-film rabbit holes of Irma Vep, its commentaries...
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July 27, 2022 • 77 min
This week we have a special treat for listeners: a conversation with avant-garde filmmaking legends Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler, and programmer and Light Industry co-founder Thomas Beard. Thomas, along with Film at Lincoln Center programmer Dan Sullivan, has curated New York, 1962–1964: Underground and Experimental Cinema, an upcoming series spotlighting the rise of what Jonas Mekas described as the "New American Cinema.&...
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July 19, 2022 • 54 min
In a recent Film Comment Letter interview, Academy Film Archive preservationist Mark Toscano said: “to me, restoration has a variable definition, because it’s not embodying any specific technique or approach. It is more of a conceptual process by which you’re making sure that the film retains its qualities as a work that was made by a person—especially experimental work made by an individual.”
Film Comment editors Clinton Krute an...
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July 12, 2022 • 44 min
This week, Film Comment editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish talk to a cinematographer who’s worked with everyone from Agnès Varda to Wim Wenders to Eliza Hittman to Alice Rohrwacher. Over the last three decades, Hélène Louvart has acquired a reputation for her gorgeous lensing of women’s stories and her ability to capture movement with rare immediacy and grace.
Hélène’s talents are on striking display in Murina, a new coming-o...
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June 28, 2022 • 56 min
This week sees another episode of our Movie Gifts podcast. It’s like Secret Santa but for movies—each participant picks a title for another that the recipient hasn’t seen. It’s a fun way to share enthusiasms and gain new insights on old favorites. For this round, Film Comment co-deputy editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute invited FC contributor Nathan Lee and former FC editor Gavin Smith, two longtime friends, who were eager to ...
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June 21, 2022 • 55 min
Today’s podcast is spurred by something Film Comment Co-Deputy Editor Devika Girish wrote in her dispatch from Cannes a few weeks ago: “the undeniable thrills and pleasures of Top Gun: Maverick … are not entirely separable from the American-exceptionalist fervor of its narrative or the military resources poured into its making. It isn’t “a good film but with bad politics”; it’s a good film in part because of its bad politics.”
Th...
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June 14, 2022 • 67 min
Two episodes in, Olivier Assayas’s new, mind-bendingly metatextual HBO series, Irma Vep, has already proven to be catnip for cinephiles. An audacious expansion and reinvention of Assayas's 1996 film of the same title—in which an aging French filmmaker attempts to remake Louis Feuillade’s classic silent serial, Les vampires, with Maggie Cheung as the criminal vamp Irma Vep—the eight-part series features a nearly dizzying mise-en...
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May 31, 2022 • 22 min
Léa Seydoux had an enviable and prolific 2021 with standout turns in Cary Fukunaga’s No Time to Die, Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, Ildikó Enyedi’s The Story of My Wife, Bruno Dumont’s France, and Arnaud Desplechin’s Deception. At this year’s Cannes, she continued her streak with starring roles in two excellent, very different movies: One Fine Morning by Mia Hansen-Løve, where Seydoux plays a young mother grieving the cognitiv...
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May 28, 2022 • 62 min
With Cannes 2022 winding to a close, the last stretch has proved especially rich with standouts. On today’s podcast, FC Co-Deputy Editor Devika Girish sat down with Dennis Lim (artistic director of the New York Film Festival), Jean-Michel Frodon (critic and former editor in chief of Cahiers du Cinéma), and Antoine Thirion (curator and critic) to discuss the festival that was. They talk about Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up, Albert Ser...
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May 27, 2022 • 28 min
With Cannes 2022 beginning to wind down, the last stretch has proved especially rich with standouts. One of these eleventh-hour highlights is Albert Serra’s latest feature, Pacifiction. An epic yet elliptical political thriller, the film follows a high commissioner in French Polynesia, played by Benoît Magimel, as he snakes his way through a dense, sensorially overwhelming landscape, schmoozing with locals, activists, and other pol...
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May 26, 2022 • 55 min
With Cannes 2022 winding to a close, Film Comment is on the ground, reporting on all the cinematic excitement at the film industry’s grandest annual event with the help of our on-the-Croisette crew of contributors.
On today’s podcast, FC Co-Deputy Editor Devika Girish talks to FC Podcast superstars Jonathan Romney and Jessican Kiang about the festival’s denouement, touching on Baz Luhrmann’s batshit Elvis; the latest slice of la v...
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May 25, 2022 • 57 min
With Cannes 2022 in full swing, Film Comment is on the ground, reporting on all the cinematic excitement at the film world’s grandest annual event. For today’s podcast, Devika sits down with critic Mark Asch and Miriam Bale, artistic director of the Indie Memphis Film Festival, for an conversation that gravitates, like a mosquito to a well-toned ab, toward the festival’s thirst traps, including David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Futu...
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May 24, 2022 • 63 min
With Cannes 2022 in full swing, Film Comment is on the ground, reporting on all the cinematic excitement at the film world’s grandest annual event. On today's podcast, Devika is joined by Justin Chang, film critic of the Los Angeles Times and NPR’s “Fresh Air”, for a conversation about about David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider, Cristian Mungiu’s R.M.N., Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave, and more....
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May 23, 2022 • 33 min
With Cannes 2022 kicking off this week, Film Comment is on the ground, reporting on all the cinematic excitement at the film industry’s grandest annual event with the help of our on-the-Croisette crew of contributors.
On today’s podcast, FC Publisher Eugene Hernandez sits down with Arianna Bocco, President of IFC Films, to take the temperature of Cannes, mid-way through. The two talk about her history with festival, how Cannes’ ro...
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May 22, 2022 • 37 min
With Cannes 2022 in full swing, Film Comment is on the ground, reporting on all the cinematic excitement at the film industry’s grandest annual event with the help of our on-the-Croisette crew of contributors.
On today’s podcast, FC Co-Deputy Editor Devika Girish was joined by FC contributors Jordan Cronk and Giovanni Marchini Camia to discuss some recent highlights from the fest, including James Gray’s Armageddon Time, Ruben Östl...
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May 21, 2022 • 45 min
With Cannes 2022 in full swing, Film Comment is on the ground, reporting on all the cinematic excitement at the film industry’s grandest annual event with the help of our on-the-Croisette crew of contributors.
On today’s podcast, FC Co-Deputy Editor Devika Girish was joined by Inney Prakash (programmer and founder of the Prismatic Ground Festival) and Vadim Rizov (director of editorial operations at Filmmaker Magazine), to discuss...
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May 19, 2022 • 32 min
With Cannes 2022 kicking off this week, Film Comment is on the ground, reporting on all the cinematic excitement at the film industry’s grandest annual event with the help of our on-the-Croisette crew of contributors.
On today’s podcast, FC Co-Deputy Editor Devika Girish found a quiet corner to chat with frequent FC contributors Jessica Kiang and Jordan Cronk about their hot takes from the first three days of the fest. They discus...
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May 18, 2022 • 37 min
With Cannes 2022 kicking off this week, Film Comment is on the ground, reporting on all the cinematic excitement at the film industry’s grandest annual event with the help of our on-the-Croisette crew of contributors.
On today’s podcast, Film Comment Publisher Eugene Hernandez sits down with Lizzie Francke(producer and Editor at Large at the BFI) to provide an inside-the-industry take on this year’s festival. They also touch on so...
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May 17, 2022 • 60 min
Cannes 2022 is here—and as news of standing ovations and walkouts, throwaway raves and pans, spit takes and hot takes flood the feed, we’ll be reporting on all the cinematic goings-on, with our on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors ready to cut through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.
First up, we welcome FC contributing editor Jonathan Romney and frequent FC contributor Jess...
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May 10, 2022 • 53 min
Everything you always wanted to know about Hong Sangsoo… but were afraid to ask! To celebrate Film at Lincoln Center’s two-part retrospective of the films of Hong, we hosted a special live conversation with NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim about the playful, profound, and soju-soaked filmography of one of world cinema’s most influential and ingenious artists. Dennis, the author of a forthcoming monograph on Hong’s Tale of Cinema ...
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