The Film Comment Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Sundance 2023 #6, with Miriam Bale and Abby Sun Jan 25, 2023

Show notes

The Sundance Film Festival triumphantly returns to in-person screenings this year, which of course means that your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches and podcasts covering all the highlights of the 2023 edition. On today’s podcast, Miriam Bale (Indie Memphis Film Festival) and Abby Sun (International Documentary Association) return for another round of Sundance conversation with Film Comment’s Devika Girish. This time, they discuss festival selections Fair Play, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, Rye Lane, and The Tuba Thieves. Catch up on all of our Sundance 2023 coverage here: https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/category/festivals/sundance/sundance-2023/

Sundance 2023 #5, with Jessica Kiang and Justin Chang Jan 24, 2023

Show notes

The Sundance Film Festival triumphantly returns to in-person screenings this year, which of course means that your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches and podcasts covering all the highlights of the 2023 edition. On today’s podcast, Film Comment Co-Deputy Editor Devika Girish talks to critics Justin Chang (The Los Angeles Times and Fresh Air) and Jessica Kiang (Variety and elsewhere) about Sundance selections Eileen, You Hurt My Feelings, Past Lives (pro-side this time), and Cat Person. Catch up on all of our Sundance 2023 coverage here.

Sundance 2023 #4, Vadim Rizov and Dan Sullivan Jan 23, 2023

Show notes

The Sundance Film Festival triumphantly returns to in-person screenings this year, which of course means that your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches and podcasts covering all the highlights of the 2023 edition. On today’s podcast, Film Comment’s Devika Girish talks to Vadim Rivov(Filmmaker Magazine) and Dan Sullivan (Film at Lincoln Center) about Sundance selections Fremont, Gush, Polite Society, and A Common Sequence. They also dig into the festival’s New Frontier section and whether or not there’s such a thing as a “Sundance film.” Catch up on all of our Sundance 2023 coverage here: https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/category/festivals/sundance/sundance-2023/

Sundance 2023 #3, with Miriam Bale and Abby Sun Jan 22, 2023

Show notes

The Sundance Film Festival triumphantly returns to in-person screenings this year, which of course means that your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches and podcasts covering all the highlights of the 2023 edition. On today’s podcast, Film Comment’s Devika Girish talks to Miriam Bale (Indie Memphis Film Festival) and Abby Sun (International Documentary Association) about Sundance selections Earth Mama, Past Lives, Against the Tide, Little Richard: I Am Everything, and Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project.

Sundance 2023 #2, with Sam Adams, Kayla Myers, and Alissa Wilkinson Jan 21, 2023

Show notes

The Sundance Film Festival triumphantly returns to in-person screenings this year, which of course means that your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches and podcasts covering all the highlights of the 2023 edition. On today’s podcast, Film Comment’s Devika Girish invited FC friends and critics Alissa Wilkinson (Vox), Sam Adams (Slate) and Kayla Myers (Indie Memphis Film Festival) to chat about the buzzy titles of Day Two, including Justice, Earth Mama, To Live and Die and Live, Mami Wata, Animalia, the documentary shorts program, and more.

Sundance 2023 #1, with Abby Sun and Alissa Wilkinson Jan 20, 2023

Show notes

With the Sundance Film Festival triumphantly returning to in-person screenings this year, your intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the scene in snowy Park City, bringing you dispatches and podcasts covering each day's new highlights and lowlights. To kick things off, FC editor Devika Girish invited Abby Sun (International Documentary Association) and Alissa Wilkinson (Vox) to talk about some of the opening night films, including The Longest Goodbye, Kim’s Video, and The Pod Generation, and the titles they're most excited to see in the coming days.

Indigenous Cinema with Sky Hopinka and Adam Piron Jan 17, 2023

Show notes

Last week, ThousandSuns Cinema, an online screening initiative by the Media City Film Festival, launched a unique virtual series devoted to Indigenous cinema. Co-presented with the artist-run collective COUSIN, the program brings together a vibrant selection of short and feature-length works by Indigenous filmmakers—all of which are free to stream online until January 30. The series features landmark films by established directors like Alanis Obomsawin, as well as more recent, dynamic work from emerging artists like Fox Maxy. Though the films are eclectic, with a variety of forms and themes on display, they’re united by one principle: they center Indigenous audiences and decenter the white gaze. On today’s episode, Film Comment editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute interview two members of COUSIN Collective, filmmakers Adam Piron and Sky Hopinka, about the series, the origins of their collective, and the community of artists that they’ve cultivated.

New Year, New Releases, with Sam Adams and Nicholas Russell Jan 10, 2023

Show notes

Every January, to ring in the new year, Film Comment editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute take a look at some of the major new releases of the holiday season. This year, they were joined by critics Sam Adams and Nicholas Russell to run down some of the blingier titles that have recently graced the marquees of multiplexes and streaming sites alike, including Avatar: The Way of Water, Babylon, Glass Onion, and the A.I.-horror flick M3GAN. Needless to say, opinions ran as hot as the blood of a vengeful space whale.

Mina Kavani on Jafar Panahi’s No Bears Jan 04, 2023

Show notes

Happy new year to our listeners, and thanks for joining us for another year of writing and talking about movies. We’ll dive into the new year’s new releases very soon, but today’s podcast is about one of 2022’s late but great entries: No Bears, the latest meta-fictional masterwork from Jafar Panahi. In the film, Panahi plays a slightly fictionalized version of himself, as a controversial filmmaker holed up in an Iranian border-village, trying to evade the surveillance of the authorities while remotely directing a film set in nearby Turkey. What starts as a seemingly gentle satire becomes a timely reckoning with the moral dilemmas faced by people—especially women—living under a patriarchal and dictatorial regime. Though Panahi tragically remains imprisoned in Tehran since his arrest last July, we were glad to be able to speak to the film’s lead actress, Mina Kavani, about her riveting performance as an Iranian exile in Turkey. We discussed Kavani’s own experiences of living in exile, what it was like to work with Panahi, and the women-led movement that continues to reverberate throughout Iran.

The Best Films of 2022 Dec 15, 2022

Show notes

Last night, we sat down with a panel of special guests—Alissa Wilkinson (critic, Vox), Bilge Ebiri (critic, Vulture), and Inney Prakash (curator, Maysles Documentary Center and founder, Prismatic Ground film festival)—for a real-time countdown of the results of our year-end critics’ poll. The evening featured a lively discussion (and some hearty debate!) about the films as they were unveiled—now it’s here in podcast form, for your holiday home-listening pleasure! Consider it a gift from us to you, our loyal listeners.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected