From Radu Jude’s take on AI slop to Benning’s pointedly political piece, Currents at NYFF has its experimental finger on today’s disintegrating world.
Current Responses to a Degrading Status Quo
Nick Kouhi
Nick Kouhi is a programmer and critic based in Minneapolis, Minnesota
True/False 2025: Our Future’s Keepers
We survey three films playing at True/False film festival and their tendency to complicate simplistic ideas of cultural homogenisation.
Blind Love. Tunnel Vision.
References to Alfred Hitchock and Edward Yang does the paper-thin queer Taiwanese love story Blind Love no favours.
Strandzha. Between the Borderlines.
The woods straddling Bulgaria and Turkey are imbued with multivalent meanings in Pepe Hristova’s Strandzha, playing in Harbour at IFFR.
The Best Film Scenes of 2024
From Baby Annette dancing to Modern Love to the climax of By The Stream to Ellen’s introduction in Sterben, we recap the best scenes of the year.
Radical Images: The New York Counter Film Festival
New York Counter Film Festival, created in opposition to NYFF’s Zionist ties, enjoyed its inaguaral, radical edition. We report from the frontline.
Mall of Us Strangers
In All, Or Nothing At All, presented in two unique, each-way versions, Jiajun Zhang captures the modern malaise of contemporary Chinese capitalism.
Malu. The Bout of the Brazilian Bohèmes.
With shades of Cassavetes, Pedro Freire’s Brazilian debut Malu is a spirited and claustrophobic homage to the influence of his chaotic mother.
Otro Sol. Only Crime Will Tell.
Francisco Rodriguez Teare’s hybrid debut Otro Sol is a creative and crafty investigation of criminal and colonial legacies — in Chile and beyond.
The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire Rejects Conventionality in Favour of Archival Speculation
Madelaine Hunt-Ehrlich’s The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire mounts a corrective to the surrealist’s occluded legacy through a personal essayistic structure.