Cannes 2024 is in full swing—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors has been high-tailing it from screening to screening, cutting through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

On our latest episode from the sunny shores of Southern France, critics Guy Lodge and Adam Piron join Film Comment Editor Devika Girish to share their reactions to two of the most buzzy recent premieres—Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez (3:15) and Sean Baker’s Anora (14:39)—before offering some personal recommendations for deserving films that aren't getting the same hype treatment, including Sandhya Suri’s Santosh (26:30), Carson Lund’s Eephus (33:12), and Soi Cheang’s Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (37:10).

Subscribe today to the Film Comment Letter for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2024 edition: www.filmcomment.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Cannes 2024 is in full swing—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors has been high-tailing it from screening to screening, cutting through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

For our latest episode from the shores of the Riviera, critics Robert Daniels, Miriam Bale, and Mark Asch join Film Comment Editor Devika Girish for a discussion of their recent festival viewing, including David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds (3:15), Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (23:37), Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice (36:54), and Claire Simon’s Elementary (49:25).

Subscribe today to the Film Comment Letter for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2024 edition: www.filmcomment.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Cannes 2024 has arrived—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors is high-tailing it from screening to screening, ready to cut through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

On today’s episode, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish is joined by Kevin B. Lee, Abby Sun, and Vadim Rizov to debate their differing reactions to Jia Zhangke’s Caught by the Tides (3:28), Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada (21:17), Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson’s Rumours (40:41), Patricia Mazuy’s Visiting Hours (48:21), and Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language (53:42).

Subscribe today to the Film Comment Letter for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2024 edition.

Cannes 2024 has arrived—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors is high-tailing it from screening to screening, ready to cut through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

On today’s episode, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish sat down with Canadian filmmakers Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson to discuss their new film Rumours, one of the true delights of the festival so far. It’s a horror comedy set during a G7 Summit, with a dynamic ensemble cast including Cate Blanchett as the German chancellor, Charles Dance as the American president with an explicable British accent, and Roy Dupuis as the Canadian prime minister sporting a man bun. These and other leaders of the world’s richest democracies gather in a gazebo in the German forest to draft a statement addressing an unnamed political crisis, but soon sinister noises and figures emerge from the shadows around them. Rumours is a satire that is as whip-smart and timely as it is unabashedly silly, featuring hijinks such as a giant brain and an AI bot that traps sex predators.

Subscribe today to the Film Comment Letter for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2024 edition: www.filmcomment.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Cannes 2024 has arrived—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors is high-tailing it from screening to screening, ready to cut through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

For today’s episode, critics Kelli Weston and Jessica Kiang join Film Comment Editor Devika Girish to unpack three of the most highly anticipated premieres of the festival: Francis Ford Coppola’s operatic fable Megalopolis, Andrea Arnold’s magical realist Bird, and Yorgos Lanthimos’s macabre anthology film, Kinds of Kindness.

Subscribe today to the Film Comment Letter for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2024 edition: www.filmcomment.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Cannes 2024 has arrived—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors is high-tailing it from screening to screening, ready to cut through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

For today’s episode, critics Kelli Weston and Jessica Kiang join Film Comment Editor Devika Girish to unpack three of the most highly anticipated premieres of the festival: Francis Ford Coppola’s operatic fable Megalopolis (2:55), Andrea Arnold’s magical realist Bird (27:25), and Yorgos Lanthimos’s macabre anthology film, Kinds of Kindness (50:00).

Subscribe today to the Film Comment Letter for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2024 edition: www.filmcomment.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Cannes 2024 has arrived—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors is high-tailing it from screening to screening, ready to cut through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

For this episode, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish is joined by Cannes veterans and all-star FC critics Bilge Ebiri and Jonathan Romney, whose dispatch on the festival’s early days will be in Friday’s Film Comment Letter. The three discuss and debate some of the most buzzy titles that have screened to date, including George Miller’s would-be blockbuster Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (3:15), Magnus van Horn's The Girl With the Needle (8:17), Rungano Nyoni’s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (17:18), Jonathan Millet’s Ghost Trail (26:15), Roberto Minervini’s The Damned (33:19), and Rúnar Rúnarsson’s When the Light Breaks (37:03).

Subscribe today to the Film Comment Letter for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2024 edition: https://www.filmcomment.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Cannes 2024 has arrived—and our intrepid on-the-Croisette crew of Film Comment contributors is high-tailing it from screening to screening, ready to cut through the noise with a series of thoughtful dispatches, interviews, and podcasts.

To kick things off, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish sat down with our contributor Beatrice Loayza (stay tuned for her dispatch next week) and Sight and Sound’s Isabel Stevens. The three critics debated their differing reactions to the festival’s opening night selection, Quentin Dupieux’s The Second Act (3:27), as well as Sophie Fillières’ This Life of Mine (15:36), Agathe Riedinger’s Wild Diamond (20:53), and Abel Gance’s newly-restored 1927 silent epic Napoléon (32:00), before looking ahead to the films they’re most excited to see as the festival continues.

Subscribe today to the Film Comment Letter for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2024 edition: https://www.filmcomment.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Avant-garde cinema emerged in direct conversation with the film criticism that contextualized, championed, and critiqued it. Writing about work that is premised on defying formulaic intelligibility, and which invites us to reach beyond language to other modes of interpretation, can be both challenging and thrilling—requiring the critic to draw on a deep historical knowledge and a finely-tuned sensory awareness. And reading such criticism can be at once an eye-opening entryway into better appreciating experimental cinema, and its own creative encounter with connections across image and thought.

On May 9, Film Comment Editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish sat down with Amy Taubin, Genevieve Yue, and Ayanna Dozier, some of the best critics of the avant-garde working today, to discuss the history of the craft, the nitty-gritty of this niche beat, what good writing on avant-garde cinema looks and sounds like, and what to even call the genre—avant-garde? Experimental? The other cinema? The talk took place at DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema in Downtown Manhattan as part of this year’s edition of Prismatic Ground, an exemplary and boundary-pushing festival dedicated to experimental documentary. Throughout the inspired conversation, the group referred to a few exemplary passages written by the esteemed panelists. Go to Film Comment's website to read: https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/the-film-comment-podcast-writing-about-avant-garde-cinema

Every year, Film at Lincoln Center honors a luminary of the film industry with the Chaplin Award. This year’s honoree is a beloved screen icon: the Dude, the Starman, the legend—Jeff Bridges. In advance of the 49th Chaplin Award Gala, taking place on April 29, Devika sat down with Bridges for a look back at the actor’s long career. Taking inspiration from a painting Bridges made many years ago, titled Jeff Makes a Decision, which depicts him as a stick figure navigating a river full of whirlpools, their conversation touched upon several of Bridges’s iconic roles—The Last Picture Show, Tron, Crazy Heart, and more—and how the actor ended up in those movies, often in spite of himself. Bridges also discussed the lasting influence his parents, both actors, have had on him; some of the crazy on-set stories behind his most memorable performances; and the television shows he is currently enjoying.