The Film Comment Podcast

This week, Film Comment Editor Clinton Krute is in the Czech Republic, reporting on the 60th Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Located in a picturesque spa town, the fest has long been the home of hidden gems in its Competition sections, as well as a mid-summer stop for major films making the international circuit. This year’s edition features many of both, as well as an excellent retrospective sidebar highlighting some favorites from the festival's past, stretching back to the days when it was located in Moscow every other year. 
For our third and final episode from the fest, Clint welcomed critics and FC Podcast veterans Robert Daniels (RogerEbert.com) and Guy Lodge (Variety) to discuss some of the highlights of the festival, beginning with two Bulgarian films: Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s dark comedy Black Money for White Nights (04:24), and Martina Buchelová’s debut feature Lover, Not a Fighter (13:28), the winner of the festival’s Proxima Competition Grand Prix award. Finally, Robert talks about Shuntaro Uchida’s drama Incinerator (20:49) and Guy and Robert dig into Hijamat (26:30), written and directed by Nader Saeivar​​ and edited by Jafar Panahi.  
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This week, Film Comment Editor Clinton Krute is in the Czech Republic, reporting on the 60th Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Located in a picturesque spa town, the fest has long been the home of hidden gems in its Competition sections, as well as a mid-summer stop for major films making the international circuit. This year’s edition features many of both, as well as an excellent retrospective sidebar highlighting some favorites from the festival's past, stretching back to the days when it was located in Moscow every other year. 
For our second episode from the fest, Clint welcomed critic and FC Podcast veteran Robert Daniels (RogerEbert.com) to discuss some of the highlights of the festival so far, beginning with Alain Gomis's family epic Dao (3:09) before turning to Joan Bofill Amargós's The Hanging of Stuart Cornfeld (16:50), a documentary portrait of the legendary Hollywood film producer. Next, Clint shouts out Yashasvi Juyal​'s magical realist The Ink-Stained Hand and the Missing Thumb (25:42) and Robert praises Miroslav Terzić's tense portrait of childhood bullying, 3 Weeks After (31:40).
Subscribe to Film Comment today to stay up-to-date with all of our festival coverage.

This week, Film Comment Editor Clinton Krute is in the Czech Republic, reporting on the 60th Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Located in a picturesque spa town, the fest has long been the home of hidden gems in its Competition sections, as well as a mid-summer stop for major films making the international circuit. This year’s edition features many of both, as well as an excellent retrospective sidebar highlighting some favorites from the festival's past, stretching back to the days when it was located in Moscow every other year. 
To kick off our coverage, Clint welcomed critic Pavel Sladký and programmer Irena Kovarova to discuss the festival’s history and present, and to hear about some highlights from this year’s selection. The group began by discussing two Czech highlights from the festival's retrospective section: Věra Chytilová's Tainted Horseplay (8:16) from 1988, and Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos's The Defendant (14:40) from 1964. Next, they dig into standouts among the new films, including Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov's Black Money for White Nights (17:50); Maryam Ataei and Hossein Keshavarz's The Friend's House is Here (22:00); Mads Mengel's The Guest (27:02); and more.

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Listeners might know John Early as a very funny comedian and actor—but last year at the Toronto International Film Festival, John debuted a new role: an auteur. His first feature, Maddie’s Secret, takes cues from TV movies, PSAs, erotic thrillers, internet videos, Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls, and more to craft a movie that, despite all these influences and parodic touches, feels wonderfully original and earnest. Early plays the titular Maddie, a food influencer who struggles with bulimia, with sincere commitment, somehow walking the tightrope between campy, laugh-out-loud wit and a profound empathy. Maddie’s Secret opens in cinemas on June 19. Keep your ears open for Part 2 of this conversation, which will be dropping soon as an exclusive for Film Comment subscribers.

On May 15, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish moderated a panel at Cannes Docs, an industry sidebar dedicated to nonfiction filmmaking. Titled "Breaking Borders," the conversation examined how, even as the film market has become increasingly globalized, traditional professional networks and production infrastructure are still structured around exclusionary ideas about countries and continents. Devika gathered three panelists who lead groundbreaking networks that are nourishing connections across borders, changing not just the terrain of cinema but also of our notions of power, place, and belonging. The speakers included Jason Ryle, the Chief Executive Officer of the Arctic Indigenous Film Fund; Mark Mushiva, a creative technologist and Research Fellow with Forensic Architecture; and Lisa Smith, a founder of the Romani Filmmakers Network.
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Image courtesy of the Arctic Indigenous Film Fund.