This month, we feature videos on criticism, artificial intelligence, social media, and more.
Dan Schindel
Dan Schindel is a freelance writer and copy editor living in Brooklyn, and a former associate editor at Hyperallergic. His portfolio and links are here.
Doc Examining Ethics in Documentary Filmmaking Has Its Own Problems
Subject’s premise is novel and has potential, but for all the film’s discussion of ethics, it has its own failings.
The Ghostly Afterlives of Cinema
Pictures of Ghosts is concerned not just with how cinema makes memory tangible, but also how we historically have interacted with it.
The Best Experimental Shorts at the New York Film Festival
The festival’s Currents program deserves praise for its selection of risk-taking films.
Five Video Essays That Go Beyond the Surface
With so many to sort through, here are some recommendations for the best recent video essays to check out.
Hayao Miyazaki Takes a Deeply Personal Turn
The Boy and the Heron is an old man’s look back at a life spent crafting intricate worlds, now offering the tools to do so to the next generation.
Who Are You, John le Carré?
In The Pigeon Tunnel, documentarian Errol Morris attempts to suss out what makes the famed spy novelist tick.
The Israeli Filmmakers Who Shoot and Cry
Michal Weits’s Blue Box, in which she grapples with her great-grandfather’s role in the mass displacement of Palestinians, doesn’t go quite far enough.
Chilean Filmmaker Patricio Guzmán Talks Exile, Trauma, and Revolution
Guzmán sits with Hyperallergic for a conversation about the lost promise of Salvador Allende’s presidency, enduring personal and collective trauma, and the continued possibility for a new revolution.
Can Memory Ever Be Eternal?
The Eternal Memory draws parallels between a Chilean couple’s struggle with Alzheimer’s and their country’s broader struggle to maintain its history.
How to Find a Public Restroom in New York
For all the character that the city has lost to gentrification, How To with John Wilson demonstrates how much delightful strangeness can still be found here.
Revisiting the Magic of Ryuichi Sakamoto
Elizabeth Lennard, director of the 1985 documentary Tokyo Melody about the famed experimental musician, discusses the film and her memories of Sakamoto.