This post originally appeared in The Huffington Post. “She told me she felt a huge emptiness, here.” In a country obsessed with explosions and cop chases, can a lyrical film rooted in beauty and emotion find an engaged audience? Image courtesy of Busca Vida Filmes In her new film ELENA, Brazilian filmmaker Petra Costa uses visceral […]
This piece originally appeared on The Huffington Post. Pat Shortt & Daniel Radcliffe in ‘The Cripple of Inishmaan / Credit: Johan Persson Though he’s relatively unknown on American shores, comedian Pat Shortt has been racking up fans in his native Ireland for decades. After graduating from art college in the 1980s, Shortt and his buddy […]
Back when I was at Tribeca, I interviewed Dan Schechter about his fun flick Supporting Characters, about an indie film editor (Alex Karpovsky, the coffee shop manager Ray on “Girls”) who’s down on his luck in both love and fortune. The movie had pluck and showed a lot of promise, and Schechter was clearly a nice, smart […]
Griffin Dunne (After Hours) stars as Lewis Birch, an academic purveyor of not-quite-popular history whose principled refusal to cater to the lowest common denominator has left him without a publisher. Still reeling from his divorce, he doesn’t quite know how to relate to his teenaged kids, portrayed by Madeleine Martin(“Californication“) and Devon Graye (“Dexter“). When the trio’s planned road trip from […]
I’ve always felt confident about the American history education I received in various public schools (my 12th-grade civics teacher Sharon Levin comes to mind). But after watching Sasha Reuther‘s riveting documentary Brothers on the Line, I realize that every education has a significant gap or two, and one of mine involved the fascinating and rich history of […]
From the opening scenes of Gabriel, the debut feature from writer/director Lou Howe, the audience is immediately tossed into the ongoing tumult that is the life of the title character, a troubled young man brilliantly played by Rory Culkin. We’re not given any clues to the drama, other than a years-old love letter from a girl named Alice, to […]
When actresses and audiences alike lament the lack of interesting roles for—and movies about—women as central characters, Alex of Venice should be held up as a shining example of what could be. The independent feature, which premiered this week at the Tribeca Film Festival, stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Smashed, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) as the title character, […]
Butterfly Girl, a documentary that premiered at SXSW 2013, tells the refreshing story of a spunky young Texan with a debilitating disease. Abigail Evans—Abbie— is a spitfire who says what she means, and deals with her health misfortunes the best way a teenager can: with equal parts sarcasm and optimism, and with a constant twinkle in […]
It’s hard to remember a time when Juliette Lewis wasn’t making a memorable mark on the big screen — can you believe Cape Fear came out in 1991? But after a few years out of the spotlight, during which she focused on a music career, she’s back on the big screen. In movies like August: Osage County and Hellion, she’s reminding us how […]
Directors Luis Lopez and Clay Tweel discuss their award-winning documentary Print the Legend, which had its world premiere this month at the 2014 South By Southwest Film Conference and Festival. Premiering last week at South By Southwest, the documentary Print the Legend chronicles the mainstream rise of 3D printing over the past five years, due in large […]
Kristin also presents social media workshops, moderates panels about all aspects of the film industry, and offers one-on-one training sessions about building a digital community.
She occasionally contributes filmmaker interviews to select outlets, and provides editorial content across platforms.