For years, women’s health rights in the U.S. have been steadily eroding, in large part due to restrictive laws passed by conservative state governments regulating abortion clinics, known as TRAP laws (Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers), particularly in the South. While cloaked in faux concern for women’s health on the part of legislators, these laws […]
A fresh new female voice on the independent film scene, Anna Rose Holmer made a quiet splash at Sundance with her dreamy, evocative and wholly mesmerizing debut feature THE FITS. The film’s US premiere in the NEXT section followed its international bow at the 2015 Venice Film Festival, in a partnership with the prestigious Venice […]
With a few rare exceptions (The Diary of a Teenage Girl is the latest example that comes to mind), the intricacies of the developing sexuality of girls and women has been gratuitously simplified on screen, often by male directors with an innately outsider perspective. That’s part of the reason it’s so refreshing to see writer/director Marya Cohn’s new […]
Though it’s a cliché for a Sundance Film Festival premiere to be called “a labor of love,” never has the term been more apt than with Sembene!, Jason Silverman and Samba Gadjigo’s impassioned biopic of Ousmane Sembène, “the father of African cinema.” Samba Gadjigo is a Senegalese man who credits Sembène’s early writings with helping a teenage Gadjigo find […]
Largely forgotten by history, Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr. squared off in a series of crackling debates on ABC in 1968, which scored high ratings, got the country talking, and left both men forever scarred. When you read the description of Best of Enemies, which had its world premiere this week in the […]
Charles Poekel‘s debut feature, screening this week at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, offers a melancholic slice-of-life look at a Brooklyn neighborhood holiday staple: the open-24/7 Christmas tree stand. When you live in New York City, there are certain hallmarks that signify the beginning of the holiday season, chief among them the singular smell of […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.