Last week I went to Berlin (virtually—physically, it remains rather far away). The Berlin Film Festival presented a complete preview of its notably strong 2021 lineup, which had a number of fascinating and adventurous films. I immediately needed to talk about what I’d seen, so I rang up some other writers and the resulting podcasts (so far) are linked below. Before that, I played catch-up with some new releases, and kept busy with a couple of other projects: an interview about transporting gigantic trees (as you do), and an editorial project with Berlin Critics’ Week.
The weekly podcasts do take time and effort to put together—especially these festival marathons of multiple episodes in one week—so I hereby make my usual pitch for your support. The Last Thing I Saw accepts paid subscriptions, available by clicking below, working out to something like a dollar a week, surely a bargain for high-quality yammering with my brilliant colleagues. Share, subscribe, live forever.
Thank you to everyone who’s supported the podcast—a regular space for the entertaining discussion of movies and how to weigh cats.
NEW PODCAST NOTES
Episode 31: Berlin Film Festival 2021 #2 with Jonathan Romney
Films: Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Radu Jude), Mr. Bachmann and His Class (Maria Speth), Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Ryusuke Hamaguchi), A Cop Movie (Alonso Ruizpalacios), Taste (Le Bao)
Veteran critic Jonathan Romney writes for Sight & Sound, The Observer, and Screen Daily, and teaches at NFTS.
Episode 30: Berlin Film Festival 2021 with Jordan Cronk
Films: Introduction (Hong Sangsoo), Fabian (Dominik Graf), Social Hygiene (Denis Côté), What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (Alexandre Koberidze), Taste (Le Bao)
Jordan Cronk is a critic, programmer/founder of Acropolis Cinema, and host of the video interview series The New Normal (available at his Patreon).
Episode 29: New Releases (Judas, The Father, more) with Beatrice Loayza and Nicholas Russell
Films: Judas and the Black Messiah, I Care a Lot, The Father, Saint Maud, The Murder of Fred Hampton, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Taxi Driver, Devi
Nicholas Russell on Judas and the Black Messiah
Beatrice Loayza on Raya and the Last Dragon
For more information on the podcast’s intro music by The Minarets (used with gracious permission):
Instagram: @theminaretsmusic
https://www.facebook.com/TheMinaretsMusic
THIS CRITIC’S PICKS
Angst (Shudder)
A New Leaf (Criterion)
The films of Anand Patwardhan (OVID)
Richard Jewell (HBO Max)
I Know Where I’m Going! (Criterion)
LINKS TO MY OTHER WORK
Recent writing and editing.
I interviewed the director of Taming the Garden, a spectacular documentary about a Georgian billionaire’s project to move 100-year-old-plus trees. Behold the redesigned Screen Slate site!
I edited the online magazine of the film series Berlin Critics’ Week. It was a pleasure working with writers such as Abby Sun, Nick Pinkerton, Adam Piron, and many more, on everything from state-of-the-nation essays to creative film texts on the movies shown over the course of the week. On top of everything, I ran a roundtable (nominally on simultaneity), and assigned a letter exchange between filmmakers Kamal Aljafari and Ra’anan Alexandrowicz. A lot to dig into here.
THE END
Here I might end with a song.
ABOUT ME
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, home to my podcast (one of Sight & Sound’s Top Ten Film Podcasts). This is my way of staying in touch and sharing what I’ve been up to. By way of introduction, I’m a writer and an editor. I’ve worked as the editor-in-chief of Film Comment, where I assigned and edited both web and print, hosted its podcast and talks and screenings, learned from brilliant writers, curated Film Comment Selects, and wrote a lot myself. This past year, Film Comment was awarded the Film Heritage Award by the National Society of Film Critics (an honor historically awarded to the Museum of Modern Art and other institutions).
Besides Film Comment, my features, interviews, and reviews have been published in The New York Times, the Criterion Collection website, Artforum, Sight & Sound, and dearly departed publications such as The Village Voice, Stop Smiling, The New York Sun, and The L Magazine.
I miss going out to the movies, especially repertory cinemas, and milling about and chatting, and so the natural response is to inflict a podcast on friends and strangers alike.
As always, feel free to contact me re: writing, editing, moderating, podcasting, etc.
nicolas.rapold@gmail.com