Light Industry Event + Berlinale’s Best + Interviews with RaMell Ross and Julia Loktev
An Evening with The Last Thing I Saw? Correct!
Dear Last Thing I Sawfolk,
The Last Thing I Saw has an event coming up! Light Industry will be screening a double feature on March 18 in an event aptly called An Evening with The Last Thing I Saw. It’ll be a couple of deep cuts referenced on the podcast, and I couldn’t be happier to be presenting the screening (being an enormous admirer of the great minds behind Light Industry, as listeners know).
I also have right here a batch of episodes about the Berlinale and some fine films I saw there, discussed with a glittering array of critical thinkers. Plus: an interview with Julia Loktev about her outstanding look at independent journalists in Russia, which screened in Berlin (and feels increasingly like a warning).
And last but not least, I’m sharing my interview with the incredible RaMell Ross, director of Nickel Boys, a movie we’ll hopefully hear even more about tonight at ye olde Oscars.
And as I celebrate the 300th episode of The Last Thing I Saw, I give thanks to all the listeners and supporters who have made it possible! HOORAY.
Nic
THE PODCAST
(Note: I don’t know if I’d said this before but you can play by clicking on each episode title, or clicking on each little player graphic, or going to Spotify or wherever else.)
Ep. 297: RaMell Ross on Nickel Boys
Ep. 298: Jonathan Romney on Mickey 17 and Dreams at Berlin 2025
Ep. 299: Jordan Cronk on Berlinale 2025: What Marielle Knows, new James Benning and Kevin Jerome Everson, Olmo, After Dreaming, Paul
Ep. 300: Julia Loktev on My Undesirable Friends: Part I—Last Air in Moscow
Ep. 301: Guy Lodge on Berlin 2025: Kontinental ’25, Living the Land, Eel, All I Had Was Nothingness
Ep. 302: Dan Sullivan on Berlin 2025: The Ice Tower, Little Trouble Girls, Smile at Last, Canone effimero
Ep. 303: Justin Chang on Berlin 2025: Blue Moon, Dreams (Sex Love), Girls on Wire
Justin Chang is film critic at The New Yorker and winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. He also reviews movies for NPR’s “Fresh Air” and teaches at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California.
Jordan Cronk is a freelance film critic and programmer based in downtown Los Angeles. He's the founder of Acropolis Cinema in Los Angeles, which recently screened the North American premiere of James Benning’s Breathless.
Guy Lodge is a critic for Variety, a columnist for The Observer, and co-editor of the independent review site Film of the Week.
Julia Loktev is the director of My Undesirable Friends: Part 1—Last Air in Moscow, about independent journalists in Russia, and is working on Part 2. Her previous films include The Loneliest Planet, Day Night Day Night, and Moment of Impact.
Jonathan Romney is a longtime contributor to Screen Daily, also writes for The Observer and Sight & Sound, and teaches at the UK’s National Film and Television School.
RaMell Ross is the director of Nickel Boys, nominated for Academy Awards including Best Picture (though bizarrely not Best Cinematography), and Hale County This Morning, This Evening, a previous Academy Award nominee.
Dan Sullivan is a programmer at Film at Lincoln Center and the New York Film Festival.
Episodes of The Last Thing I Saw are also available at many other podcast places.
RECENT WORK
In a new and lovely development, I wrote reviews for Deadline at the Berlin film festival. A nice lineup: the Golden Bear winner, Dreams (Sex Love), a sensitive account of first love; a beautiful Chinese family saga, Living the Land; a slow-burn drama about a tennis pro at a Spanish resort hotel, Islands; and the latest Hong Sangsoo film, What Does That Nature Say to You.
This is a review-heavy month: for Sight & Sound, I wrote reviews of Reid Davenport’s smart and moving look at right-to-die policy, Life After, out of Sundance, and out of Berlin, Kontinental ’25, the latest from Radu Jude (Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World), and Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon, an unheralded delight about Lorenz Hart.
I also picked up a couple of reviews at The New York Times: Ex-Husbands and The Accidental Getaway Driver, which won a prize at Sundance two or three years ago.
And don’t forget: join me at the Light Industry screening An Evening with The Last Thing I Saw on March 18!
THIS CRITIC’S PICKS
The Conversation (Criterion) R.I.P. Gene Hackman
Ed Wood (Criterion)
Daaaaaalí! (MUBI) Quentin Dupieux’s suitably surreal look at the Salvador Dalí
Europe ’51 (HBO MAX) Radu Jude’s newest film title (and to an extent, film) references this Roberto Rossellini film starring Ingrid Bergman
Exhibition (Metrograph) Joanna Hogg’s co-habitation classic, part of a series that includes Jane Arden’s rare 1972 film The Other Side of the Underneath
THE END
Here I may end with a song.
ABOUT ME
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw! I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. You can get in touch re: writing, editing, programming, moderating, podcasting, etc. at
nicolas.rapold[at]gmail.com
Besides hosting the podcast, I’m a writer, editor, and programmer. My features, interviews, festival reports, and reviews are published in The New York Times, Screen Slate, Sight & Sound, Filmmaker, Air Mail, The Financial Times, Deadline, and W Magazine. (Dearly departed publications include The Village Voice, Stop Smiling, The New York Sun, and The L Magazine.) I’m also proud of the film series and one-offs I’ve programmed, revivals and premieres, so do drop me a line if you’d like to collaborate.
Editorially speaking, I worked as editor-in-chief of Film Comment magazine, where I was for 15 years in all. I assigned and edited both web and print, hosted The Film Comment Podcast and Talks, curated and hosted Film Comment Selects screenings, learned from brilliant writers, and wrote a lot, including interviews with Spike Lee, Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Pedro Costa, and Frederick Wiseman. Film Comment received the Film Heritage Award from the National Society of Film Critics.
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