The Complete Sundance 2026 Collection + A Poet Interview
Dear Last Thing I Sawfolk,
I don’t really know how it happened but I went to Sundance and then compulsively talked about movies that screened there. It’s all below, recorded in podcast form. What movie was my favorite? Easy: listen to all eight episodes and find out.
I did take a break to chat with Simón Mesa Soto, Colombian director of the very fine new film A Poet. His movie opened last week and has been delighting audiences. See it!
Thank you to all my supporters. Stay warm! Or maybe you’re already someplace warm, I don’t know, nobody tells me anything.
Nic
THE PODCAST
Simón Mesa Soto on his new film A Poet
Sundance 2026 - Amy Taubin on the festival, plus a preview of John Wilson’s The History of Concrete
Sundance 2026 – Sam Adams on Josephine, Wicker, The Moment, Kogonada’s Zi
Sundance 2026 – Tim Grierson on The Invite, The Weight, The Friend’s House Is Here, plus All About the Money
Sundance 2026 – Abby Sun on Closure, Cookie Queens, To Hold a Mountain, Seized
Sundance 2026 – Siddhant Adlakha on Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!, When a Witness Recants, Undertone, Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, plus Buddy
Sundance 2026 – Amy Taubin on Shame and Money, Bedford Park, Filipiñana, Public Access, If I Go Will They Miss Me, Who Killed Alex Odeh, Silenced
Sundance 2026 – Chloe Lizotte on Night Nurse, Homemade Gatorade and other shorts, Public Access Redux, plus A Rotterdam Surprise (The New James N. Kienitz Wilkins Movie)
Sundance 2026 – Eric Hynes on Carousel, One in a Million, Frank and Louis, The Lake, Time and Water
Episodes of The Last Thing I Saw are widely available (iTunes, Spotify, etc.).
RECENT WORK
Some writing I did.
I wrote about the Sundance Film Festival for The Financial Times again. Highlights, etc. Here is the article in question.
Speaking of Sundance 2026, I interviewed two filmmakers: David Shadrack Smith, director of Public Access, about public access television, and Sinead O’Shea, director of All About the Money, about James “Fergie” Cox Chambers Jr. and his projects.
And then I did a few reviews: The Moment, starring Charli xcx; The History of Concrete, John Wilson’s debut feature; and The Invite, dinner party fun with Olivia Wilde, Penelope Cruz, Ed Norton, and Seth Rogen.
THIS CRITIC’S PICKS
Some streaming ideas.
Peter Hujar’s Day (Criterion) As featured in my podcast with Ira Sachs!
Homemade Gatorade (YT) As featured in my Sundance podcast with Chloe Lizotte!
Dead Presidents (Criterion) Haven’t seen in a while. Let me know how it holds up
Boys Go to Jupiter (HBO MAX) Animation delights
Gold Diggers of 1933 (Criterion)
THE BOOK
The Worlds of Hayao Miyazaki is available for order in bookstores or at your online store of choice. My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Kiki’s Delivery Service... all of Miyazaki’s lovely animated films are in here—their inspirations, their craft, their influences. Contact me if you’re interested in setting up an event.
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@gmail.com.
Besides hosting the podcast, I’m a writer, editor, and programmer, and the author of the book The Worlds of Hayao Miyazaki (available now!) and the editor of the forthcoming Frederick Wiseman: Interviews. My features, interviews, festival reports, and reviews are published in The Financial Times, Sight & Sound, Screen Slate, The New York Times, Filmmaker, Air Mail, and W Magazine. (Dearly departed publications where I’ve also written 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, including both retrospectives and premieres—so do drop me a line if you’d like to collaborate.
Previously, 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.