Independent Films

Filmmaker Magazine

• The Sommelier’s Amulet: Nick Corirossi and Armen Weitzman on The Napa Boys February 27, 2026
  “The Napa Boys—you’ve always known them, and they’re back.” It’s the kind of premise you could imagine only a very tired person nodding along with, but the way The Napa Boys—the new comedy from comedians Nick Corirossi and Armen Weitzman, the former directing and both serving as co-writers—went from this vague concept to a wide […]
  Dylan Adamson
• “I’m a Reactor”: Stellan Skarsgård, Back To One, Episode 382 February 26, 2026
  Stellan Skarsgård is a celebrated Swedish actor whose career spans more than five decades across European and Hollywood cinema. He first gained attention in Scandinavia before becoming an international screen presence in films such as Breaking the Waves and Good Will Hunting. He went on to deliver acclaimed performances in movies like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Dune, Dune Part […]
  Peter Rinaldi
• “I Wanted the Film to Have the Vignetted Existence of a Fable”: Sarmad Sultan Khoosat on his Genre-bending Berlinale Premiere Lali February 25, 2026
  A bullet grazes the shin of matriarch Sohni Ammi (Farazeh Syed) at her beloved son’s wedding. It was a celebratory bullet; shooting guns into the air replaces fireworks in this part of provincial Pakistan. Even though Sohni Ammi just needed stitches, the groom’s family blamed the freak mishap on the ongoing curse of Zeba, the […]
  Ritesh Mehta
• How a Controversial BAFTA Broadcast Scrambled the Oscar Race February 24, 2026
  The Academy Awards are still three weeks away, but this is a vital week for the contenders. We’re approaching the end of campaigning, with the final Oscar voting opening on Feb. 26 and closing March 5. In between those dates are two key precursors: the Producer’s Guild Awards on Feb. 28 and the Actor Awards […]
  Tyler Coates
• Scandalous Forms, Political Candor: Highlights from Berlinale’s 2026 Forum Documentaries February 24, 2026
  Before the Berlinale announced its official selection, it presented a remarkable retrospective entitled Lost in the 90s. Spanning wide geographies, with particular emphasis on narratives surrounding the Soviet collapse and the fall of the Berlin Wall, it brought together an eclectic cohort of documentaries and fiction—from Farocki and Godard to an underscreened Belarusian doc Orange […]
  Sonya Vseliubska
• The Passion of Amir Naderi February 23, 2026
  Amir Naderi is on the move. I connected with the Iranian filmmaker over WhatsApp on a chilly February morning, or at least morning where I am. He’s calling me from Rome, which is the second stop on his tour through Europe teaching classes on filmmaking. In every country he visits, he tells me, he shapes […]
  Nick Kouhi
• Review: The New Nikon ZR Shoots RED RAW Footage on a Budget February 19, 2026
  One year after camera giants Nikon and RED Digital Cinema merged, their first collaboration comes with the release of the Nikon ZR full-frame digital cinema camera. The ZR differentiates itself from its mirrorless competitors—whether Panasonic’s LUMIX line, Sony’s FX line or Blackmagic cinema cameras—with its unique ability to record 12-bit REDCODE RAW (R3D NE), internally […]
  Caleb Hammond
• “I Really Wanted to Create a Chekhovian World”: Kornél Mundruczó on the Amy Adams-starring Berlinale Competition Film At the Sea February 19, 2026
  Drumroll: Amy Adams stares at you. It’s intense—not haunting, but certainly not inviting. The camera pulls away, and it’s her character Laura who’s playing the drums. It’s daytime, there’s unremarkable company around. Music, no dance. Soon, she will leave the facility. Soon, she will return to her Cape Cod home, to her devoted yet frustrated […]
  Ritesh Mehta
• “The Underbelly of Lagos”: Olive Nwosu on Lady February 18, 2026
  Lady, the titular lead of Olive Nwosu’s neo-noir feature debut about a taxi driver’s gradual solidarity with a group of Lagosian sex workers, possesses a piercing gaze. She’s not scanning you as much as she is preemptively fending you off. In her red taxi she stalks the nocturnal streets of the largest city in Nigeria, […]
  Ritesh Mehta
• “What Does a Thing Provide You With?”: Amanda Kramer on the Props and Interiors in By Design February 18, 2026
  “I have never seen the problem with fetishizing objects and fetishizing people as though they were objects,” director Amanda Kramer tells me in a conversation ahead of the release of her latest film, By Design. “It doesn’t mean we don’t also see the person for their soul…They elicit romance. They elicit seduction. There’s something drawing […]
  Chris Cassingham