Kurt Brokaw

Kurt Brokaw joined The Independent in 2010 as Senior Film Critic, covering New York’s six major film festivals and reviewing individual features and shorts of merit.  He was Associate Teaching Professor at The New School for 33 years, and has taught courses on film noir, early lesbian fiction and Jewish-themed cinema at The 92nd Street Y for 15 years. His memoir, The Paperback Guy, was published in 2020.

New York Film Festival 2014 – Critic’s Choice

New York Film Festival 2014 – Critic’s Choice

Kurt Brokaw returns to the New York Film Festival as our senior critic for the fifth consecutive year. No film is left behind as he chooses his favorites, with reviews starting now and coming in over the next week. The festival runs September 26th through October 12th.

Tribeca 2014: Critic’s Choice

Tribeca 2014: Critic’s Choice

Of Tribeca’s 89 features and 60 shorts, senior critic Kurt Brokaw elaborates on his favorites. <i>Chef, Venus in Fur</i> and <i>Virunga</i> started us off and <i>Dior and I, Helium, Today’s the Day, Love In the Time of March Madness, Human Voice, Shaking Free</i> and <i>The Vortex Finds a Host</i> round off the list.

Cinematic Lessons From a Cold War Era

Cinematic Lessons From a Cold War Era

Kurt Brokaw matches Thom Andersen and Noël Burch’s tour de force of clips in their 1995 documentary <i>Red Hollywood</i> with a likewise ambitious recap of those clips. Film students take note, thanks to McCarthy, you haven’t seen everything yet, but this doc will help you get there. Screening at Film Society of Lincoln Center August 15-21, 2014.

New Directors/New Films 2014 – Critic’s Choice

New Directors/New Films 2014 – Critic’s Choice

Horror doesn’t scare our senior film critic Kurt Brokaw. Two cutting films make his cut (<i>Buzzard</i> and <i>The Babadook</i>) plus he returns to Romania’s cinema frontier with <i>QED</i> (that’s the short title) gets unfrozen in Greenland and takes a ride with the Phantom, Nick Cave.

Rendez-Vous With French Cinema 2014

Rendez-Vous With French Cinema 2014

“You may not be persuaded by a minute of it, but if you have a sweet tooth for French neo-noir, you can’t help but believe your lying eyes.” That’s senior critic, Kurt Brokaw, on his fourth consecutive year choosing a critic’s choice from Rendez-vous With French Cinema. Curious about which one he’s talking about? Read <a href=http://independent-magazine.org/magazine/2014/02/Kurt-Brokaw_Rendez-vous_with_French_Cinema>more</a>.