Obsessed with Independent Film Since 1976

Latest Highlights

• Artist Feature

  Beyond the Frame: When Video Art Rewrites the Language of Cinema

  By Dana Knight

  From video art’s  emergence in the late 1960s, it  has sparred  in a productive tension with cinema, simultaneously appropriating and dismantling film’s  conventions. Early pioneers such as Nam June Paik, who transformed television into sculptural architecture, Bruce Nauman, whose closed-circuit videos foregrounded surveillance, and Joan Jonas, who fused performance with myth, all redefined  the screen as a physical and experiential space rather than a transparent narrative window. This expanded cinematic grammar saw  further development by artists such as Douglas Gordon, whose temporal manipulations of Hollywood films fractured narrative time; Sam Taylor-Wood, who merged painterly stillness with cinematic duration; and Stan Douglas, whose meticulously constructed filmic installations interrogated history, memory, and the mechanics of storytelling.

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  Review | Special Screening

  Repetition and Hopelessness in “Taste of Cherry”

  By Molly Fitzgerald

  The Independent was invited to cover “Taste of Cherry” during the Boston Festival of Films from Iran at the Museum…

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  Review

  “Nirvanna: The Band – the Show – the Movie” the Review

  By Kaden Geier

  The film is a celebration of a style that has largely disappeared from mainstream media. The comedy relies almost entirely on pop culture references and situational humor. It is a return to a simpler style of comedy, similar to that made by early YouTubers who had little but their friends and a webcam. While it still has that “early internet” feeling, Johnson and McCarroll find a way to make it relevant. Meta 4th-wall breaking and seamless restitching of never before seen archival footage are used tastefully rather than shoved in the viewer’s face. The movie is almost entirely set in real Toronto locations, harkening back to the 2000s style of mockumentary filmmaking popularised by projects like “The Office” and “Borat.”  

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  Features | Theatre

  In ‘We Had a World,’ monotony is a theatrical device

  By Hannah Brueske

  In “We Had a World,” now having its New England premiere at The Huntington, playwright Joshua Harmon does the opposite. True, the one-act play is filled with explosive family arguments and petty vendettas, but is equalized so much by its genuine writing that the tender and sweet moments, though buried underneath the drama, are just as potent. 

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  Video Games

  ‘Stardew Valley’: The Quintessential Indie Game

  By Kaden Geier

  The indie charm of “Stardew Valley” shines through in this extreme, video-gamey design that prioritizes player freedom and connection with the world.

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  Film Festival | Uncategorized

  Rendez-Vous With French Cinema – March 5-15

  By Kurt Brokaw

  Unifrance serves up a delicious new edition of art cinema to Film at Lincoln Center patrons Surprises galore pop up…