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Edward Frumkin is a neurodivergent Brooklyn-based culture writer. He has written for fine publications such as The Daily Beast, IndieWire, Frieze, BOMB, RogerEbert.com, and elsewhere.
Bestowed Conner O'Malley and Danny Scharar's Rap World with the "Is it a Film?" Award.
It's hard to maintain an upbeat mood during the dire state of nonfiction and the recent U.S. presidential election result at this year's DOC NYC, its 15th edition, which ran from November 13-December 1. Streamers and studios are acquiring documentaries - especially those that aren't in the chasms of sports, true crime, or celebrity -...
Jenna Marvin has two lives in Russia. During the day, she studies makeup and hopes to work in the fashion industry. At night, she applies what she learned at university as a drag artist. With the Slender Man being a primary inspiration for her, she seams surrealist costumes out of tape, foil, plastic, and other materials found in the dumpsters to amplify the limited legal rights queer people have in Russia. The bald, non-binary artist said in an interview that she doesn’t see the gruesomeness...
Four working actors give advice to up and coming actors from a professional and teaching experience.
Diop is less interested in elucidating the decolonization of museums than in witnessing the integration of a more equitable practice in a neoliberal world.
During the two year filming process, the number of places, curators, artists, and artworks involved, plus the historical context, produced so much content, and I mean useful content, that it was impossible to contain in 120 minutes.
Hear from key filmmakers and cast behind 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,' celebrating its 50th anniversary with a MoMA screening on August 8.
The real-life inspirations and supporting actors of "Sing Sing" on trusting "white dudes" to tell their story, filming in a prison again after their release, and what it's like making everyone cry.
A preview of Film Forum's upcoming retrospective on towering French noir filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville, the creator of the modern cinematic hitman.
I spoke to 2024 Whitney Biennial artist Simon Liu on his piece Let's Talk.
¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor! is a mesmerizing, albeit foggled, soliloquy of dreams and worship. In true South Park fashion, triumph prevails over the most challenging obstacles in this out-of-this-world objective -- to avoid spoiling it. Fiction mirrors reality as Matt Stone and Trey Parker deploy their signature meta humor to explore how their actual self and onscreen surrogates have similarities rather than differences in their make-believe adventures.
Though They're Here fails to exceed some expectations, it is a frivolous snapshot of what makes people bond together. Whether a case has concrete evidence, the directors Daniel Claridge and Pacho Velez show that verisimilitude flows like a river and doesn't permanently land after its specific destination. Cookie Stringfellow, who recalled being abducted 14 times, tells the naysayers that "it doesn't matter if you don't believe--I accept that," and only one interaction will alter your mind.
The avant-garde/experimental documentary fest's fourth iteration centers Palestinian voices and themes relating to resistance and social consciousness.
The NYU-produced Orphans gathered scholars, archivists, and preservationists for a range of media obscurities in April 2024.
'The Beast' director Bertrand Bonello talks love, desire, and AI in his generations-spanning sci-fi romance film, which asks: what would you do if you saw your past lives?
The director of "Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World" joined us to discuss AI, industry awards, and his biting satire of contemporary life.
True/False puts their money in their mouth as the fest's ideology aligns with their recognition of creative nonfiction as social activism.
Wrote about The Passion of Remembrance.
Kimi Takesue's latest documentary travels to Laos and delves into cross-cultural encounters.
After its world premiere at Sundance, where it won a “Special Jury Award for the Art of Change,” Documentary virtually caught up with Maing, Smalls, and Story. We discussed their mutual aid during the making of the film, the complexities of labor organizing, and how Union fits into the long history of labor cinema.
The Mexican playwright and filmmaker on children, animals, and the beauty of the collective.
Editor-turned-director Scott Cummings eschews conventional cutting in his slow, unjudgemental look at the Satanic church in Realm of Satan.
Academic-turned-filmmaker Jules Rosskam's Desire Lines is a personal, politically-relevant time-travelling journey through the lives of trans men.
Capturing the ascendancy of the working class, Union is a key addition to the canon of workers’ cinema that includes such vital films as American Factory (2019), Harlan County (1976), and I Am Somebody (1970).
With its limitations in connecting video games and reality, Ibelin recognizes valuable gamers and the benefits of operating in an Internet void.
Wrote about Joshua Oppenheimer's The End and RaMell Ross's The Nickel Boys for Film Stage's anticipated 2024 films.
Wrote about my hype for Sofia Bohdanowicz's Opus 28.
Wrote about Hello Dankness, my favorite film of 2023.
I chatted with filmmaker Fox Maxy, whose films explore identity in frenetic first-person shots.
Wrote about Ryan Gosling in Barbie.
Wrote about Rotten in the Sun. Happer's Comet, and R.M.N. for Film Stage's 2023 Overlooked Films.
Wrote capsules for Passages and Human Flowers of Flesh.
In "Poor Things," rebellion against a patriarchal house of horrors leads to a feminist flowering.
Wrote capsules on Our Body, De Humani Corpora's Fabrica, and Rewind and Play.
Wrote a capsule on Savanah Leaf's directorial debut Earth Mama.
I spoke to Dr. Ibram X. Kendi and Roger Ross Williams on Williams' nonfiction adaptation of Kendi's book Stamped From the Beginning.
Ahead of Fall Flaherty 2023, Documentary met up virtually with Emily Abi-Kheirs, Ha'aheo Auwae-Dekker, Raven Two Feathers, and Isabel Rojas to discuss their time at the 2022 Flaherty Seminar, curatorial philosophy, and the meaning of home. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
A neurodivergent film critic responds to the backlash he's received from those who find his very distinctive laugh inappropriate.
Nowhere Near is a spiritual, visceral journey that parses metaphysical spaces and reality to accentuate the freedom of traveling and movement in the DACA era and a remarkable final chapter of Revereza’s early artistic phase.
The Night Visitors is a heartfelt letter of unification. It attempts to destigmatize the terrors of moths and other bugs, allowing us to appreciate the moths pollinating food and their presence.
I chat with Here director Bas Devos for the film's U.S. premiere at the 2023 New York Film Festival.
Wavelengths at TIFF returned close to its pre-2020 sample of selections after bite-size viewings during the ongoing pandemic.
Mambar Pierrette reveres the working-class mothers who provide a better possibility for their descendants, deal with their closed-minded wants, and pull tough strings to thrive in their standing. While honoring ancestry, Pierrette seeks to become a charismatic leader without having the burden of being strong, thus allowing herself to self-introspect and move on from her systemic-rooted issues with vulnerability, dignity, and communal unanimity.
The need to support an organized effort in making survivors of sexual assault feel safe and to hold people in power accountable, such as an anonymous hotline, go undiscussed here––as does the potential realization of one’s freedom of speech that allows C.K. to continue a career in comedy. Mones and Suh’s missed questions and editing tactics make Sorry/Not Sorry a shallow, reductive portrait into demystifying the myth of cancel culture.
Writer Edward Frumkin talks with director Babak Jalali about his latest film, "Fremont," his affection for the Bay Area city and more.
Unlike most racism-occupied documentaries that often conclude on a dark note, Williams uplifts his end with an honest, enlightened meaning of unity and an anti-racist society. There’s so much improvement and hope for a better nation. It is not a harmonic kumbaya where people hold hands. In doing so, we do not have to concentrate solely on the nasty side of history and look for the simple things that make people fight for equality while foregrounding the leadership and agency of Black people.
Filmmaker Michael Roemer talks with me on the re-release of his sophomore feature The Plot Against Harry (1969) for BOMB magazine.
The genre-bending war and B-horror flick utilizes the colonized as zombies haunting land occupiers in order to evoke the eternal hauntings of colonialism in Angola. It examines the last months of the Angolan War of Independence between the resisting denizens and the imperialist army.
No one can convey a whimsical yet wholehearted Chicago like Tom Palazzolo. His Chicago contains idiosyncratic ceremonies, gratitude to the constituents that make Chicago exuberant, and humor to express the joy and curiosity that is embedded in humanity. Through his lens, we observe how the sociopolitical climate informs how people operate. Within these parameters, entertainers, laborers, and rallyists spread their message in their allotted time. They are ambitious, preternatural, and...
Ahead of Our Body’s theatrical release, I spoke with the director about the inclusion of herself in the film, critics’ frequent comparisons of Simon’s work with Frederick Wiseman, and how Simon doesn’t see Our Body being part of 2020s hospital nonfiction cinema.
LIFE ON THE CAPS has played at the Tate Modern, TIFF Wavelengths, and most recently at Prismatic Ground. I spoke with Meriem Bennani about interacting with many media formats, politicizing science-fused stories, and how new generations carry the past with them.
Director Christian Petzold speaks about trilogies, COVID-19 lockdowns and his Protestant work ethic.
PLAYLAND had its North American premiere at Tribeca 2023 and will make more stops on the festival circuit, including the Provincetown, Frameline, and Outfest International Film Festivals. During Tribeca, we spoke with West about archival silence, working with an archive, and technology's advancement in queer communities.
During 'Poisoned's' world premiere at Tribeca 2023, Science & Film corresponded with Soechtig about the role of food in our lives, the cleanliness and care of transferring food and beverages, and the future of a healthy ecosystem.
The sly, grammatic connotations between Bresson and the trio’s titles implicate their protagonists’ fates. With Bresson, Fontaine completed the act. But Audrey adjusts to the new information she digests when she stares across the room and makes sense of it. Thus she remains in a continuum of sorrow and endures life’s excitements and disappointments despite the multi-headed mystery of whose version of events we foresee. Ultimately, A Woman Escapes harkens vivid emotions to 2020 and yearns for...
Ellen Lewis and Laura Rosenthal tell IndieWire about the casts they've assembled while MoMA celebrates them with a screening series June 1-16.
A look at the ways a man of medicine has intersected with cinema history, from starring in Chris Marker's 'Blue Helmet' (1995) to coordinating with Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel to grant them access to the hospitals where 'De Humani Corporis Fabrica' (2022) was filmed.
The Film Stage's preview article for 2023 Prismatic Ground, a must-attend filmmaker-centered showcase on the rise for underground documentaries, avant-garde, and experimental cinema in the heart of New York City.
Interviewed Human Flowers of Flesh director Helena Wittmann prior to its April 14 opening at Metrograph.
On a mission to promote accessible production with iPhones and camcorders, Fox Maxy is a pioneer of freeform filmmaking as demonstrated in her films Gush and Maat.
Wrote Preview Notes for ND/NF52 Selections Coconut Head Generation, Have You Seen This Woman?, Maputo Nakuzandza for The Film Stage's ND/NF52 Preview Article.
Reyes and I talked about Sansón and Me's powerful meaning of friendship, confronting dark spaces to find true empathy, and how genre can make audiences understand the story of a person’s life in a dignified manner.
Ramona is an incisive, delicate canvas that ennobles sorority, motherhood, and leadership. Its precise cinematography amplifies interviewed background resources into the film’s skeleton and backbones.
Despite messy plot holes, it’s a harmonic symphony of culture and community. No matter the result of the state competition, the senior mariachi performers become leaders and role models for future generations when they earn their diplomas at commencement.
Time Bomb presents tremendous existential commentary from its featured angles but spends too little time on the ordinary individuals who compose the societal ethos. By glossing over the specificities of Y2K’s cultural, societal, and technological effects, Time Bomb Y2K fails to thoroughly analyze this phenomenon’s practical impact on the lives of ordinary citizens.
Dogwatch is a grim, witty look at how preconceived notions of masculinity shape one’s beliefs, tastes, and outlook while also poignantly portraying how physical touch is psychologically embedded with traces of connectedness, competition, and belonging.
