Creative

Footer Legal

Main

NavBar

Sections

Topics

Become a subscriber today to get unlimited access

Thanks for reading!

Register to continue

Talkhouse

Michel Franco was born in Mexico City in 1979 and has put Mexican cinema in the global spotlight. The films he has written, directed and produced include Chronic (Best Screenplay Award at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival), Las Hijas De Abril (Jury Prize, in Certain Regard at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival), and Después De Lucía (Top Prize, in Certain Regard at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival). His latest film, <a href="https://bleeckerstreetmedia.com/sundown" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sundown</a>, starring Tim Roth, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Iazua Larios, is in theaters through Bleecker Street from January 28. He has also produced 600 Millas (directed by Gabriel Ripstein and winner of the Best First Feature Award at the 2015 Berlinale), From Afar (directed by Lorenzo Vigas, winner of the Golden Lion at the 2015 Venice Film Festival), among others. (Photo by Ricardo Trabulsi.)

Michel Franco

Film

Best of 2021: Michel Franco on The Beatles: Get Back

John Cameron Mitchell’s 2006 film <a href="https://shortbus.oscilloscope.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shortbus</a>, which he wrote and directed, is being re-released in theaters by Oscilloscope from January 26. He co-created and starred in the stage/film musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, for which he won Best Director at the 2001 Sundance Festival, four Tony Awards, and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor. He also directed the films Rabbit Hole (2010), featuring an Oscar-nominated performance by Nicole Kidman, and How to Talk to Girls at Parties (2017). He appears on TV in Hulu’s Shrill and in 2022 will be seen in Netflix’s Sandman and in the title role of Peacock Channel’s Joe Exotic adapted series. His musical podcast series Anthem: Homunculus starring Glenn Close, Patti Lupone, and Cynthia Erivo, was just rereleased as a free podcast. In 2020, he put out the collaborative album New American Dream and his ongoing The Origin of Love World Tour resumed in December 2021. (Photo by Matthew Placek.)

John Cameron Mitchell

Best of 2021: John Cameron Mitchell on Veneno

Asghar Farhadi is an Iranian writer-director who won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for both his 2011 feature A Separation and his 2016 feature The Salesman. He has also won a Golden Globe, a Cesar, the Golden Bear at the Berlinale and the Palme d&#8217;Or at Cannes, among many other accolades. His latest film, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hero-Amir-Jadidi/dp/B09JR1ZZP3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Hero</a>, is out now in theaters and premieres on Prime Video on January 21. (Photo by Duchili.)

Asghar Farhadi

Best of 2021: Asghar Farhadi on C’mon C’mon

Wendy Eisenberg (guitar/vocals), Josh Daniel (drums), and Steve Cameron (bass) formed Editrix in Western Massachusetts in early 2018. The &#8220;avant butt-rock&#8221; band&#8217;s debut album Tell Me I&#8217;m Bad is out now on Exploding In Sound Records.
(Photo Credit: Ernest Berenger)

Editrix

Music

Best of 2021: Editrix Gives Us the Rundown on All Their Favorites

New York City&#8217;s Macula Dog is a duo known for their singular style of clattering electronic synth music. The band is also known for their live performances, which are highly visual, with the duo donning elaborate costumes and operating custom control rigs. Their current live set features a luminol-glam experience with live video of each member’s face recorded by head-mounted cameras and projected onto screens around the performance area. Their live set has been covered in The New Yorker and their last LP earned a Tiny Mix Tapes Eureka designation.
The band’s first self-titled EP was released on their own Haord Records label in 2014, followed by their debut LP for Wharf Cat, 2016’s Why Do You Look Like Your Dog? The Natural Dog cassette followed by a U.S. release tour and performances on Adult Swim. The Breezy EP was be released on 4/17 but the band had to cancel the Eps release tour because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Macula Dog is currently working on their next LP, after which a support tour will be planned when it is safe to do so.
(Photo Credit: Ates Isildak)

Macula Dog

Best of 2021: Here’s Everything Notable In the World of Macula Dog This Year

Chicago duo Ohmme was started by Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham in the summer of 2014, combining their love for lush vocals and songwriting with their love of experimentation and sound.
(Photo Credit: Ash Dye)

Ohmme

Best of 2021: Macie Stewart (Ohmme) Got Hooked on LUMP’s New Record

Water From Your Eyes is a Brooklyn-based dance rock band. Their album Structure is out now on Wharf Cat.

Water From Your Eyes

Best of 2021: Water From Your Eyes Came to Terms With Their Love of Everclear

Beijing duo Gong Gong Gong 工工工’s raucous debut LP, Phantom Rhythm 幽靈節奏, was recorded live in a room, on open-reel tape, with little more than vocalist and guitarist Tom Ng’s 60-year-old Italian pawn shop guitar and bassist Joshua Frank’s 1970s imitation P-bass. The minimalist group created a drummer-less sound that was more than the sum of its parts, inspired by back-porch blues, Sahelian guitar music, New York no-wave, Cantonese lion dance percussion, and, seemingly most incongruously, techno.
On Phantom Rhythm Remixed, Gong Gong Gong bring to life a concept they’ve planned since the release of their acclaimed debut, curating their favorite China-connected electronic music producers to remix Phantom Rhythm in its entirety. The globe-spanning collaboration features Yu Su (Vancouver/Kaifeng), Zaliva-D, Simon Frank, Howie Lee (Beijing), Mong Tong, Scattered Purgatory (Taipei), Knopha (Xiamen), Wu Zhuoling (Chengdu), Angel Wei (Copenhagen), and P.E. (Brooklyn). The LP will be released by Wharf Cat Records in collaboration with Beijing’s bié Records.

Gong Gong Gong

Best of 2021: Gong Gong Gong Got Inspired By Yu Su This Year

Claire Rousay is based in San Antonio, Texas. Her music zeroes in on personal emotions and the minutiae of everyday life — voicemails, haptics, environmental recordings, stopwatches, whispers and conversations — exploding their significance.
(Photo Credit: Dani Toral)

Claire Rousay

Best of 2021: Claire Rousay Listened to Devin Shaffer Every Day

Lily Konigsberg has been writing songs all her life. Born and raised in Brooklyn, she started playing solo sets around NYC clubs as a teenage, before linking up with Bard classmates Nina Ryser and Ani Ivry-Block to form Palberta. She also performs with Nate Amos as My Idea, and is releasing her latest full-length solo album Lily We Need To Talk Now via Wharf Cat October 2021.

Lily Konigsberg

Best of 2021: Lily Konigsberg Finally Got Into Kacey Musgraves This Year

As lead vocalist of the Bush Tetras, a seminal post-punk band in New York  City, Cynthia Sley produced some of the most distinctive aspects of the Tetras sounds. Sley&#8217;s vocals were half spoken, half sung and in songs like &#8220;Too Many Creeps&#8221; and &#8220;You Can&#8217;t Be Funky&#8221; she repeated simple phrases creating a hypnotic monotony similar to Pat Place&#8217;s guitar rhythms. &#8220;Too Many Creeps&#8221; was a mainstay of the infamous early &#8217;80s New York &#8220;No Wave&#8221; club scene.

Cynthia Sley

Best of 2021: Cynthia Sley Loved White Hills’ Angst This Year

Mattson Tomlin was born in Romania during its revolution and was quickly adopted into the U.S. After receiving his master&#8217;s in directing from the American Film Institute, he began a career in screenwriting and has appeared on the annual Black List six times. Some of his other projects include Project Power (Netflix, directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman), Fear Agent (Sony Television, directed by David Sandberg) and Little Fish (directed by Chad Hartigan), and The Batman (Warner Bros/DC Comics, co-written with director Matt Reeves). His first film as director, Mother/Android, starring Chlo&euml; Grace Moretz, Algee Smith and Ra&uacute;l Castillo, is out December 17 on Hulu. (Photo by Henry Joost.)

Best of 2021