A new video essay from Mark Rappaport about movies in movies, and how the screen watches us just as we watch it.

Video Essay: Mark Rappaport on The Empty Screen

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Corrin Evans is a filmmaker exploring themes of shadow integration, eroticism, death and the supernatural. She began her career in Hollywood as an actor (La La Land, Jett) before moving into writing and directing for screen. In the past decade, Corrin crafted numerous short films exploring dark and erotic themes, including award-winners Enough and Cousins. Alongside her filmmaking, she spent many years working as an intimacy coordinator on titles including American Horror Stories, MaXXine, Magazine Dreams, and more. Her creative work also extends to live performance: she co-wrote the critically acclaimed dinner theatre experience Van Helsing’s Dracula, a sapphic reimagining of the classic tale, and performs regularly with Sweven, an erotic performance art troupe based in Los Angeles. <a href="https://fantasiafestival.com/en/film/corpus%C2%A0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Corpus</a>, Corrin’s feature directorial debut, premieres at Fantasia International Film Festival on July 26.

Corrin Evans

Film

How Erotic Cinema Set Me Free

Georgia Bernstein is a Los Angeles-based writer, director and producer. Her debut feature, <a href="https://www.independentfilmco.com/films/night-nurse" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Night Nurse</a>, premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival and is out now in theaters through IFC. The erotic thriller, set in a retirement community, explores the compulsive side of caregiving. At Sundance, Night Nurse was named one of IndieWire’s Top 5 Best First Features and included in the Los Angeles Times’ festival favorites. (Photo by Lindsey Kusterman, courtesy Sundance Institute.)

Georgia Bernstein

The Numb Stage of Nymphomania

Nick Dawson talks with filmmakers, musicians and comedians whose work he loves, avoiding the mundane, predictable questions they&#8217;ve heard numerous times and instead asking substantive, thoughtful questions that get to the heart of who they are.

Nobody’s Ever Asked Me That

Podcast

Nobody’s Ever Asked Me That: Abel Ferrara

Lauren Caster is a writer, director, and actor based in Los Angeles, deeply connected to Southern California. Raised by a lesbian mother who conceived her through an anonymous sperm donor, Lauren is committed to telling LGBTQ+ stories, reflecting her personal journey and the diverse family structures she grew up with. Her semi-autobiographical feature film debut, <a href="https://rhythmisadancer.utopia.film/buy-tickets?utm_source=ig&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_content=link_in_bio" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rhythm is a Dancer</a>, in which she stars opposite Amy Aquino and Tate Donovan, plays the Roxy Cinema in New York City on July 16 and 17. Her filmmaking journey began with her short film Donor Baby, which was picked up by Amazon. This success led to additional shorts, Plan C and Becoming, creating opportunities such as a development deal with Lifetime after winning The Wrap’s Pitchfest for emerging female filmmakers. Lauren later served as associate producer on Lifetime&#8217;s You&#8217;re Not Supposed To Be Here, a story she wrote, which was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Movie (Streaming or TV).

Lauren Caster

The Stories We Invent Before We Have Language

Kimmy Gatewood is an Emmy Award-winning actor, writer and director whose latest feature as director, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descendants:_Wicked_Wonderland">Descendants: Wicked Wonderland</a>, premieres on the Disney Channel on July 16, and will be available to stream on Disney+ from July 17. She got her start as an actor, performing improv comedy at the UCB Theatre in New York City, and her first documentary feature film, Nerdcore Rising, about the rise of nerdcore hip-hop, premiered at SXSW in 2008. She went on to direct many acclaimed series like Girls5eva, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Single Drunk Female, Timeline, Ghosts, Up Here and The Big Leap. She won a 2021 Daytime Emmy for Best Directing for her work on Sesame Street, was nominated for directing Emmys for Baby-Sitter’s Club and Muppets Mayhem. Her feature directorial debut Good on Paper, starring Iliza Shlesinger, premiered in Netflix’s top 10 in summer 2021. She also directed Patti Harrison and Tim Hedeicker in Team Coco’s audio movie My Guy Died, streaming on Audible. She was most recently the producing director for Season 2 of Fox’s Going Dutch, starring Denis Leary. You may also recognize her from her on-screen role as Coach Crowley on Netflix’s series Atypical and Stacey on Netflix’s critically acclaimed series GLOW. (Photo by David Astorga / Disney.)

Kimmy Gatewood

What I Learned Directing My First Franchise Film

Actor and singer-songwriter’s Alicia Witt’s forthcoming album <a href="https://30tgrs.ffm.to/betweenheavenandearth" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Between Heaven and Earth</a>, is out August 28 via Thirty Tigers. Produced by Joe Henry, the album was inspired by filmmaker David Lynch, whose four-decade friendship and creative relationship with Witt shaped its exploration of love, intuition, fate, grief and the unseen connections that bind people across time. The second single from the album, &#8220;Freeze Frame,&#8221; is out now. Witt has been acting since the age of seven, when she made her film debut in David Lynch’s sci fi classic Dune. Her many screen credits include Showtime’s third season of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and films such as Two Weeks’ Notice, Last Holiday, The Upside of Anger, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Urban Legend, Four Rooms, 88 Minutes, Urban Legend and Vanilla Sky. Long celebrated for her work as both an actor and musician, Witt has released multiple acclaimed albums, performed around the world – including at Nashville&#8217;s Grand Ole Opry – and opened for Ben Folds Five, Rachel Platten, Bob Schneider, Jimmy Webb, and John Fulbright. A classically trained pianist, her music has been described as “sharply personal, boldly melodic pop originals” by the Philadelphia Inquirer, while Broadway World praised her “rangy, honeyed voice, clear as crystal, pretty as a stained-glass window,” calling her “a voice to treasure.” Witt also spent five weeks on Billboard&#8217;s Top 30 Adult Contemporary chart with the 2021 piano power ballad &#8220;Chasing Shadows,&#8221; from her self-co-produced album The Conduit. (Photo by David McClister.)

Alicia Witt

On Being Fired

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Talkhouse

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In the Blink of an Eye with Joey Sims

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Morgan Garrett is an experimental electronic musician based in Philadelphia. 
(Photo Credit: Morganne Boulden)

Morgan Garrett

Gloorp is the experimental electronic project of Philadelphia percussionist and producer Garrett Burke. The new Gloorp record, Gloorp Life, is out now on Wharf Cat/Jolt Music. 
(Photo Credit: Eve Alpert)

Gloorp

Music

Gloorp and Morgan Garrett Talk About DJs and Instagram

Mark Rappaport’s film include From the Journals of Jean Seberg and Rock Hudson’s Home Movies. Since 2014, Rappaport has made 20 video essays ranging from 10 minutes to an hour, including one for Talkhouse, <a href="../video-essay-mark-rappaport-on-the-empty-screen/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Empty Screen</a>. His new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Book-Dreams-Mark-Rappaport/dp/6086733902" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Book of Dreams</a>, a mesmerizing collection of almost 100 photomontages, is now available to buy. Four collections of his essays and fictions — all about film — The Moviegoer Who Knew Too Much, (F)au(x)tobiographies, and The Secret Life Of Moving Shadows — Pt 1 and Pt 2 are available as e-books.

Mark Rappaport

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Zachary Ray Sherman is an actor, director, writer, and producer from Portland, Oregon, whose new film <a href="https://tubitv.com/movies/100022519/all-that-fall" target="_blank" rel="noopener">All That Fall</a> is now streaming. After early success opposite Kirsten Dunst in Lifetime’s Fifteen and Pregnant, and as Jasper on the CW’s reboot of 90210, Sherman has gone on to build an impressive acting resume balancing television work (Netflix’s Everything Sucks!) with edgy roles in independent films (Archie’s Final Project, West Virginia Stories, Cuck). Sherman has also directed three feature films to date: Particular Crowd and Mar Vista’s upcoming Do You Hear What I Hear, the award-winning indie All That Fall and HBO’s Young Hearts, a sweet and touching coming-of-age film executive-produced by the Duplass brothers. He will soon be seen in the indie dramas The Send-Off, produced by Glenn Howerton, and Can’t Seem to Make You Mine, opposite Lindsay Burdge, and is currently starring in Hulu’s Under the Banner of Heaven starring Andrew Garfield, created by Dustin Lance Black from the book of the same name by Jon Krakauer, and executive-produced by Jason Bateman and Brian Grazer. (Photo by David Zaugh.)