It was a great honor to write the @nytimes obit for Alexander Kluge, a brilliant & influential artist & thinker whose work is too little known in the English-speaking world. Alexander Kluge, Lodestar in New German Cinema Movement, Dies at 94 https://t.co/y9TwXd5CXx via @NYTimes
When #berlinale76 jury president Wim Wenders suggested cinema is the opposite of politics, critics pounced.
But the controversy obscured a more interesting question: what exactly is a political film festival supposed to do?
My latest for @readliberties
https://t.co/1ad8DcYAOp
Though programmed long before the Salzburg’s current difficulties, Il Viaggio a Reims, about elegant people stranded en route to an official ceremony, acquired a certain resonance in a city where the cultural machinery has recently looked less than smooth https://t.co/5j6Nw70NnD
“The Berlinale’s political identity is strongest when controversy is not the end of the story, and when political urgency is not mistaken for moral simplification.” https://t.co/1ad8DcYAOp
A hearty Dankeschön / shayne dank to @readliberties & @Celestemarcus3 for letting me go long for this in-depth report from the 76th Berlin Film Festival, the strangest and most heated edition in recent memory.
"Over the past three quarters of a century, the Berlinale has a record of debuting, and awarding, politically important, and often divisive, films." So what happened?
Read @ajgoldmann on politics vs the Berlinale
https://t.co/sHi7lHBRmS
I reviewed Barrie Kosky’s exuberant production of Il viaggio a Reims that headlined Cecilia Bartoli’s Salzburg Whitsun Festival for @ParterreBox, weighing in, as well, on @SbgFestival’s recent past & uncertain future.
The Grand Salzburg Hotel - https://t.co/5j6Nw70NnD
A sensational Götterdämmerung last weekend in Bayreuth. Kent Nagano and @dresdenfestival’s orchestra + @ConcertoKoeln period performance was lucid, persuasive and dramatically gripping. Catch it if you can in Cologne (4 JUNE), Lucerne
(10 SEPTEMBER) or Paris
(13 SEPTEMBER)!
Dispirited by the dearth of comprehensive English-language appreciations of Valie Export, I decided to write my own in-depth obituary of the remarkable Linz-born feminist art, performance and film pioneer for my Substack, The Feuilleton.
https://t.co/doRF6D7pJl
One of the weirdest and most endearing of Cannes traditions. No matter what awesome beach / yacht party might be going on, the glitterati and the hoi polloi will always converge at le petit majestique at 3 a.m.
Saturday night #Cannes2026 - the habitual street party for the less affluent outside Le Petit Majestic bar. (Biz types are at Le Mondrian - formerly Le Grand - nearby.)
This @nytimes "if opera is to survive" oped is bizarre. Instead of looking for a unicorn donor, @MetOpera should think about why they spend $326 million per season. For that $, Berlin sustains 3 opera houses (w/90+ titles, incl. 24 premieres) + a ballet! https://t.co/7FWs4sn8iR
Florentina Holzinger tells @friezeofficial performance @la_Biennale is "fucking challenging." "You need to hustle like a motherfucker. I come from statefunded systems & suddenly I’m busy w/private funding & sponsors. I know I’ll have to make compromises."
https://t.co/aBpwcIEhLC
For @jdforward, some reflections on my first @la_Biennale Arte opening, the controversies surrounding Israel and Russia’s participation, the politization of art, and an organizational structure that increasingly seems like a shining artifact of the past.
https://t.co/cgwVmI1Y5x
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Notre traditionnel tableau des étoiles est en ligne sur le site des Cahiers du cinéma : https://t.co/dKEB5HWIhI
Chaque jour, la rédaction partage ses notes des films vus lors de ce 79ème Festival de Cannes, toutes sections confondues.
“Giotto and St. Francis” at the National Gallery of Umbria in Perugia, is a cultural high point of the Jubilee Year of St. Francis, proclaimed by Pope Leo XIV to honor the 800th anniversary of the saint’s death
https://t.co/tYFTFTzD2L
Naturally, the first opera I reviewed for @FT was going to be a world premiere (no pressure, whatsoever...) @bay_staatsoper#BrettDean#BSOoneblood
https://t.co/DsFcypdR0k
Here's a gift link to my FT Weekend article about Kent Nagano's historically-informed "Wagner Cycles," which nears completion later this month at the Dresdner Musikfestspiele ahead of full "Ring" performances next year, in Vienna & Shanghai.
https://t.co/NmNNIni5K3