Comrade X
King Vidor Retrospective
August 5 - 14, 2022
Part spy film, part screwball satire, Vidor’s 1941 film stars Clark Gable as a USSR-based American journalist whose pseudonymous cover is blown, luring him into a blackmail plot wherein he must marry a streetcar conductor (Hedy Lamarr).
Part spy film, part screwball satire, Vidor’s 1940 film finds Clark Gable playing Mac Thompson, a USSR-based American journalist who pseudonymously pens scathing dispatches from the Soviet Union on behalf of the anticommunist West. When Mac’s cover is blown, he is lured into a blackmail plot wherein he must marry a streetcar conductor (Hedy Lamarr) and take her away from the USSR so that she can spread the gospel of Marxism-Leninism—but, of course, this plan goes sideways, to hilarious effect. Something of a companion film to Ernst Lubitsch’s Ninotchka (1939), Comrade X prophetically anticipated the invasion of Russia and Ukraine by Germany less than a year after its release.
Read More
Kamal Aljafari on With Hasan in Gaza and ‘The Camera of the Dispossessed’
Our 63rd New York Film Festival Talks featured a special conversation with With Hasan in Gaza director Kamal Aljafari, moderated by Film Comment editor Devika Girish.
Lucrecia Martel on Our Land (Nuestra Tierra), the Filmmaker’s First Feature Documentary
On the latest episode of FLC Luminaries, our video series that spotlights talent at all levels of the filmmaking process who uplift the art and craft of cinema, Our Land (Nuestra Tierra) director Lucrecia Martel discusses her expansive and enlightening first feature documentary.
Carla Simón on Her Poignantly Autobiographical Romería
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 63rd New York Film Festival with Romería director Carla Simón, moderated by NYFF Main Slate selection committee member Florence Almozini.
