Avant-garde cinema, particularly in New York City, emerged in symbiosis with the film criticism that contextualized, championed, and critiqued it—and in fact, became a form of its own. Writing about work that is premised on defying formulaic intelligibility, and which invites us to reach beyond language to other modes of interpretation, can be both challenging and thrilling. And reading such criticism can be at once a glorious entryway into better appreciating experimental cinema, and an encounter with the various ways images and text can work together. Moderated by the editors of Film Comment, this panel brings together veterans of avant-garde film criticism to discuss the history of the craft, the nitty-gritty of this niche beat, and what good writing on avant-garde cinema looks like. Panelists include Amy Taubin, Genevieve Yue, and Ayanna Dozier.
—Film Comment

Free to attend. The conversation will be recorded and published on the Film Comment Podcast on May 14.