Interview: BFI London Film Festival’s “Expanded” Curator, Ulrich Schrauth

Insight on curating the second-annual program dedicated to XR storytelling at the prestigious event

Through programming dedicated to virtual, augmented, mixed and modified reality, international film festivals continue to transport attendees (whether participating at home or on-site) into the future of storytelling. With their second-ever LFF Expanded program, curated by Ulrich Schrauth, the 65th BFI London Film Festival (running 6-17 October) presents an array of XR artworks that align with the prestigious event’s legacy of pioneering moving pictures. And, with …

Bushwick Community Darkroom Rectifies Film Photography’s Exclusionary Past

Founder Lucia Rollow shares how she breathes new life into the analog practice through affordability and inclusion

When Lucia Rollow rolled her Volkswagen down New York’s Long Island Expressway back in 2010, she had no idea she was on the brink of founding a thriving film photography community and one of the only 24/7 darkrooms in the city. A recent college graduate with no spare change, Rollow longed for a place to continue developing film and honing the craft she loves. After …

The Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt on Brevity, Dread + Writing Songs in Bars

We speak with the prolific singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist ahead of his seven-city tour

Beloved for creating songs that are simultaneously tender and witty, sweet and subversive, uncluttered and rich, laconic and entrancing, The Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt—whose mellifluous baritone is immediately recognizable—stopped writing at the onset of the pandemic. “I gave up,” he tells us. “I started doing a lot more photography.” He gave up because Merritt’s ritual is writing exclusively in bars, an impossibility in NYC for …