Soheil Rezayazdi

Nonfiction Programs Manager at The Gotham Film & Media Institute

"Under conditions of terror most people will comply,” Hannah Arendt wrote from the trial of Adolf Eichmann, “but some will not.”

“I Wondered if Metaphor and Allegory Weren’t a Way of Integrating Censorship and Accepting Oppression”: Mohammad Rasoulof on There Is No Evil

For 20 years running, the films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have confronted a single fundamental facet of modern life: class. From their breakout La Promesse (1996) to The Unknown Girl (2016), the messy tangle of money, employment, and morality has defined their work. 

“We Didn’t Try to Colonize the Boy in Making the Film”: The Dardenne Brothers on Young Ahmed

“I’m very sweet,” Shirin Neshat tells me, “but I’m also very domineering when it comes to my work.” Few who meet Neshat can doubt either part of that sentence. 

Shirin Neshat on Western Culture’s Discrimination Towards Female Narratives and How Iranian Cinema Should Evolve

What does self-destruction sound like? In Her Smell, the sixth film from Alex Ross Perry, it takes many forms: a nasty laugh, a frenetic synth loop, a warble of radio static. The sounds come hard and relentless. A raw sound wave, warped to mimic the syncopations of a demented drum machine, serves as its palpitating heartbeat. For reasons I can’t fully explain, it’s a sound that induces instant anxiety.

Soheil Rezayazdi

Nonfiction Programs Manager at The Gotham Film & Media Institute

“I Wondered if Metaphor and Allegory Weren’t a Way of Integrating Censorship and Accepting Oppression”: Mohammad Rasoulof on There Is No Evil

“We Didn’t Try to Colonize the Boy in Making the Film”: The Dardenne Brothers on Young Ahmed

Shirin Neshat on Western Culture’s Discrimination Towards Female Narratives and How Iranian Cinema Should Evolve

The Sound of a Panic Attack: Composer Keegan DeWitt on Her Smell