Some filmmakers are known for their documentary works. Others for their narrative films. Still others—the better filmmakers (for me), generally—do not fit comfortably into either category. Or any category whatsoever. Poet / artist / filmmaker Lynne Sachs is one of […]

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On January 22, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (or AMPAS) announced its nominees for the 2026 Oscars last week. Below, you will find the complete list, with the titles that Hammer to Nail covered in some way […]

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Once Upon a Time in Harlem is the best film I saw at Sundance this year. It is also, in a sense, a miracle. In 1972, the legendary documentary filmmaker William Greaves—director of the avant-garde masterpiece Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968), […]

The post A Conversation with David Greaves, Liani Greaves, Anne de Mare & Lynn True (ONCE UPON A TIME IN HARLEM) appeared first on Hammer to Nail.

Writer and director Clint Bentley doesn’t make films about the exceptional. He finds the exceptional in the ordinary. Stories about jockeys past their prime, incarcerated men staging plays, and now, with Train Dreams, an Idaho logger whose entire life unfolds […]

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Three years ago, at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival Directors’ Fortnight, I had the opportunity to speak with filmmaker Owen Kline to discuss his remarkable feature directorial debut, Funny Pages. At the time, Kline was most notable for his memorable […]

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“You know, you’re Irish, so when I’m saying Dédalus you’re probably thinking Joyce.” It’s early December in Avelino and Arnaud Desplechin isn’t really talking  A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The French director’s latest, Spectateurs!, reintroduces the […]

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