Victor Erice and his team have created many indelible images throughout Erice’s 50-year career: Ana’s face as she watches Frankenstein in ‘El espíritu de la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive)’, Estrella dancing with her father in ‘El Sur (The South)’, and the lush and mysterious prologue from ‘Cerrar los ojos (Close Your Eyes)’. But the one that I want to highlight is the opening of ‘El sol del membrillo (Dream of Light)’. A patient, precise, and spiritual preparation of a canvas becomes thrilling filmmaking and also reinforces my thesis that anything can be a film.

Recently, while on a trip to the Louisiana Museum in Denmark, I had the chance to experience Bouchra Khalili’s film installation, which bears witness to eight people recounting their immigration stories. Their stories are rendered through carefully composed images of their hands and maps, which are then remade into imaginary constellations.

One of the best films from the USA in recent memory. A deeply moving, searching film. Moments of pure cinema, photographed by Jomo Fray, that are poetic and touching. I love films that play with time and space not only in their writing (screenplay also by Raven Jackson) but also somehow in how they are experienced as a viewer.

During the opening stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, I watched quite a few of the late Frederick Wiseman’s films. They’re all truly worth seeking out. But I personally love ‘In Jackson Heights’. I always recommend this one to start. Being in rooms with people talking has rarely been as compelling as Wiseman makes them feel. Just pure joy for me. Rest in peace.

There are moments in life when you hear someone put into extremely clear terms something you’ve been kicking around in your mind for a while. I felt that way when I first heard and saw bell hooks describe being an enlightened witness in ‘Cultural Criticism and Transformation’: “Being an enlightened witness means becoming critically vigilant about the world we live in… so that we can both resist certain kinds of conservatizing representation and, at the same time, create new and exciting representations.”