Critical Thinking: An Introduction
A new regular feature is coming to this virtual space.
For quite some time now, I’ve talked about wanting to launch a regular feature (ideally on a monthly basis), called Critical Thinking, with profiles/interviews featuring my fellow critics (primarily in the film and television field, but something a bit different might pop up from time to time). Well, it is my pleasure to announce that, barring accidents, the first such conversation will be published in September, while this post will serve as an overall introduction to the topic, rather than diving straight into the interviews.
This idea – of the introduction, that is – came from something I experienced exactly a week ago today (hence why I’m uncustomarily publishing this on a Thursday): after a couple of days attending the New Horizons festival in Wroclaw, Poland, six other young critics and I were taken to a cabin by a lake in the countryside, for the 2024 edition of A Sunday in the Country. Organized by the European Film Academy in partnership with the festival, it was originally a rendez-vous for young filmmakers, but has since expanded with an additional event for people who write about film.
In alphabetical order by country, the 2024 participants were Ieva Sukyte from Lithuania, Alicja Nowacka and Lukasz Kielpinski from Poland, Flavia Dima from Romania, Amaia Garcia from Spain, and Michel Rebosura and me from Switzerland. Malik Berkati, also from Switzerland, served as this year’s expert, while the overall organization was handled by Pascal Edelmann (Germany) and Ola Salwa (Poland).
As part of the critical portion of the experience, which lasted a large chunk of the day on Friday and Saturday, we watched select films from the festival program, discussed them amongst ourselves, and then had conversations with the filmmakers, who also joined us for lunch or dinner (prepared by the group). These talks were fascinating, often illuminating, sometimes surprising, as it quickly became not so much about the movies themselves, but our approach to film in general and, on the other side of the spectrum, how the directors respond to film criticism.
“Why do you do what you do?”, was a question that popped up in various forms during those days, and the replies painted a mesmerizing picture of how film journalism functions in various European countries and even to what degree each of us considers themselves a film critic. Hearing everyone’s origin story, as Pascal put it, made it even clearer to me that this idea I’ve been thinking about for months (nay, years, accounting for the newsletter’s hiatus in 2022 and 2023) is worth pursuing, with a wide variety of critical voices from all over the world.
So, starting next month, Critical Thinking will be a regular fixture of this virtual space I’ve made for myself over the past three and a half years. Stay tuned…