With SXSW kicking off next week, it's time to look back at the standouts from last year. Premiering almost exactly a year ago at the 2025 South by Southwest festival, Fucktoys was one of the event's most talked-about movies. As it traveled, screening at dozens of festivals around the globe, Fucktoys got the honorary title of "the best film of 2025 with no distributor." A bittersweet label it still holds to this day. Written and directed by Annapurna Sriram, who also stars as

This year's Academy Awards is going to be an especially contentious competition, but this does not only apply to the nominated features. The 98th Oscars has quite the list of nominees in their Best Live Action Short category, namely Jane Austen's Period Drama, The Singers, and Meyer Levinson-Blount's Butcher's Stain , which tells the story of an Arab man in Israel who is falsely accused of removing hostage posters, causing him to fight for his career and proclaim his innocen

With each passing day, we draw closer and closer to the 98th Academy Awards. In addition to rewarding the best features of the past year, the Oscars also pays attention to animated and live action shorts. One of the most pleasantly surprising nominations this year is Jane Austen's Period Drama by Steve Pinder and Julia Aks, who also served as lead actor. The film is a comedy that pokes fun at men's ignorance of female anatomy, no matter how expensive their education might've

It's that time of year again: awards season! Every day we grow closer and closer to the 98th Academy Awards, a ceremony with some of the toughest competition audiences have seen in years. This week we had the privilege and pleasure to sit down with Alexandre Singh and Natalie Musteata, the filmmakers behind Two People Exchanging Saliva ; one of the Oscar-nominated short films in the live action category this year. After premiering at Telluride and AFI Fest back in 2024, the f

This year's Sundance Film Festival was one for the books, not only because it's the last one in Park City, but also because of its particularly strong slate. Among that slate was Jane Elliott Against the World by Judd Ehrlich, a documentary that explores the life and work of one of America's most fierce racial justice activists. At the premiere, we were lucky enough to share a few words with one of the documentary's featured subjects, four-time Grammy winner, Killer Mike of

Easily one of the most important films at this year's Sundance Film Festival is feature documentary: Who Killed Alex Odeh? A project by filmmakers, William Lafi Youmans and Jason Osder that examines the 1985 political assassination of Palestinian-American activist, Alex Odeh in Santa Ana, California. Four decades later, Odeh and his family have never been given closure or justice despite his suspected assassins living as free men. This week we got the incredible opportunity

This week, Australian/British feature film, Fing! premiered in Park City Utah for the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Appearing in the Family Matinee category, this David Walliams adaptation is a colorful, ridiculous, cartoony romp sure to entertain the whole family. We here at Cinemasters were lucky to interview the cast and crew of Fing! on the red carpet at the Eccles Theater; featuring input from actors, Iona Bell, Mia Wasikowska and Taika Waititi! Left to right: director,

Academy Award-winning writer and filmmaker, Charlie Kaufman is back with a brand new project! In collaboration with writer and poet, Eva H.D. How to Shoot a Ghost starring Jessie Buckley is one of 2025's most talked-about short films after premiering in Venice last month. This week I had the immense privilege of speaking with Kaufman and H.D. about their new film, AI in the industry, and the truth behind a supposed new film with Spike Jonze... Rua: "Good morning you two, it i

Filmmaker, Kalu Oji is one of the most promising emerging voices in new Australian cinema. His new film, Pasa Faho has its world premiere at the Chicago International Film Festival this Saturday, and I had the pleasure of conducting an interview with Oji regarding this film, and the future of Australian cinema.  Eric: " I was so impressed with the cast’s ability to play off of each other so naturally, so I was curious about your process in casting not only who was right for

This year's Toronto International Film Festival was one for the books, with probably the most sprawling, diverse slate the festival has ever seen. Out of the hundreds of films that premiered at TIFF this year, one of them was Hulu's Swiped , a biopic about Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder of Bumble and co-founder of Tinder. Starring Lily James and Dan Stevens, the film deals with the harassment Wolfe faced while at Tinder, and the obstacles she overcame to become part of the m

In 1998, the world was shook by a deeply disturbing crime drama that would soon join the club of films you watch once and never again. This film from nearly three decades ago was American History X by English director, Tony Kaye, who up until that point had been known for his prolific work in commercials and music videos, most notably for artists like Soul Asylum, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Johnny Cash. For the first time since 2011, Kaye is out with a new feature film:

South by Southwest in Austin, Texas has always been known for its cutting-edge short film programs, showcasing new and talented voices...

This year one of the biggest releases at the Tribeca Film Festival was Tony Kaye's The Trainer, an absolutely bonkers black comedy that...

This year's Tribeca Film Festival has been one for the underdogs. Out of thousands of submissions for the festival's US Narrative Feature...

One of my absolute favorite films at this year's Tribeca Film Festival has been the French movie, A Second Life , competing in the...

Out of all the films in the narrative feature competition at Tribeca this year, few have remained as talked about as Chris Merola's ...

This week I had the pleasure of speaking to Julie Seabaugh, longtime comedy journalist and producer of the new Marc Maron documentary Are...

Every year at the Cannes Film Festival, dozens of new films see the light of day for the first time. But those who don’t attend in person...

Note to the reader: This interview contains discussions of suicide.  Resources for people in a crisis: If you or someone you know is in a...

In addition to being a film professor at Ithaca College in New York, Sen-I Yu is an award-winning filmmaker. Originally hailing from...