Seventh Row is a nonprofit Canadian film criticism publication and publishing house. We're dedicated to helping you expand your horizons by curating the best socially progressive films from around the world and helping you think deeply about them. This newsletter is run by Seventh Row (http://seventh-row.com) but features exclusive content not found on the website.
Fresh from the Berlin Film Festival...
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I'm technically writing to you from Toronto, where the snow is starting to melt, and the skies are still stubbornly grey. Even though I'm not at the Berlinale in person, my disembodied voice was there this morning at a panel on how we're discussing, talking about, and thinking about film in 2026. (Which means my talk was something I recorded, and you can listen to it! Even if, like me, you're on a different continent right now.) Most of the wonderful panellists were discussing their work to put films in front of new audiences (through online platforms, TV stations, and programming) or how film criticism has evolved beyond written reviews. (The Hollywood Reporter is on YouTube. And OFC people like me are in your podcast feed.) I talked about something else. Not how we find or watch films — but what we do once we’ve seen them. Film festivals give us an excellent structure for discovering films. They make encountering new work easy and exciting. We don't have the same kind of structure for what happens after we've watched them. Most spaces are about stating a take, talking about a film once, and moving on. But what if you’re not done with it yet? At Seventh Row, I've been designing spaces that give you the structure to discover something new in a film — not just discover a new film. That's what I spoke about at the Berlinale. Now on the podcast feed, you can hear me (and my still disembodied voice) talk about:
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Seventh Row
Seventh Row is a nonprofit Canadian film criticism publication and publishing house. We're dedicated to helping you expand your horizons by curating the best socially progressive films from around the world and helping you think deeply about them. This newsletter is run by Seventh Row (http://seventh-row.com) but features exclusive content not found on the website.
There's a moment at the beginning of Lean on Pete that seems so naturalistic and incidental, it hadn't even occurred to me it might reveal a lot about the central character, Charley. On his way out for his morning run, Charley picks up a moving box lying on the ground in front of his house and puts it in a recycling bin. When I talked to writer-director Andrew Haigh about the film, I discovered that this moment was actually written into the script. As Haigh put it, "He’s leaving the house,...
You might be wondering what it's actually like to step into The Deep Focus. So here's a little taste. The first thing I always do is point you to a moment worth looking at. Below is one from the beginning of Sentimental Value. Take a sec to see what you spot in the image. Everything counts — even (and especially) the obvious. You might have noticed: ✨ We're looking through a window (which takes up most of the frame). ✨ We're watching someone through glass. ✨ Someone is leaving. ✨ It's a...
I’m running something new in April. It’s called The Deep Focus. We’ll spend three weeks with two films by Joachim Trier — Oslo, August 31st and Sentimental Value — following how they’re put together. We'll look at specific moments, trace patterns within and across the films, and see how those choices shape what you feel. If you’ve ever felt a scene hit — and weren't quite sure why — this is a space to stay with that question long enough to find an answer. I won’t tell you what to think.But I...