- FX’s “Love Story: JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette” Is A Stunning Exploration of Public and Private Life (February 12, 2026)
The myth of the Kennedy family is as ingrained in American culture as it is in modern pop culture. From the closeness Jackie Kennedy sought to cultivate after her husband’s death to Jack Schlossberg’s online persona, over the course of more than half a century, generations of Americans have been given an in-depth look at this family’s lives. Or so they think. With this closeness comes the inevitable tailoring of the Kennedys’ lives, which have been marked by tragedies more so than any other famous family. Yet this closeness they have with the American people is manufactured, tailored so perfectly that one can’t help but feel like they’re a part of their weddings, the birth of their children, and, of course, their mourning processes.
Created and largely written by Connor Hines, “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette,” opens in 1999, with Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy (Sarah Pidgeon) getting her nails done as paparazzi wait outside and shout her name. The flashes of their cameras shine through the windows of the nail salon, and their voices eventually blur into a singular buzzing drone. Carolyn reacts with despondency, looking down at her freshly painted red nails before asking her stylist if they can start over with a neutral color. This act makes it immediately clear that, down to the shape and shade of her nails, Carolyn’s life has become one that is not her own.
We flash back seven years earlier, before she was hounded by the press at every turn, and before she knew John F. Kennedy Jr. (Paul Anthony Kelly). While she works her way up at Calvin Klein, John has made headlines for failing the bar exam for a second time. Though they exist in separate worlds, they both operate in the same ways: he works out rigorously; she is meticulous in how she dresses; he is obsessed with becoming a lawyer; she is driven to work her way up at her job. Yet, despite the similarities, once the two meet, it becomes clear they couldn’t be more different. This difference aids their attraction to each other, but, as we know, it also threatens to drive them apart.
Together, Pigeon and Kelly have fantastic chemistry. At the beginning of Carolyn and John’s relationship, they tentatively make eyes at each other across parties and galas, gazes flitting away quickly when the other makes eye contact. As their relationship progresses, the two actors ignite a heated passion, and their arguments become so intense that the paparazzi can’t help but capture them. Yet, it’s not the central pair who deliver the show’s most captivating performances: it’s the women who surround John F. Kennedy Jr. who take the cake as this series’ most interesting players.
Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette — Pictured: (l-r) Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, Paul Kelly as John F. Kennedy Jr. CR: FX
Gummer enters each scene she’s in with an air of despair, one that grows as the show progresses, and the Kennedy children begin to realize that, eventually, they will be the only people on earth left to organize the mark this family will leave on the country they’ve given so much to. She stares at the people around her as if she feels like she doesn’t belong, often lashing out in a desperate attempt to unveil just how much she wishes to exile herself, not from the Kennedy name, but from the openness its previous members have held with the press and the American people. If anything, “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette” doesn’t feel like a seedy exposé of one of the most famous relationships of the 20th century; it becomes a fascinating unveiling of the relationship between public and private life.
There have been many women to portray Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, but none so deftly as Naomi Watts does here. As the aging matriarch whose health steadily declines over the show’s first few episodes, Watts’ physicality does most of the talking. She is obsessed with her son’s love life, not because she wants to control him, but because she wants to control the narrative surrounding him and their family’s legacy. John is ultimately drawn to Carolyn because she understands who she is, something that he himself is unsure of. His mother and his sister, Caroline (Grace Gummer), seem to understand this more than he himself does, and they surround him like two women desperate to hold onto any semblance of control they can.
Nothing about this series feels cheap, which is surprising given that Ryan Murphy produces it. Instead, the show coveted writers and craftspeople whose dedication bleeds into every monologue delivered by Pidgeon and Kelly, every piece of clothing they wear, and every fantastic needle drop ranging from Cocteau Twins’ “Heaven or Las Vegas,” to The Velvet Underground & Nico’s “Venus in Furs.” As the different worlds Carolyn and John belong to slowly begin to collide, the series displays this clash by cracking open the mythology surrounding these two figures, as well as the tragic curse that seemed to doom them from their first meeting.
The spectacle that unfolded in our reality was one that both Carolyn and John came to loathe, and instead of reveling in it, this series keeps its viewers at a startling distance. By the end of “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette,” there is still so much left unsaid, forcing the viewer to reckon with whether we ever truly knew these people at all. It feels as if the show’s portrayals of these figures have been shrouded in a purposeful mystery, which by the end of the eight episodes screened for critics doesn’t feel like an oversight, but an admirable creative choice that works in the series’ favor.
Eight episodes were screened for review.
- It All Starts With the Meditation App: Bart Layton on “Crime 101” (February 11, 2026)
LA is the city of dreams, both broken and fulfilled, in director Bart Layton’s crime thriller “Crime 101.” From “The Incomer” to “American Animals,” Layton’s films have always focused on grifters, con men, and everyone in between; characters who try to find opportunities provided to them by human oversight and error. Even while he uses the glittery, gritty, and grimy lights of LA to heightened effect, his “Crime 101” is refreshingly grounded, focusing on the personal and professional lives of a master thief (Chris Hemsworth), police detective (Mark Ruffalo), and insurance broker (Halle Berry), and the ways their complicated lives intersect.
“These characters are people who are trapped by the choices that they’ve made, and a lot of those choices are dictated by the pressure to have money and status,” Layton shared. It’s thrilling to witness the ways their stories intersect and diverge throughout the film, the ducking and weaving mirroring the motion of speeding through LA traffic.
Before speaking with Layton in person, “Crime 101” was pre-screened in Chicago to a packed theater. Layton shared in a Q&A with Michael Philips that it was the first time an audience had seen the film in a premium format, and thanked everyone for being gracious (albeit unwilling) guinea pigs.
The next day, Barton spoke with RogerEbert.com at the St. Regis Chicago and thoughtfully skewered the LA wellness culture, shared how his documentary skills influenced his approach to narrative features, and discussed how his early interest in visual art shaped the incorporation of art pieces into the film.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
You give a lot of screen time to people in the film getting ready and “suiting up” for the day. What fascinates you about depicting people in the throes of preparation?
It all comes down to character. I think: what’s the most economical way of telling an audience all they need to know about someone without necessarily spelling it out explicitly for them, and doing this in a way that feels not only compelling, but also drives the story and builds tension and anticipation. Some of those routines that I developed were more specific than others. With Halle, we discussed how when we first met Sharon, she was not wearing a shred of makeup. If you’re Halle Berry, that’s a big thing to ask.
She was on board with it because she understood what I wanted to do with that character. In the next scene, where we see Sharon put on her makeup, it’s as if she’s putting on war paint. She’s operating within a system where she has to compromise some of her principles, whether it’s wearing makeup that lightens her skin or wearing an outfit that shows off her boobs really prominently. She’s operating in a male-dominated world where she’s being used and slightly exploited. She’s not totally comfortable, but she’s been forced to deal with that, and her routine is her trying to transform herself before she goes out into the world, a way to sort of get used to how she has to compromise, and internalize that she’s being used as bait.
With Chris’s and Mark’s characters, it’s also about communicating tone. When you see Chris getting ready, you know he’s up to no good, and you also know that he has a methodical process. At the end of that montage, there’s a crosscutting shot also with Mark and Chris, where for a beat, you don’t know who is who. They’re not dissimilar in many ways.
Mentally, I’m still thinking about how you and Cinematographer Erik Wilson captured the specks of dry skin falling off of Chris’ body and how you all bathed that sequence in these vibrant blues. One of the first films you worked on, the TV movie “Becoming Alexander,” was about a character undergoing an intense season of preparation, so these scenes in “Crime 101” were seemingly an extension of that earlier fascination.
(Laughs) That might have been the second thing I’ve ever made. I’m all about the detail. I do a massive amount of preparation before a project. I think showing that suggests building a sense of tension and expectation towards something about to happen. As an audience member, I think that’s a nice feeling to have in the cinema. That feeling of “I don’t know where we’re going, but I know we’re in good hands, and I know it’s going to be exciting.”
Halle Berry stars as ‘Sharon’ in CRIME 101. (Photo Credit: Merrick Morton)
Sharon’s meditation app is also a recurring voice that serves as a kind of spirit haunting the film. How did you arrive at utilizing that particular permutation of meditation app? It feels very LA-coded …
There’s this woman who runs a very successful app called Boho Beautiful. She’s the real deal. I was interested in building a sense of what the stereotypical LA existence is like. In LA, there’s a real prevalence of wellness culture and a sense that you should have everything: looks, wealth, beauty, and money. All of that is part of this illusion of the “perfect LA existence.” I wanted to demonstrate that both visually and sonically. I certainly think that kind of meditative affirmation, where you’re being told that success is your divine right, is very LA-specific.
In the opening, I’m still thinking about the line where the voice says: “You hold the power to create all that you desire out of nothing.” There’s a mythological, almost spiritual significance.
There’s this idea that permeates that all these mantras about success create false expectations, that somehow if you don’t have the trappings of wealth and success, then maybe you’re failing on some level. These characters are trapped by the choices they’ve made, many of which are driven by the pressure to have money and status. That voice is part of the LA wellness myth.
Chris Hemsworth’s Mike sums it up well: when you don’t have money, your options are limited. The aggregation of capital is really a means to an end to increase your options.
These characters have reached a point where they realize that becoming overly concerned about what other people think can get in the way of their own goals.
He’s imperfect, but that’s why Ruffalo’s character, Lou, stands in contrast to the people around him who are all striving for “more.” He’s this foil where he’s willing to remain content when the voices around him are telling him to desire more.
At the same time, though, his character is also feeling the pressure of the fact that he’s not getting rewarded for being a public servant, so even for him, he’s being corrupted by the message of “This is what you need to do to be a success.” It all starts with the meditation app.
A cursed soundtrack to our existence. You’re from South London, and what’s striking about this film is that it’s such an LA-specific story. Even the “101” is a fun double entendre, referencing the highway. Do you think being an outsider and not a part of the LA machine enabled you to comment on its foibles more truthfully?
I definitely think it’s easier to observe certain cultural specifics if you haven’t grown up in a place. I love LA, but I also have an awareness of how much anxiety that city can generate and how that anxiety affects you. If I go on holiday anywhere else, I don’t think twice about what kind of car I’m hiring, right? I’m probably going for the cheapest one. If I go to LA, though, I’m thinking, “Wow, if I rock up in a really shit car, are people going to judge me, and are they going to see me in a way that I don’t want?” I am aware of how some cultural pressures affect the psyche. You observe things differently as an outsider, or you at least look twice at things other people don’t even consider.
Maya (Monica Barbaro) and Davis (Chris Hemsworth) in CRIME 101.
Jude Law said something similar when I spoke with him for “The Order.” The irony wasn’t lost on him that he, a Brit, and director Justin Kurzel, an Aussie, were the ones telling a story about white supremacy in America.
My good friend, Nick Fenton–who also edited “American Animals”—edited “The Order.” I haven’t had a chance to see it yet. With this film, while it is a love letter to LA, there are hopefully some observations and suggestions that make you question the illusion, in some respects, of having everything. These are people trying to get at something that doesn’t exist. It feels like everyone has everything, but that’s not necessarily true. There’s this Arthur Miller quote in Death of a Salesman where Willy Loman’s character says that the fatal flaw of everyone operating in a capitalist society is that people get their self-worth not from within, but from what other people think about them. That was very much in dialogue with this film.
Keeping on that love letter note, Chris had mentioned on a podcast that this was filmed pre-fires and that some of the locations featured in the film aren’t even there anymore. How are you processing this idea that your film exists as proof for some places that these locations existed?
Yes, I mean tragically, those places, especially in the Palisades, shockingly, are no longer there. I’m honestly still processing and trying to understand that the last time I was in those locations, we were filming certain spots, but now they’re gone.
You’ve talked previously about how the highest aim of documentary filmmaking is truth-telling. With fiction, you’re manufacturing the truth to some extent. I’m curious what it was like to go against some of those instincts you initially cultivated, or if you felt those philosophies clash?
No, it’s a really good question. I never felt those instincts clashing, but if there’s anything that has served me well from being a documentary maker, it’s that sense of not letting go of the real world, of not wanting to make a movie that you are no longer really emotionally connected to, because the characters become movie tropes, the situations become movie clichés, and the car chases don’t feel reel. I never want what I make to feel part of some heightened reality.
What I try to bring from the doc space is this idea of not suspending disbelief. I love that when you watch a documentary with a big group of people–particularly in a theater–they are so invested because they’re not suspending disbelief. They know that whatever happens in this story really happened. So what I’m trying to do is bring some of that authenticity to my narrative features, while still delivering what you want from a fun night out at the cinema.
Davis (Chris Hemsworth, right) and Lou (Mark Ruffalo, left) in CRIME 101.
It’s not lost on me either that at least four of the actors you’ve assembled–Chris, Mark, Halle, and Barry–have appeared in superhero films. You’ve previously spoken about how you were excited for people to see Chris embody a more vulnerable protagonist in Mike, which stands in contrast to the hero types he’s played. How consciously were you thinking about deconstructing the audience’s relationships with these actors, particularly those whom we may have seen in a more heroic, unblemished light?
It’s funny because I’m not a big superhero fan–although when I was a kid, “Superman” was my favorite movie of all time–so I never really thought about it. It wasn’t until the trailer came out and everyone commented, “Whoa, you have Thor, the Hulk, Joker, and Storm,” that I became more aware. I’m ashamed to admit I’ve not seen some of these films.
Hopefully, for fans of those franchises, it will be fun to see familiar actors in a different universe. I think it was interesting watching Mark and Chris come together on set in a very different environment. They got quite nervous around each other because they were both on set as real actors. If you’re going toe-to-toe with Mark Ruffalo in a very dramatic scene, and you’re Chris Hemsworth, you’re going to bring your absolute A-game.
Both of your parents are artists, and at one point, you considered pursuing painting or sculpture before your pivot to moviemaking. I’m struck by the art pieces you feature here, particularly in Monroe’s (Tate Donovan) house. I’d love to give you space to talk about the art you chose to feature in the film and its significance, not just to the story but to your love for visual art.
Back to your earlier question, I was trying to find a shorthand to help us get to know our characters. Monroe is a guy for whom art is an investment commodity. He’s chosen slightly inappropriate and culturally insensitive pieces to have prominently displayed in his house, which tells you something about who he is. I have a friend, Ossian Ward, an art historian, whom I roped into helping me curate all the art because I wanted Monroe to have things he shouldn’t have in his house.
There’s that famous painting called Thérèse Dreaming, which is of this prepubescent girl in a slightly inappropriate kind of pose where you can see her underwear and all the rest of it, and yet he’s oblivious to it. He’s also got the Gauguin paintings. There’s also obviously the painting of the Black washing woman. This was all in service of painting a picture of the beginning of Halle’s journey and the struggles she faces. The very first thing we see her do is suppress her emotions and bite her lip in the presence of this guy, from whom she needs something.
The art is not intended to necessarily make you dislike Monroe expressly, but to paint a sense of what might make Halle crack. You’ve seen her put on clothing that reveals her plunging neckline, you’ve seen her put on her war paint, and now she’s dealing with this guy who’s moving too close to her and making her fire a gun, and now she has a painting of this Black slave. The only thing Monroe can say about the painting is, “This will go up in value.” All of those things are supposed to be the kind of beginnings of the stepping stones for her character, getting to a point where she’s going to say, “Fuck it, I’m not going to do this anymore.”
“Crime 101” opens in theaters on February 13th from Amazon MGM Studios.
- Season 2 of Prime Video’s “Cross” Fails to Reach New Heights (February 11, 2026)
Based on James Patterson’s best-selling novels, the first season of Prime’s “Cross” followed homicide detective Alex Cross (Aldis Hodge), whose insurmountable grief following his wife’s murder clashed with his search for serial killer Ed Ramsey (Ryan Eggold). With Ramsey now behind bars, and Alex and his family attempting to heal from their shared trauma, it seems like their lives have finally reached a moment of peace. But, like we saw last season, Alex is a protagonist who struggles with separating his work from his home life, and the appearance of a new killer threatens to shatter the already rocky foundation he and his family stand upon.
This new threat couldn’t be more different than the show’s previous antagonist, who targeted vulnerable people for the sake of his own gain. Instead, this is revealed to be more of a vigilante situation when Alex and his team are called to the home of food production CEO Lance Durand (Matthew Lillard), who, after receiving various threats, is given a gift in the form of three severed fingers. These fingers are connected to a dedicated follower of Luz (Jeanine Mason), who we are introduced to in the season’s opening moments when she frees a group of young women from an island where they’re being trafficked.
Luz wields various weapons like a military-trained killer, but wears her heart on her sleeve when it comes to the men and women she’s attempting to free. It becomes clear that even though this season of “Cross” may not be as magnetic as the first, the series’ antagonists will always be fascinating to watch. What allowed this show to initially stand out amongst its peers was Eggold’s magnetic performance, which was impossible to look away from despite the heinous deeds he was doing. Mason is even more staggering to watch, her ruthlessness and desire to liberate clashing each time she kills, eyes wide and fascinated by the dedication of the followers she begins to amass.
With the introduction of Luz and her disciples, it’s clear that this season is attempting to explore morality and perhaps unmask how revenge often turns people into monsters. Yet, in the current political climate we live in, in which real-life billionaires are indeed enacting the same crimes, Luz’s mission never feels like one that is inherently evil. Intertwined in her mission are underage immigrant workers who are exploited and then sent to detention camps, abused women whose agency has been stripped from them, and Luz herself, who, after her mother’s death, was forced to confront the harsh realities of life too quickly.
Matthew Lillard as Lance Durand. Photo Courtesy of Ian Watson/Prime Video
For a side character, Luz’s life is given an extensive amount of interiority. But on the other hand, Alex nearly disappears from this story entirely. Not physically, as Hodge is on screen often, but the character lacks the same layered complexity that made him a previously engaging protagonist. While Alex’s backstory and subsequent journey were as intriguing as the killer he was hunting in season one, “Cross” now feels like it doesn’t know what to do with the titular character. The flawed man we were initially introduced to now feels like a patron saint, not because the character himself is trying to be better, but because the show’s writers seem too afraid to let Alex be as messy as the people he’s hunting down.
Television is chock-full of characters who are too clean-cut, namely Black characters who aren’t given the space to be as complicated as their white peers. Unfortunately, this series has fallen into the same trap, devoiding its main character of the complexity that once aided in the show’s success. For a cat-and-mouse game like the one in season two of “Cross” to remain entertaining, both parties need engaging inner lives. Hodge still gives a good performance, yet the magnitude he reached previously is stifled by the characters around him, all getting much more interesting narrative threads to work with. Kayla Craig (Alona Tal) in particular becomes the show’s most interesting character, and when she and Hodge share screen time, the actor’s charisma is finally allowed to bleed out onto the screen.
Abandoned by the show’s narrative as well as the series’ writers, Alex disappears from view, and the show unspools into a run-of-the-mill crime thriller. While the first season may not have been revolutionary television, it remained enthralling from episode to episode, a feat few shows in this genre can claim. The highs and lows of this second season mirror a spindling rollercoaster, one whose mechanisms slowly falter until the wheels come loose, before the whole ride comes crashing down.
Entire season was screened for review. Episodes air weekly on Prime Video.
- I Will See You In Dreams: Akinola Davies Jr. on “My Father’s Shadow” (February 10, 2026)
In “My Father’s Shadow,” the deeply moving debut feature of British-Nigerian filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr., two young brothers—Aki (Godwin Egbo) and Remi (Chibuike Marvellous Egbo)—travel with their often-absent father, Fọlárìn (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù), from their rural home in the Nigerian countryside and into the bustling streets of Lagos, where they spend a day observing and slowly bonding with the old man they barely know.
Set on the eve of Nigeria’s 1993 election crisis, as political unrest sent shockwaves through the country’s capital, the film—co-written by Davies and his brother, Wale Davies—was inspired by the relationship its creators had to their own late father, who died from epilepsy when the two of them were very young. Building on that tragic real-life context, the brothers approached their feature as an opportunity to revisit a sociopolitical turning point in recent Nigerian history and to depict on screen the emotional vibrancy of ‘90s Lagos as they recalled it from spending time there with their mother throughout childhood.
Shooting on location while evoking a lost time and place in gorgeously textured 16mm, “My Father’s Shadow” is a longing snapshot of a country and the people who populate it, as much as it is an evocation of one family’s intimate reunion. Representing the linguistic landscape of Nigeria with dialogue in Yoruba, Pidgin, and English, as well as a rich cross-section of the country’s culture—visible through period-accurate clothing, a swirl of set pieces, and rapt attention to the energetic rhythms of the Nigerian capital—the film also features a magnificent lead performance by Dìrísù, who gradually surfaces Fọlárìn’s closely held anguish and paternal frustration to his children as their day in Lagos draws to a foreboding close.
“My Father’s Shadow” first screened at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered in the Un Certain Regard section and won the Special Mention for the Camera d’Or prize. Critically acclaimed throughout its subsequent tour of the international festival circuit, the film was later nominated for 12 British Independent Film Awards, with Davies Jr. winning the prize for Best Director. The film was also selected as the United Kingdom’s Oscar submission for Best International Feature, though it didn’t ultimately make the Academy’s shortlist; the Gothams, however, awarded the film two prizes: Breakthrough Director (for Davies Jr.) and Outstanding Lead Performance (for Dìrísù).
MUBI, which acquired distribution rights for the film in multiple territories prior to its world premiere, is releasing “My Father’s Shadow” in U.S. theaters starting Feb. 13. Ahead of the release, Davies Jr. sat down with RogerEbert.com to discuss the visual language of dreams, collaborating with his brother to tell this semi-autobiographical story, the difficulty of transporting film in and out of Lagos, and much more.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
“My Father’s Shadow” came from a deeply personal place. What can you tell me about the process of developing this story, which is rooted in your childhood, into a feature film alongside your brother, Wale Davies?
We’d made a short film, “Lizard,” which won the Sundance Jury Prize, and the reaction to that film was extremely overwhelming for us. We hadn’t quite anticipated winning anything; we just wanted to test out making a film, and the response was incredible. It was also during lockdown.
In thinking about what to do next, we really wanted to create something in service of our younger selves, our families and friends, and the women in our lives. And my brother had written the screenplay [for “My Father’s Shadow”] years before. It had an emotional impact on me when I read it; I thought, “What better way to spend the next few years than creating work together and getting better acquainted as brothers on a subject matter that we never really spoke about as kids?” And so Wale graciously allowed me to develop “My Father’s Shadow” into a feature.
At every point along the way, there was a level of understanding of the craft of what we were doing and how we wanted to shape that craft. The film could have ended in many ways, but we always leaned on being honest, drawing on ourselves, wanting to be the authors of our story in a way we could learn from first, before we started using other people’s material. That was quite important to us, mining ourselves for the story.
When a person loses a parent, there’s a consistent elephant in the room, about that person who isn’t there, what their trades were like, what they were like as people. Whenever we go out into Lagos, our father’s name always reverberates back to us, because he was a larger-than-life character people knew, apparently. We’d always experienced this. We’d go into Lagos, and people would tell us about our father. It felt like we learned enough over the years—being young men and then adults, hearing more mature stories—that we could put that into a character.
For my brother and me, our earliest and only experience of our father was playing on a bed with him, which we tried to put in the opening sequence. That’s the only memory we have. We don’t know whether it was a dream, a fabrication, or something someone told us, but what mattered was that we felt we had that memory. And that was the feeling we were trying to put in the film. We were trying to work from a place of holding this day as a memory—however you see it, whether it’s a dream or a ghost story—and wanted it to feel like something that the boys palpably had, that they could hold in their hands and remember forever.
Film is such a beautiful medium for connecting. After collaborating as closely as you did with your brother on the screenplay, how did your dynamic continue to play out through production in Lagos, actually making the film?
That’s a fantastic question. I don’t think anyone’s asked me that. What I always say, which I think really works well for Wale and me together, is that we understand there needs to be a division of labor. We both can’t do the same work. We have strengths and weaknesses. He loves the spoken word. He loves the written word. He’s one of the most well-read people I know, and he swallows books whole, in almost one sitting. I’m quite the opposite. I do enjoy books, but they really have to captivate my imagination. I need to be able to see the images from the words. I’m more aligned with pictures, how a particular picture can tell a story: with what’s in the fore-, mid-, and background of a picture, how that communicates what’s in the story. We complement each other very well in that way.
In production, my brother was more of a producer. He’s very withdrawn. He’d done his main part in the writing, and he left the production to me—although, within production, he’d offer a note or two on performance, based on how things were supposed to be working. I’m very accepting of that within the process; I’ve worked in commercials, and working with a brother is much better than working for a client, I’ll tell you that much.
My Father’s Shadow (Mubi)
In the edit, it was completely different, because my brother wasn’t present. He chose not to be involved, and the edit is where you construct everything you shot and bring the story on paper to the picture. My brother’s absence in the edit was completely an exercise in trusting my vision, trusting how I want to shape things, trusting my creative flair and vision while assembling a collaborative team that could help me achieve that.
We had an incredible editor from Mexico, Omar Castro Guzmán, who works with Lila Avilés a lot; he’s made work about grief, about different subjects, and he really held my feet to the fire, in terms of ideas and thematics, especially this idea of decay, of things rotting. We use fruit as an analogy: one side being fresh, the other side decaying. This idea of the “archive” in the film was not scripted, so we worked on it together, including the opening montage and the later one at the car, when things fall apart. We labored over the idea of a story not being linear; again, he held my feet to the fire about the story moving in circles, about piecing a puzzle together in the way we told it.
Our relationship was really based on the fundamentals of trust and of seeing exceptional talent in each other. I think my brother’s a genius, and I’ve heard him say as much about me; he’s a genius with words, and I’ve heard him say the same about me with pictures and images. Having that division of labor, mutual respect for artistic vision, and a distance that sometimes means stepping away is important and has allowed that relationship to continue to grow, hopefully into the next project and many more after that.
Wale also has a small role in “My Father’s Shadow.” He’s a prophet on a bridge, glimpsed sermonizing to passersby. Within his dialogue, there’s a sentiment I’d wanted to ask you about: “Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams.”
I love your attention to detail. That line is quite a prominent foreshadowing in the film. Obviously, in passing, people can miss it as the raving of this crazed bridge prophet. But in rehearsals, every time we would do a table read, up until we cast that role, he would read that line, and [our casting director] Shaheen Baig would tell him, “You really should act.” He’s a performer, so he’s quite good with being in front of a crowd, in front of audiences.
That line, for me, represents so much. Culturally, as Yoruba people, we don’t really believe in linear time. We believe we’re always in a spiral of communication—in the past, present, and future—with our ancestors, with those we haven’t met in the past, and in the future. Dreams play a big part in this. We bookmark the film with this idea: “I will see you in dreams.” For us, dreams are a portal to a part of our subconscious and a form of dialogue that we don’t understand as much as we used to, in times far gone. For Yoruba, tribal, and Indigenous people, those dreams do manifest.
Dreams come to you at different points in time, in terms of what you’re feeling. Our mother always used to tell us stories of dreams, of how the last time she saw my father was in a dream, and how he came and tried to absolve himself of dying. It’s always been a language, a shorthand, within our family, within our sense of heirlooms and the way we talk about things. The role of dreaming, specifically, is one of manifestation and prophecy; people can be more intuitive than they realize. They can certainly lean into frequencies that they’ve become disconnected from. What we were trying to do in the film is lead the audience via breadcrumbs into a subconscious way of thinking, a peripheral dialogue. It’s not in the characters, but it’s at the periphery of what’s going on. We were always submissive to the film’s themes.
My Father’s Shadow (Mubi)
I don’t know what the development process is like in other countries, but here in the U.K., developing a Nigerian film with U.K. funding is not easy. Even within that construction, there’s a lot of having to account for every line and every frame, so everything is by design. In the film, everything is intentional. There’s not a single moment in the film that isn’t constructed with the thematics of the film at play. We trimmed all the fat. It’s this word everyone used to say to me: there’s no self-indulgence in the film. It’s completely to the bone.
As a director, I also have to prove to the critics, during our dialogues, that I do understand and own this material. Attention to detail is something we were studious about. We’re not, we’re not putting someone. Someone on Letterboxd wrote that they hate long, lingering shots in art films, saying they thought there were some in our film until they reached the end and realized they all served a purpose. That’s literally what we were trying to communicate: everything, at every point in life, no matter how throwaway a moment might seem, is part of this genetic DNA imposing something on your psyche as a human being, on your nervous system — and, equally, is something we as people try to mirror in film.
Which is fascinating to me, the diligence of that construction, given that the thematics of “My Father’s Shadow” have much to do with this ephemeral, subconscious sensation. In your personal experience of dreaming, do you find that you awaken to recall exactly what you had dreamed about, or does it register more as these flickers of emotion and image? I am curious how consciously you go about translating that feeling into film.
Fantastic question: I know so many people who dream and remember their dreams so vividly, and they’re able to translate that into the images they create, but I can’t do that. I’m what I’ve learned to describe as being a lucid dreamer; within my dreams, there is an aspect of control. I can’t control exactly how the dream is going to shape up, but when I’m conscious of being in a dream, I have a little bit of agency regarding what I do in a dream. Sometimes, I might wake up saying something or flailing about as if I’m falling; my partner is like, “What’s going on?” [laughs] But the only time that’s happened is if I dream about someone specifically. I have a recurring pattern whereby, every once in a while, I’ll dream of someone, and it will be so vivid; within the dream, there’s an aspect of me comforting that person. What I tend to do is I message that person and tell them, “I hope this isn’t weird, but I dreamt of you, and I don’t know what was happening, but we shared a hug or a handshake or an embrace. Wherever you are in the world, I hope you’re okay.”
Some people are completely freaked out by that, and some people have been like, “Please don’t message me again.” But some have been very receptive. In fact, I was just in Milan, screening the film, and saw a friend of mine. The last time I’d dreamt of her, I was in Canada, in Squamish, which was the last place her family went on holiday before her father died. There was a connection; even when I met her last week, and we were reminding each other of that, it felt like there was such a frequency. And there always can be, if you allow that frequency to comfort you in terms of conversation and knowledge. I wish I could put more of it in my films. I’m only one first film deep, so I’m in my infancy; I hope it’s a language that develops authentically in my work.
“My Father’s Shadow” revisits the Lagos of your childhood. What was important to you in depicting this point in Nigerian history, capturing these details of the time and place as it had existed, and presenting that as you do in this film through the eyes of children?
For so many of us, this was our debut feature: mine, my production designers [Jennifer and Pablo Anti,] two-thirds of our lead actors, our cinematographer [Jermaine Edwards,] and one of our composers, [Duval Timothy.] The production designers have a history of working on music videos.
There were no places to rent from in 1993, so we had to work closely with locations to find parts of Lagos that were somewhat untouched. I won’t say derelict, because I don’t necessarily think it’s important to castigate places; they’re untouched, because they’re located away from where the city is happening, where the populace lives, where industry is bustling. They’re off the beaten track. Seeing Lagos in that way was what I remember. My experience growing up in Lagos was in a single-parent household, going on side quests with my mum. Sometimes we went off the beaten track. I was forced to wait in hospital rooms while she was at the doctor’s, or in the car while she went to do something, or in a lounge when she was speaking to her friends. I was left to entertain myself off the beaten track, in old-school ’90s Lagos, which is not the sprawling, party-centric metropolis that people believe it to be now.
Looking for that took intention, because we couldn’t shoot in areas that no longer existed. Growing up in Lagos, we used to go to the beach on Christmas Day, but now there are hardly any beaches in Lagos open to the public. You have to get a boat to an island where you can go to the beach, and even that is a privilege for some and not everyone. We had to really go looking for Lagos.
I think the kids enjoyed it and felt safe. If they were in sprawling Lagos, it might have been much more frenetic for them, and we might not have had as much time. There was a lot of intentionally allowing them to be themselves, to play, to explore, and being very intentional with where we were going to put the camera and how they were going to be with their acting coaches. It was about this idea of play, finding locations that were dynamic and had the range for us to shoot it from one direction, then turn around and shoot it from another, making it feel completely different.
Because of my background as a self-taught filmmaker. I’m into being economical, as well as intentional. I love to be as effective as possible, I think. But it wasn’t easy to depict Lagos; there’s such a bustling Central Business District—the CBD—where everything is happening, and other parts of the city are completely forgotten. Those parts of the city are relics of the olden times, and they’re great for filming a period piece. All of Lagos is great for filming, but it really helped to lean into places that people might feel ashamed of in their city. That was perfect, because that’s the Lagos I actually remember.
My Father’s Shadow (Mubi)
There’s so much to discuss about the sequences where the brothers swim with their father at the beach, and he opens up about his past. Fọlárìn reflects on the burdens and sacrifices of fatherhood and shares with his son the story of his late brother, Oloremi, whom he continued to see in dreams after his death. At one point, he articulates this idea that resonates throughout the whole film: “The memories that pain you when someone goes are the same ones that will comfort you later.” What can you tell me about approaching that scene and all that you needed it to express?
I love that you referenced this scene, because this was the most difficult scene to film, not for any reason that you might imagine it being, though it was overtly emotional. Shooting in Lagos could be very tough, and the area we chose was a popular holiday destination. The crew felt they were on holiday and were having too much fun, I’d say, so I was trying to remind them that we were still working at this moment. [laughs]
That particular sequence had so many things happening at the same time. The boys weren’t particularly good swimmers. We had planned to shoot that whole sequence in the water, so what we salvaged from the water is what you see in the film, but that’s why we decided to lean into this idea of memory. Was it in the water? Was it on land? How is memory interpreted on both sides? The performances we got from the boys in the water were really stiff, apart from when they were playing in the shallows; my producer was like, “Let’s just shoot it on the beach, so we have it in the coverage.” But on the beach, we got more earnest performances, because we were really close to the boys.
I was a bit worried that we weren’t getting the performances we really needed, but I think trust in a community of collaborators helped me see things differently when I was unsure about what we were doing. The beach sequence is a confluence of luck, intention, and commitment on everyone’s part to get it done. I certainly don’t think, when we were shooting there, that I thought it was going to be the most profound scene. I was just trying to get through it because it was a long day. But it translated and feels more intuitive; it’s probably the most intuitive scene, because we had very little time. We were like, “Let’s just go. This feels right. Let’s shoot it.” If we had the time, that scene might have been constructed differently.
The camera being close to people’s faces is intentional because it helps you feel completely alive in the moment, up against the characters, and confronting them. We shot at a slight angle, so it wasn’t frontal, which I think softened it a bit. I have to give Jermaine Edwards, my cinematographer, a lot of praise. I have to give production design, our actors, and their coaches a lot of praise. Everything just came together for those moments.
You shot on Super 16, which adds this specific kind of texture and pacing to the image. I can’t imagine it was easy getting film in and out of Lagos. Was that Jermaine’s cross to bear?
No, that was the producers’ cross to bear—a very big cross to bear. So much strategy went into that, I have to say. I mean, I’m not privy to all the information, because good producers try to limit your involvement and allow you to focus more creatively. But I know it was a logistical feat to get the rushes out, not strike sets, view the rushes, determine whether we got everything we needed, strike those sets two weeks later, and go through the process again and again. It was really complicated, and it’s a testament to how committed the whole team was in every aspect of delivering this story.
“My Father’s Shadow” opens in U.S. theaters Feb. 13, via MUBI.
- For You, It’s Always the Past: Kogonada and Benjamin Loeb on “zi” (February 9, 2026)
A lyrical portrait of a city and a tender traipse through time and memory, Kogonada’s newest, “zi,” is a contemplative return to form for the filmmaker. Following the release of his first big-budget studio project, “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey,” this film presents something entirely different: a promising speculation that the filmmaker’s home base is in authentic indie filmmaking.
With trust and instinct at the fore, “zi” came together moment by moment in Hong Kong by way of guerrilla filmmaking techniques. This utter presence is felt in the film’s mindfulness, as we both drift through and give chase to the construct of time itself. Anchored by a profound sense of place, “zi” operates in similar contexts as the filmmaker’s stunning debut, “Columbus.” But where the latter sentimentalizes the growing pains of leaving home, this present edition unearths the complexities of diaspora and loneliness with one’s current locale.
Zi (Michelle Mao), the titular protagonist, might have a brain tumor. It also might be some other amorphous affliction, one that causes her to perceive time at a delayed pace. This disconnect from routine leaves her wandering the congested metropolis of Hong Kong alone, burdened by visions of her future and the uncertainties woven into it.
Discovered weeping on a staircase by American expat El (Haley Lu Richardson), the two move through the dubious night together, with Zi under her wing. They’re eventually joined by Min (Jin Ha), an initially questionable character who then becomes integral to stabilizing the trio’s pursuit for comfort and answers.
Above the bustling lobby of the Sheraton Hotel, Park City’s home base for all things Sundance, director Kogonada and cinematographer Benjamin Loeb sat down with me to discuss the inner workings of the film, its cultural and historical weavings, and their foundational trust as collaborators.
Kogonada, director of zi, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Ian West / PA Images.
You guys were between five cities when choosing a locale for the film. What was it about Hong Kong that was decisive for you? It’s hard to imagine this film being set anywhere else.
Kogonada: The five cities were more of an exercise, but this film always felt like Hong Kong. It’s almost a mythical place because of its history, cinematic and otherwise. Hong Kong is so stuck in the past because it’s been colonized repeatedly. Thematically, it felt really in line with the story, and its textures were so compelling.
BL: I’m always inspired to go to new places and to experience things for the first time. Especially with a project like this, where you have to react in a sort of documentary way to what is in front of you. We knew it would offer textures, colors, and geography that were also visually interesting, so it made it incredibly easy to photograph.
K: It has its own story to tell, and we hope that “zi” is also a story of Hong Kong. When they say in the film, “for you, it’s always the past,” I think of Hong Kong. The country is both a victim of their past and defined by it. As a place where people tell stories in the modern world, Hong Kong is emblematic of what it means to be a modern being.
The country’s colonial history is relatively recent compared to other nations, and the film’s portrayal of the diaspora is prominent. Min has a complex relationship with Hong Kong; Zi refuses to answer whether she was born and raised there, and yet El has the privilege of being an expat and connecting to the country in an entirely different way.
K: People have complicated histories, and there is such a difference between the diaspora and expatriates. We were trying to explore people being out of time and out of sync with the world’s dominant rhythm. It’s about trying to chase after what it means to be part of a world that has its own tempo.
I like your use of the word rhythm, because tracking shots are so integral to the visual language of the film, and they’re employed in so many different rhythms: steady and composed at times, and erratic at others. What was it like capturing and choosing moments of stillness vs. chaos?
BL: Rhythm and pace have been such a big part of our discussions, and when we talked early on about the film, verité language was very much at the forefront. But without the stillness and composure that the tableaus and cityscapes provide, it becomes flat in a way. The contrast and conversation between those two languages make it powerful.
Something that popped in my head during the film was the sort of centerpiece quote from Slaughterhouse-Five, “Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.” Given that it’s an anti-war novel and this has a peripheral story about colonial history, I was wondering if you had any sources of inspiration for politics and the portrayal of time in art.
K: I love that. “Hiroshima Mon Amour” is a political film, but so much of that language is the slippage of time and the reconstruction of history. That is very much the language here and a prompt of what it reveals about our presence. Chris Marker’s “La jetée” as well. Sundance used the term “transitory misfits” to describe our film, and I love that expression. I want it on my tombstone. There’s a whole cinema of transitory misfits, and I think you know if you are one.
Hong Kong’s architecture lends itself to a sense of wandering and lostness. In that cemetery scene, for example, everything is so vertical, and the graves read as their own kind of metropolis within the city. In “Columbus,” Casey is in the company of the architect, where it feels like it is dwindling.
BL: I feel like Hong Kong has that quality, but for me, I was always focused on shooting Zi’s face. Architecture and the surroundings were guiding us in choosing the texture we wanted to ground the film in, but I was always fixated on how to capture faces and find a natural rhythm among the characters.
K: The very first scene we shot was the fireworks scene, and there was so much on Michelle’s face. After that first day, Benjamin and I looked at each other and thought, “We have a film.” But speaking to the cemetery sequence, it really does capture the height and density of Hong Kong. What I love about that is that it’s like a mountain of the dead, and we cut to a stacked building. El says, “We’re all dying.” We’re all in the state of it, and it’s telling this modern story of a woman trying to find her place in this world: the architecture that surrounds her is a testament to the weight of that.
I’m curious about the portraiture you mention. Those tracking shots that are so integral to the film are often from behind, and it feels very selective about when we get these head-on moments of ID. It reminds me of when Zi says she feels her parents’ faces fading.
BL: Kogonada and I have always discussed the emotional qualities of performance. Very often in filmmaking, there’s this necessity to see the eyes to feel the emotion. We talked about concealing the face, and there’s a give and take there, but I’ve always loved the shape of the body, and that the back of someone’s head contains this intrigue and mystery.
K: When it comes to forgetting what her parents look like, this motif arose of Zi as a figure roaming through the city without a face. But the moments where she does stop and turn to the camera are so powerful because of the magnetism she carries. It pierces you.
Jin Ha and Haley Lu Richardson appear in zi by Kogonada, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Benjamin Loeb.
That idea of obscurity and anonymity, as well as the density of Hong Kong population-wise and architecturally, really lends itself to Min’s voyeurism, as well as the kismet of Zi and El finding each other. Them, as a dichotomy between active and invisible guides for Zi, can be both comforting and really unnerving. I’m curious about crafting those relationships.
K: Being part of a city, you feel both of those dynamics at play. You’re brushing against humanity. It’s not an anonymity of recluse, and there’s tension there. The mystery of Min, despite the story we have that plays out, is a consequence of that inherent state of a city dweller.
Cinema itself, to me, is a commitment to memory. Even in the obscurity of time and identity in this film, there’s a landscape put together here that feels like a preservation of Zi, even though she herself doesn’t feel attached to it. The same goes for Sakamoto’s music, which you’ve further immortalized in this film (and to whom the film is dedicated). What is your relationship with cinema as memory? And was his music always integral to this story?
K: I’ve really felt Sakamoto’s absence from this world since he passed. He has all this music he created after he found out he had a terminal illness, and most of that music is in our film. That exploration of impending absence and reflection on memory was really inspiring here. In my own life, cinema functions the same way. It’s a deep part of my memory, even in the way that cities I’ve never been to feel like memories because the streets of them live within me from the films I’ve seen.
In capturing the feeling of memory in the film, Benjamin uses lens flares in the portraiture and other elements that make those sequences visually disparate. How did you go about constructing those moments?
BL: We always curate our ingredients to find meaning within the medium in some way. The memories were mostly shot on a Bolex. There was no monitor; we weren’t seeing anything as we were shooting. We were just trusting the tool.
K: On the Bolex, which was shooting film, Benjamin let those light spills happen. They’re a part of what we captured; they weren’t added to stylize. They just kind of became part of the language of our film.
You two worked together on “After Yang” and “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey.” There’s this theme of relinquishing yourself to the trust you have in one another, as well as in the actors. With this film being put together in this impromptu way, what did you learn about trust as a team, as well as individuals, in your own instincts?
K: We have such a unique three-film collaboration. We started with an independent studio, then moved to a gigantic studio film, and in many ways, the structure of our desire to make films in a different way remained the same. Doing this third film, obviously, it was so absolutely independent. These three films I’ve made with Ben have all been in different contexts, but “zi” is fundamentally closer to what we both respond to and what feels invigorating to us. It requires trust because we don’t have safety nets. But also, safety nets are often attuned towards risk aversion, which then creates layers of logistics, and suddenly you’re not able to make real, in-the-moment choices. It shouldn’t be radical in film to make choices on the day, but it is. That action is what led us to Hong Kong.
BL: We could’ve never made this movie two films ago. The conversations and trust built through those other projects made this possible. We only had three days to scout the city, but we had three years of conversations deconstructing the construction of filmmaking and asking those questions.
K: The people around us also had the same characteristic. It couldn’t have been possible without the seven people we had, and three actors who really trusted the process. It’s really a testament to trust and the pursuit of the same thing creatively.
Michelle Mao appears in zi by Kogonada, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Benjamin Loeb.
The scene where Min is singing is the only piece in which we are placed directly in Zi’s perspective: the audio carries over into a nebulous echo when he finishes singing. And during the song, we cut away to these empty hollows of alleyways and corners that make us feel like ghosts in space.
K: We had a collaborator, Sheldon Chau, who did those empty Hong Kong shots. We told him to focus on those feelings of emptiness and melancholy, and then sort of sent him on his way to capture them. For that moment, where it coincides with the feeling Zi is having, it becomes a perfect marriage of that feeling with that John Denver song.
BL: Most of this film, in a weird synchronous way, presented itself to us. We didn’t construct it, but that scene specifically was in an in-between day after writing and editing. We walked out of the hotel and across the street and happened upon this little corner. Space dictates the way you see the potential blocking of something—the bench and the dangling lightbulb were just there, and then there was no question of how to shoot it, it was just there in the moment.
El makes a statement in the film about her capture of the city’s sounds: she doesn’t do it for the money, but to keep going. What’s your relationship with that as a philosophy of creative pursuit?
K: I think that’s a really insightful quote to pull out in this moment because we didn’t do this for money. All of us could’ve taken fees or other jobs, but we didn’t. Often, independent films like this are seen as stepping stones into the system. But we had all worked in the system, and this wasn’t a calling card for that; it was a way of being. For me, I needed to do this to keep going if I’m going to continue doing films. There come times when you find yourself in situations so far removed from the cinema that spoke to you. It was a reset for me and a genuine venture to pursue meaning.
BL: I’ve been thinking about it in a different way. As journalism becomes colored by corporate and political agendas, there are also films that are informed by marketing agendas and box office numbers. But when you look at real independent cinema from filmmakers across the world who have something to share, these little glimpses into the past or future become so important as stamps of time. This film was just about finding something that feels real and true in the moment and putting it out as a letter of some sort.
That really speaks to the power of choice and discernment in filmmaking. There’s another quote from that same monologue, when El laments that her passion didn’t choose her back. Do you feel chosen by this craft? Or is choice even a factor for you—is radical pursuit the point?
BL: There was never really a question. If you really think about writing, music, movement, dance, etc., filmmaking really combines all these things. And I was never good at communicating my feelings. I felt like I could release them through images. Film isn’t a singular medium, so finding collaborators that I could meet in the middle was instrumental.
K: In so many conversations I have with creative people, they are desperate to do the thing they feel called to do. But in our world, it’s a select group. Everyone who has the talent doesn’t get to do it. I feel the pain of what it is to want something so desperately while knowing that our capitalist system doesn’t nurture creativity. I think artistic expression is a deep part of being human, but figuring out how to live off that is a whole other thing. To me, there’s no answer to the question. What El is saying is true for her. I don’t know if a purpose chooses you or vice versa, but it’s an expression of a feeling that many people have and have to reckon with.
