This article is part of Film Comment’s Best of 2024 coverage. Read all the lists here.
As usual, a large number of the year’s best films won’t appear on many critics’ year-end roundups simply by virtue of their brevity—and, in most cases, their lack of theatrical distribution. This perennial oversight is a particular offense against avant-garde filmmaking (not to mention animation), where many of our beloved medium’s most boundary-pushing ideas are thoughtfully concentrated into experiences that can be had on a lunch break. Once again, I assume the humble task of correcting for the body cinephilic’s myopia. With the exception of one famous auteur, the filmmakers on this list have yet to receive the coverage they deserve. I insist that we all refrain from any state-of-the-cinema assessments until we’ve given their work due consideration.
Speaking in Tongues: Take One (Christopher Harris, U.S.)
Ishmael Reed’s novel Mumbo Jumbo serves as the jumping-off point for a rhythmic collision of dance, riot, and 20th-century American cultural detritus, marking the first iteration of an evolving project from one of the most vital voices in contemporary film. (Listen to a Film Comment Podcast conversation with Christopher Harris here.)
It’s Not Me (Leos Carax, France)
Originally commissioned as part of the Centre Pompidou’s “Where do you stand…” series, which has seen notable entries from the likes of Tsai Ming-liang and Joanna Hogg, Leos Carax’s late-Godardian homage is an autobiographical treatise on history, cinema, life, and simulacrum. If nothing else, watch it to see Baby Annette mimic Denis Levant’s famous “Modern Love” stumble-run from Mauvais sang (1986).
ping pong ping pong ping pong ping pong ping pong (Daphne Xu, U.S./Canada)
The Seward Park ping-pong table becomes a portal for a history of cultural exchange in this playful and bewitching 16mm city poem.
A Radical Duet (Onyeka Igwe, U.K.)
An imagined encounter between Jamaican writer Sylvia Wynter and Nigerian activist Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti in 1940s London gives way to a look at the collaborative dramaturgy behind its own making.
Camera Test (King Cadbury) (Charlie Shackleton, U.K.)
Conceptual trickster Charlie Shackleton, whose body of work includes a 10-hour record of paint drying (designed to antagonize British film censors), turns the occasion of a routine camera test into an investigation of a mid-century Cadbury’s TV ad, enshrined in his personal family mythology despite there being no proof of its existence.
A Stone’s Throw (Razan AlSalah, Canada/Lebanon)
In this next entry in Razan AlSalah’s ongoing project of digitally mapping the experience of exile, Ghassan Kanafani’s account of Palestinian workers’ attack on the Kirkuk-Haifa oil pipeline in the 1930s dovetails with the story of the filmmaker’s father’s lifetime of labor.
The Deep West Assembly (Cauleen Smith, U.S.)
Visionary filmmaker Cauleen Smith tenders a theatrical retelling of American history inside a manifesto for the Black queer underground.
Banging on Their Bars in Rhythm (Kevin Jerome Everson, U.S.)
One of prolific filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson’s many projects from this year, Banging on Their Bars in Rhythm features footage of the former Ohio State Reformatory; the physical contact between this footage and the projector’s optical sound head affects the rattle of rebellion. The title is a reference to the 1997 film Air Force One, which was filmed at the prison.
One Night at Babes (Angelo Madsen, U.S.)
Multidisciplinary artist Angelo Madsen captures a cheeky oral history of all-inclusive revelry at a community watering hole in Bethel, Vermont.
Dona Beatriz Ñsîmba Vita (Catapreta, Brazil)
A Kongolese Catholic iconoclast also known as “Beatrice of Congo” (1684-1706) comes to abstract, animated life in this gorgeously grotesque allegorical nightmare.
Inney Prakash is a film curator and critic based in New York City.
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