The Believer's 2012 Film Issue is out and you can sample every essay, interview and list that's in it, though only a handful of texts are online in full. Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, for example, talks with Peter Doig, "a figurative painter whose lush dreamscapes at once evoke his medium's past and suggest the feel of photos and films," who also co-runs the StudioFilmClub in Trinidad: "In an airy old rum factory with a digital projector on one wall, a large screen on another, and a homey bar stocked with coconut water and local Stag beer, he hosts free screenings. Each Thursday night, FilmClub's patrons thrill to independent and art-house films ranging from Killer of Sheep and Klute to — on the night of my first visit a couple years ago — Nagisa Oshima's 1976 classic of sensual obsession, In the Realm of the Senses." You can see more of the flyers Doig's painted for the FilmClub here.
There's also Ethan Nosowsky's interview with Geoff Dyer, in which they do indeed talk about more than Zona, Deb Olin Unferth on Laurel Nakadate's The Wolf Knife (2010), Dolan Morgan's poem, "The Inheritance," and Adrian Van Young's "A Friday of the Living Dead Nightmare," wherein "a few brave souls watch entire horror-movie franchises in a 24-hour period, risk their sanity, and suffer from total narrative dislocation, but maybe, too, remember what it’s like to be in love."
More reading. For Fandor, Anna Tatarska talks with Christian Petzold about Barbara, two Germanys, Nina Hoss and more.
In New York, Jada Yuan profiles Mark Duplass, Noreen Malone talks with Julianne Moore about playing Sarah Palin in HBO's Game Change, Boris Kachka asks Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss about the new season of Mad Men, David Edelstein reviews Friends with Kids, which he likes quite a bit (more from Anthony Lane in the New Yorker), and Logan Hill talks with the film's director and star, Jessica Westfeldt.
List. You may remember Cineuropa's list if films likely to find a spot in the Cannes 2012 lineup; now indieWIRE's drawn up a wish list of 30 films they hope to see there.
New York. David Lynch's first solo exhibition in New York since 1989 opens at Tilton Gallery tomorrow and will be on view through April 14: "Recent paintings combine primitively drawn figures and text with thick textured areas of paint and, often, inserted lit colored light bulbs. Framed in thick gold frames under glass (inspired by Francis Bacon's frames), they become box-like, objects in their own right."
Vanguard Latin American Cinema is a series of four films, each screening on a Wednesday in March at Exit Art.
Cambridge. Via Max Goldberg at Fandor comes word that Ernie Gehr, "who's teaching at Harvard this term, will be at the Harvard Film Archive tonight to present early films from his own private collection. The Making Light of It blog recently collected several documents pertaining to Gehr's work, including J Hoberman's 1979 essay, 'Ernie Gehr's Geography.'"
Awards. Zdeněk Jirásek's directorial debut Poupata (Flower Buds) dominated the 2012 Czech Lions over the weekend, picking up four, including Best Film. Viktor Palák has more at Cineuropa, where Jorn Rossing Jensen reports that the Danish Film Critics Association has awarded Lars von Trier's Melancholia two Bodils, one for Best Film, the other for cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro.
Obits. "Actress Martha Stewart, who appeared in film, television and musical theater, died of natural causes in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on Feb 25," reports Variety. She was 89. "Stewart played Joan Crawford's best friend in Otto Preminger's 1947 romantic drama Daisy Kenyon, also starring Dana Andrews and Henry Fonda. The actress also had a significant supporting role in Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place (1950), starring Humphrey Bogart…. Stewart's first husband was the famed comedian Joe E Lewis, and in 1957 Lewis biopic The Joker Is Wild, starring Frank Sinatra, Mitzy Gaynor portrayed Stewart."
"Production designer David Doernberg, who brought a sensitive, finely crafted and observant touch to many excellent independent films, died in New York on Friday after a battle with cancer," reports Filmmaker's Scott Macaulay. "He designed [Kelly Reichardt's] 1994 debut film, River of Grass as well as her 2010 period tale of frontier life on the Oregon Trail, Meek's Cutoff. Other notable credits include Phil Morrison's Junebug, Alison Maclean's Jesus's Son, Morgan J Freeman's Desert Blue, Todd Solondz's Palindromes and Pete Sollett's Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist."
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