FQ's B. Ruby Rich files her annual report from Sundance, where the most powerful new dramatic films were by and about women. She singles out Kitty Green's The Assistant (2019) and Eliza Hittman's Never Rarely Sometimes Always for their meticulous attention to the hardly matter-of-fact rituals of life for two very different young women, as well as for a style that might be tagged “microrealism.” She also discusses Janicza Bravo's Zola and Pablo Larraín's Ema (2019), two very different enactments of female sexuality with varying degrees of agency. Praising the festival as the mothership of documentary, Rich recounts new favorites including Iryna Tsilyk's The Earth Is Blue as an Orange , Ramona S. Diaz's A Thousand Cuts , David France's Welcome to Chechnya , Hubert Sauper's Epicentro , Anabel Rodríguez Ríos's Once upon a Time in Venezuela , Kareem Tabsch and Cristina Costantini's Mucho Mucho Amor , Maite Alberdi Soto's The Mole Agent , Garrett Bradley's sobering Time , and Shalini Kantayya's chilling Coded Bias .

FQ Editor B. Ruby Rich reviews the offerings at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival, the first under the new leadership of Cameron Bailey and Joana Vicente. Avoiding Hollywood's tentpole films and Oscar buzz, Rich instead hunts down films presenting subtle studies of human behavior, in most cases with the help of subtitles. From the latest efforts from established art-house favorites Pedro Almodovar, Oliver Assayas, and Elia Suleiman, to discoveries such as the Romanian documentary Colectiv (Alexander Nanau, 2019) and the Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz's A Vida Invisível ( The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão , 2019), Rich finds ample reassurance of film's emotive power and ability to provide a moral compass in challenging times.

Editor in Chief, B. Ruby Rich, weighs in on the latest in film and media culture. She recaps the recent “Dimensions in Black” event that FQ hosted at Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York City to launch our December 2017 issue; reviews the content of the current issue; pays tribute to notable voices in the field that have passed on; and hints at things to come in FQ's 60 th anniversary year.

FQ 's Editor in Chief, B. Ruby Rich, weighs in on the latest in film and media culture. She recaps the recent Visible Evidence conference that took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina; reviews the content of the current issue, and introduces the important dossier on black film and media —co-edited by Racquel Gates and Michael Boyce Gillespie—that is the highlight of this issue.

Editor B. Ruby Rich weighs in on the latest issue of FQ …

Editor B. Ruby Rich weighs in on the latest issue of FQ , new revivals in a time of duress, trends in distribution, FQ 's approach to watching, writing, thinking about cinema and media in a time of ongoing political repression, and more.