PALM SPRINGS, Calif.—The Oscar is the goal, and before the final five, there is what’s called the “shortlist”—films generating buzz that may or may not get the nod.  The Hollywood Reporter’s Mia Galuppo and Kevin Cassidy led two panels at the Palm Springs International Film Festival of filmmakers shortlisted as Oscar contenders this year for best foreign feature.

The first panel held at the

As is ever the case with film festivals, there aren’t enough hours, or days, to see everything, or even everything on my to-watch list. This despite making my way through screening links in the week prior to even setting foot in California.

I tremendously enjoyed my time at the 38th Palm Springs International Film Festival, interviewed some amazing filmmakers

PALM SPRINGS, Calif.—Florian Zeller broke our hearts in 2020 with “The Father,” which placed us inside the mind of a man suffering from dementia. It featured a bravura performance from Anthony Hopkins, who justly took home an Oscar. Zeller appeared at the 34th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival on Tuesday for a screening and conversation about “The Son,” his new film.

PALM SPRINGS, Calif.—Editing a manuscript might not be the most cinematic endeavors about which to make a documentary—unless the parties in question are Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb. For a half-century, Gottlieb has edited Caro’s work, including the not-yet-completed final volume of Caro’s definitive biography of Lyndon Johnson. “Turn Every Page — The Adventures of Robert Caro and

PALM SPRINGS, Calif.—Trees may be alive, but they certainly aren’t sentient enough to distinguish one race of people from another. Humans, however, are—and in Palm Springs a specific group of trees was effectively weaponized as a means of separating a historically Black community from the rest of this desert enclave 100 miles east of Hollywood.

The new documentary

The documentary filmmaker brothers Jules and Gédéon Naudet know something of capturing trauma on film. On September 11th, 2001, they were embedded with a New York Fire Department unit when the first plane struck the World Trade Center, capturing the only known footage of that initial horror. Their resulting film, “9/11,” provides a firsthand account of the heroism of the firefighters who ran to the inferno and is capped by a tearful

Matthew Heineman has taken his camera to some of the most dangerous places on earth. For “City of Ghosts” from 2017 he filmed those brave souls who dared to decry the Islamic State’s terror tactics in Syria. Heineman’s latest is “Retrograde,” which started out as a chronicle of the final battalion of Green Berets stationed in Afghanistan but became a record of a rushed U.S. exit, followed by a surge of Afghan refugees desperate to escape the Taliban’s