Devika Girish

New York

Co-Deputy Editor at Film Comment Magazine

editing @filmcomment + talks @thenyff. writing in @nytimes, @thenation, @reverse_shot, @criterion, @nybooks etc. [email protected].

Articles

Five International Movies to Stream Now

2 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Devika Girish

Stream it on Netflix. The Taiwanese director John Hsu's rollicking horror-comedy raked in awards, raves and strong box-office numbers last year for very good reason. Set in a world where ghosts compete to get haunting licenses, which allow them to stay on among the living and avoid permanently fading away, "Dead Talents Society" marries the gonzo style of "Beetlejuice" with the interpersonal antics and conflicts of the best backstage dramas.
Film Comment Recommends: An Evening with Chikako Yamashiro

3 weeks ago | filmcomment.com | Devika Girish

This article appeared in the March 28, 2025 edition of The Film Comment Letter, our free weekly newsletter featuring original film criticism and writing. Sign up for the Letter here. I Like Okinawa Sweet (Chikako Yamashiro, 2004). Courtesy the artist and Yumiko Chiba Associates. There is something unsettlingly liminal about Chikako Yamashiro’s work. The Okinawan artist’s videos take place, for the most part, on thresholds of one kind or another: graveyards, fences, shores, national borders.
Five International Movies to Stream Now

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Devika Girish

A room, a dusty projector and a small screen mounted on the wall. That's pretty much all there is to the Thursday Film Series, a movie club started by students at the prestigious University of Ibadan in Nigeria, which forms the focus of Alain Kassanda's documentary.
IFFR 2025: Another World

1 month ago | filmcomment.com | Devika Girish

This article appeared in the February 21, 2025 edition of The Film Comment Letter, our free weekly newsletter featuring original film criticism and writing. Sign up for the Letter here. The Open Door (Henry Barakat, 1963)Indonesian curator and artist Bunga Siagian had never seen Turang (1958), the acclaimed film by her father, Bachtiar Siagian, while growing up. She had never seen any of his films, in fact—she had only read about them in books.
Five International Movies to Stream Now

2 months ago | flipboard.com | Devika Girish

5 hours agoImages of Indian deportees being flown in a US military aircraft with hands and feet bound prompted opposition lawmakers to demand an explanation. The issue has erupted just as Prime Minister Narendra Modi prepares to meet with US President Donald Trump.
Five International Movies to Stream Now

2 months ago | nytimes.com | Devika Girish

Early in this Georgian feature, Dovydas (Kestutis Cicenas), a sign language interpreter, asks out Elena, a choreographer conducting a workshop for deaf dancers, immediately after their first meeting - and they hit it off instantly. Something feels a little off about it all. His gentle confidence, their spontaneous chemistry; it's all a bit tooeasy. When movie meet-cutes start out this good, you might as well brace yourself for a twist.
Either/Or: Reid Davenport on Life After

2 months ago | filmcomment.com | Devika Girish

This article appeared in the January 24, 2025 edition of The Film Comment Letter, our free weekly newsletter featuring original film criticism and writing. Sign up for the Letter here. Life After (Reid Davenport, 2025)When filmmaker Reid Davenport first learned about Elizabeth Bouvia—the young woman who, in 1983, petitioned a court in California to require her hospital to help her die—he had a hunch that there was more to her story than met the eye.
Five International Movies to Stream Now

Jan 10, 2025 | nytimes.com | Devika Girish

Call it "Cocaine Hippo": Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias's gloriously weird new film takes on an utterly strange bit of modern South American history and gives it a cinematic treatment befitting its sordid zaniness. In the 1980s, Pablo Escobar imported four hippos to his estate, where he kept scores of exotic animals. In the subsequent decades, the herd multiplied in numbers - by 2023, the estimate was 170 - and became an invasive species in Colombia.
The Best Genre Movies of 2024

Dec 11, 2024 | nytimes.com | Elisabeth Vincentelli |Erik Piepenburg |Robert Daniels |Devika Girish

It's been an odd year for science fiction. One of the best such narratives was the Broadway musical "Maybe Happy Ending," set in 2064 Seoul and in which two obsolete robots fall in love. Streaming series gave us an astounding range of stories and aesthetics, from "Sugar" to "Fallout" to "Dune: Prophecy."Feature films, on the other end, tended to be split between insipid or downright inept mega-budget productions and indies that often recycled similar premises.
5 international movies to stream now

Nov 12, 2024 | sanjuandailystar.com | Devika Girish

By Devika Girish‘In Her Place’Chile’s submission for this year’s Academy Award for best international feature film is a historical psychodrama centered on a true story: In 1955, writer María Carolina Geel shot and killed her lover in the crowded dining room of an upscale hotel in Santiago. Geel went to prison in a case that shook the country, and wrote a bestselling book about life behind bars. The president later pardoned her after Nobel Prize-winning poet Gabriela Mistral appealed on her behalf.