At Home #13 - The Cinema Worker Solidarity Fund’s Nellie Killian and Ed Halter

An inspiring development during the pandemic has been watching people pull together to help one another and especially those hit hardest. One such effort was the Cinema Worker Solidarity Fund, which raised nearly $80,000 in 10 days for out-of-work movie theater employees. For our latest edition of The Film Comment Podcast at Home, Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold caught up with programmer-critics Ed Halter and Nellie Killian, who spearheaded the Cinema Worker Solidarity Fund alongside Thomas Beard and filmmaker Sierra Pettengill. Halter, a critic in residence at Bard College, is also co-curator of Light Industry with Thomas Beard, and Killian is a contributing editor of Film Comment. Halter and Killian last appeared together on an incredible podcast talking about Projections, the experimental film slate of the New York Film Festival. This time, the three talked about the effects of the crisis on how we watch movies, what we’ve been watching, and the interesting overlaps between our ultra-mediated existence and experimental cinema. Films discussed include Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah, Listen to Britain, Fail Safe, The Day After, and more. If you’re a longtime Film Comment subscriber, listener, or reader, or are just tuning in now, please consider becoming a member or making a donation to our publisher, Film at Lincoln Center, during these unprecedented times: purchase.filmlinc.org/donate/contribute2