What does it mean to love a movie that doesn’t love you back? That is to say: how do you love a film that isn’t made for you, doesn’t depict you or others like you in an empathetic light, or is blind for various reasons to the realities of your class, gender, or sexuality? How do you love a movie that was, perhaps, made by a bad person?

In her keynote speech for this year’s Cinema Rediscovered, film writer and critic Christina Newland will explore the questions around the thorny films we might love, and why the films which touch on moral grey areas are sometimes most interesting to discuss. Touching on the eclectic lineup of the festival, whether it’s reframing midcentury screen bombshells or celebrating indigenous filmmakers, Newland will also explore the power of historical cinema gems to expand on what we might have once thought of as an antiquated value system of the past.

Christina Newland is the lead film critic at the i Newspaper and contributing editor at Empire Magazine, with a special love for 70s flicks, boxing movies, and American cinema history. She also has a special interest in crime, masculinity, and glamour onscreen, and has written for publications including New York Magazine, The Village Voice, Criterion, Rolling Stone, BBC, Little White Lies, and many others.

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