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Maxwell Courtright

Maxwell Courtright is a social worker and film writer living in Chicago.

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An abstract, prismatic still from Blake Barit's short film "Journey To Sunrise." It features a blurry blend of blues, golds, greens, and black to form a vague, interpretative image of insect wings in motion or sunstreaking in a dark environment.
Blake Barit values raw technique as much as conceptual ambition in his experimental films
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Film
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September 23, 2025

The locally based educator and filmmaker presents a program of his recent short-film works at Arts + Literature Laboratory as part of Mills Folly Microcinema on September 24.

A lower-resolution digital still from the film "I-Be Area" shows an angled view of an antiquated media player on an Apple computer screen. Within the .mov file that's playing, a female character sits awkwardly in a strange, claustrophobic room. She stares at the camera with her tongue out, while holding up a plastic object.
The shifting identities of “I-Be Area” offer a radical commentary on isolationism of the digital era
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Film
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August 11, 2025

Ryan Trecartin's queer, postmodern 2007 video-art feature screens as part of MMoCA's Rooftop Cinema series on August 14 at dusk.

Slightly blurry and superimposed footage shows a crowd of masked protestors marching outside. Many of them are holding signs that speak to "Black Lives Matter" and against police brutality. The edges of the frame on the left and right sides have red/pink/black color flare aberrations from celluloid processing.
The dense digital palettes of “Body Prop” confront the horrific normalization of violence in America
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Film
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April 16, 2025

M. Woods' experimental collage essay film screens as part of Mills Folly Microcinema on April 23 at Arts + Literature Laboratory.

In the foreground of an image in a forested area, a woman in a white lab suit lays on the grass in the fetal position. Behind her, yellow tape that faintly reads "crime scene do not enter" is wrapped in a semi-triangular shape around a cluster of trees.
Mortal and moral inquiries at the 2025 Wisconsin Film Festival
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Wisconsin Film Festival
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April 3, 2025

Our writers ponder four incisive, formidable documentaries (and essay films) screening as part of the fest from April 4 through 10.

A frame from the short film "Choose The Pond" shows a middle-aged woman wearing a long-sleeve purple and red tie-dye shirt. She sits in profile at a desk in a corner, and looks ahead at a computer monitor, while speaking on the phone.
“Choose The Pond” testifies to the power of self-advocacy
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Wisconsin Film Festival
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March 30, 2025

Susan Borri's inspiring documentary short premieres locally at the Wisconsin Film Festival on April 5.

A spliced, shuffled image that consists of 12 thin horizontal strips of different shots of an urban environment. The complete image in daylight contains fragments of streets and graffitied walls.
There’s always more to see and sensorially absorb in Tuohy and Barrie’s experimental films
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Film
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March 19, 2025

Mills Folly Microcinema presents eight shorts by the Australian creative partners on March 26 at Arts + Literature Laboratory.

A simple rectangular image collage that features stills from four films. At top left, a man observes the royal treasures of Benin in "Dahomey." At top right, Patrick (Josh O'Connor) and Tashi (Zendaya) share a heated moment at night in "Challengers." At bottom right, Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) observes herself in the bathroom mirror in "The Substance." And at bottom left, gym rats Jackie (Katy O'Brian) and Lou (Kristen Stewart) contemplate something serious in "Love Lies Bleeding."
We contained multitudes: an uncontained year in cinema
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Film
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January 20, 2025

In this inclusive diary compendium, 10 writers share their thoughts and experiences on the 2024 year in moviegoing.

A colorfully neon infrared image of a demonic-looking figure at a close-up. The figure faces the camera, some facial features (long, sharp teeth) obscured by the intense red of their entire head and yellow ovals surrounding their eyes. Curled beast horns appear on either side of the head in shades of purple.
Psychedelic crime thriller “Aggro Dr1ft” saturates itself in avant-garde traditions
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Film
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October 28, 2024

Harmony Korine's alluring, infrared, video art-adjacent feature premieres locally at UW Cinematheque on Halloween night.

Against a golden-orange CGI city backdrop, two actors stand atop a platform in dark formal attire. The man on the left peers through a spyglass at a hexagon-shaped slide in his other hand. The woman, behind him, looks over at him with intrigue.
What will the future of cinema look like?
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Film
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July 16, 2024

Film editor Grant Phipps and contributor Maxwell Courtright effusively ponder a question suggested by filmmaker Gina Telaroli.

A low-angled close-up of a Black woman (dancer Bianca Melidor) in a stylized profile in the film "Quiet As It's Kept." She is captured in a color gradient of midnight blue.
Ja’Tovia Gary’s films earnestly confront Black identity in an overly saturated, visually contradictory culture
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Film
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May 18, 2024

The multimedia artist's avant-garde essays, "The Giverny Document" and "Quiet As It's Kept," screen at Arts + Literature Laboratory on May 22.