Author

Maxwell Courtright

Candid photo taken of writer Maxwell Courtright, who's sitting at a desk by a window. Maxwell angles his head to the side slightly and smiles playfully at the photographer.

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

Maxwell's Latest Articles

A blonde woman lays face-up in partial profile. She sheds a tear, and stares upward in a black, blank space. Her body is wrapped in a similarly black-colored substance.
The dense storytelling of “The Beast” connects our parasocial past, present, and future
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Film
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April 23, 2024

Bertrand Bonello's latest psychological, postmodernist period drama premieres locally at AMC Fitchburg 18 on April 26.

A woman with frizzy long hair wearing floral attire faces away from the camera on the left. She adjusts her fairly large succulent houseplant on a table that is receiving direct sunlight on the right.
“Light Needs” and “Parallel Botany” use the film medium as a means to map plant consciousness
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Film
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April 3, 2024

Jesse McLean's feature documentary, Magdalena Bermudez's experimental short, and three other botanical shorts screen in a Wisconsin Film Festival program on April 6.

A simple tri-image of photos, taken by Maxwell Courtright, from the multimedia exhibit. A ceramic mask sits face-up on a metal platform at the top left; a large grid-mural of sunset images is shown below that. On the right, an elongated collage of repurposed circuit boards in shades of grey and tan.
“Message From Our Planet” captures humanity obsessed with studying and rediscovering itself
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Culture
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March 19, 2024

In an exhibit running through June 2 at the Chazen Museum of Art, technology provides us the opportunity for our productive failures to find new means of expression.

An abstract computer-generated image of a bearded, balding man's head sits on its side in a basin of white liquid.
“The Apocalyptic Is The Mother Of All Christian Theology” rebuilds a cultural portrait of Paul the Apostle through a collage of biblical media
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Film
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December 8, 2023

Mills Folly Microcinema concludes their 2023 screening year with Jim Finn's latest experimental documentary on December 13.

An over-the-shoulder screenshot from "Elysium" shows a bald thirtysomething man (Matt Damon) with a back tattoo staring into a smudgy bathroom mirror.
“Earth II” is a mixtape of Hollywood destruction fantasies
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Film
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August 21, 2023

Anti-Banality Union's experimental video essay screens at MMoCA's Rooftop Cinema on August 24 at sundown.

Three Black women turn their gaze towards a camera filming an event at Tau Theta Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta.
Paige Taul’s films cohere in a multifaceted portrait of Black identity and class mobility
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Film
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June 8, 2023

Mills Folly Microcinema presents a swath of Taul's work at Arts + Literature Laboratory on June 14, followed by a virtual Q&A.

Jeanne Dielman peels potatoes at a kitchen table with a neutral expression.
“Jeanne Dielman” has changed, and continues to change, our relationship with cinema itself
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Film
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June 7, 2023

Chantal Akerman's newly crowned greatest film of all time screens free at MMoCA on June 11 in conjunction with the museum's Christina Ramberg exhibition.

A simple collage that features images from the two documentaries. The top shows a shot of seaweed pressed on celluloid in "Geographies Of Solitude." The bottom displays a verdant landscape outside Maverick Concert Hall in Woodstock, NY, the site of a reenacted 1952 performance of John Cage’s 4’33" in "The Tuba Thieves."
Form follows function in “Geographies Of Solitude” and “The Tuba Thieves” and their sensory studies of the natural world
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Film
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April 12, 2023

The experimental documentaries by Jacquelyn Mills and Alison O'Daniel make their local premieres at the Wisconsin Film Festival on April 14, 15, and 16.

A blemished celluloid shot of one of many international waterways that Courtney Stephens has collected in "Terra Femme."
The essayistic “Terra Femme” poetically explores early travel films by women
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Film
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April 6, 2023

Filmmaker Courtney Stephens visits Mills Folly Microcinema with a live-narrated "feminist retrieval" on April 12.

A colorful alteration of the halo of a streetlamp (with outward-moving reds, greens, yellows, and blues) on a snowy night in the short "snow light" (2023).
Project Projection returns with a stirring slate of locally produced music videos and experimental video art
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Film
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March 9, 2023

Mills Folly Microcinema hosts the first 2023 showcase of work by Madison-based filmmakers and artists at Arts + Literature Laboratory on March 15.