What Makes a Film Festive?

Laura Gommans is an unabashed devotee of festive films. Kiriko Mechanicus prefers her Christmas viewing eyes-wide-open — more Eyes Wide Shut than Love Actually. Together they interrogate what festive actually means when applied to cinema — why certain films feel like December when they contain no snow and no gifts — and dream up the directors who should, in a just world, be commissioned to make a holiday film. An episode about the seasonality of cinema, the films that become rituals, and whether tradition is a comfort or a trap.

By Laura Gommans

Film Journalist · Celebrating Cinema