Arjun Sajip's Avatar

Arjun Sajip

@arjsaj.bsky.social

Digital Editor at Apollo magazine. Formerly at Sight and Sound. Arts writer, mostly film (bylines at BBC Culture, the FT, IndieWire, ArtReview, Cineaste, Cinema Scope and others)

279 Followers  |  392 Following  |  38 Posts  |  Joined: 09.12.2024  |  1.5371

Latest posts by arjsaj.bsky.social on Bluesky

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Chris Marker’s memories come out of cold storage The film-maker’s attempt to preserve his memories on CD-ROM has been rendered obsolete. Emilie Bickerton finds out if the book version of Immemory is an adequate replacement

‘What is described as abundant storage space is really a set of high-security vaults. We fill them with our memories and then we throw away the keys, or someone else does.’

A fascinating read for fans of Chris Marker

23.01.2026 10:28 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

So much fun, I re-subscribed.

20.12.2025 17:15 — 👍 3    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

Gorgeous! Do read.

21.12.2025 09:19 — 👍 11    🔁 4    💬 1    📌 0
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He coulda been one hell of a qawwali singer

19.12.2025 16:50 — 👍 3    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
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This is not a painting. It is made entirely of wood, its surface flat. A detail from the 15th-century "Studiolo Gubbio", one of the finest examples of intarsia, the masterful art of fitting together pieces of wood to make images: publicdomainreview.org/essay/e...

16.12.2025 20:47 — 👍 158    🔁 50    💬 4    📌 1
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Wes Anderson on The Phoenician Scheme The Phoenician Scheme returns Wes Anderson to the straightforward pleasures of the caper movie. He talks about writing the film for its star, Benicio del Toro, his fascination with charismatic, powerf...

Some months ago, ahead of ‘The Phoenician Scheme’, I had a long chat with Wes Anderson about billionaires, Buñuel, Benicio del Toro and the nature of patronage. That interview is now online

14.12.2025 11:18 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The hideous presentation is a given by now, but it’s sadder that among its many vast genre blindspots, Spotify doesn’t seem to know the difference between calypso and soca

04.12.2025 20:56 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Tatsuya Nakadai, Japanese actor of Ran, Yojimbo and Harakiri, dies aged 92 Star of Japan’s cinematic golden age, who collaborated with Kurosawa and played the lead in Kobayashi’s Human Condition trilogy, died from pneumonia

The stage was his great love, but Tatsuya Nakadai gave some of the most vivid screen performances of the 20th century. His Kurosawa collabs are indelible but ‘The Human Condition’, in which he embodies an attrition of the human spirit over several years and 10 hours, might be his masterpiece

11.11.2025 11:06 — 👍 4    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

“A Long Winter” is the last and longest story in Colm Toibín’s excellent collection ‘Mothers and Sons’; where most of the stories are set in Ireland, this one memorably decamps to Catalonia and ups the psychological ante. Looking forward to seeing what Andrew Haigh does with it

29.10.2025 15:29 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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In ‘The Mastermind’, Kelly Reichardt steals the show Ahead of the UK release of ‘The Mastermind’, the director sat down with Apollo to talk about the thrills of making an art-heist movie

Very much enjoyed speaking to Kelly Reichardt about her favourite museums, the first artwork to rock her world and the joys of filming an art heist

25.10.2025 14:58 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Sonny Curtis Dies at 88; His Songs Included Mary Tyler Moore’s Theme

The prolific singer-songwriter Sonny Curtis died on Friday at age 88. Curtis had performed with Buddy Holly, opened for Elvis Presley and written hits like “I Fought the Law,” “Walk Right Back” and “Love Is All Around” — the theme song for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” which he also sang.

21.09.2025 19:22 — 👍 568    🔁 111    💬 17    📌 7

That Supertramp was a great band is one of my most unfashionable opinions. Hodgson may have sung the best-known songs but Davies’s solo here – backed by an incredibly tight band, sans Hodgson – is a high point of live rock piano

08.09.2025 23:56 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Napoleon was born #onthisday in 1769. After the collapse of his empire in 1815, “le petit caporal” was imprisoned on St Helena, and while there started learning English. One resident of the island called his English “the oddest in the world” — publicdomainreview.org/collection/n... #otd

15.08.2025 14:16 — 👍 45    🔁 13    💬 0    📌 3
a genealogy of stomp clap

a genealogy of stomp clap

have sensed some confusion re: the origins of stomp clap that i'm all too happy to clear up maxread.substack.com/i/170106944/...

07.08.2025 18:24 — 👍 365    🔁 56    💬 22    📌 20
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ICA | Trenque Lauquen The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is London’s leading space for contemporary culture. We commission, produce and present new work in film, music, performance and the visual arts by today’s most...

Tickets here:

02.08.2025 10:51 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Trenque Lauquen review: a hymn to the unclassifiable A woman is pulled into the mysteries of a small Argentinian town after discovering a stash of erotic love letters in Laura Citarella’s intoxicating four-hour film.

If you’re London-based and have no plans tomorrow, the endlessly beguiling mystery epic ‘Trenque Lauquen’ is screening at the ICA and I cannot recommend it enough. I wrote about it here

02.08.2025 10:51 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

My biggest surprise on rewatching was how many belly-laughs it got out of me. Leonard Rossiter is exquisite

26.07.2025 22:25 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Thanks Lou – you too!

26.07.2025 13:29 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

The pace can take some getting used to. But now’s a good time to give it a chance on the big screen – and if you still don’t like it, at least you’ll have seen it more or less as intended!

26.07.2025 12:58 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Thank you Caspar!

26.07.2025 12:48 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

This was a daunting task, but I had a great time unpicking how Kubrick borrowed from 18th-century art to make one of the most beautiful films ever made.

26.07.2025 12:12 — 👍 18    🔁 6    💬 4    📌 0

Beautifully written piece.

21.07.2025 14:59 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Fun fact of the day: Mr. T's pastor is called Eric Clopton

20.06.2025 15:53 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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Exactly the kind of precision I want from my weather forecasts

16.06.2025 14:56 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Restitution drama: an interview with Joel Tan | Apollo Magazine The Singaporean playwright talks to Arjun Sajip about dramatising the return of a fictional Buddhist statue from the British Museum to China

‘Scenes from a Repatriation’ at the Royal Court is invigorating stuff. I spoke to its writer, Joel Tan, about how statues embody power, how art can play in spaces where hard politics cannot, and how China’s attitudes to its own historic artefacts have changed
www.apollo-magazine.com/joel-tan-sce...

23.05.2025 12:06 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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Sight and Sound June 25 — MyMagShop On the cover: A world exclusive interview with Tom Cruise   Inside: The latest edition of Black Film Bulletin, Wes Anderson on The Phoenician Scheme, the career of Mai Zetterling, the legacy o...

Interviewed Wes Anderson for the magazine; chatted about billionaires, Buñuel and Benicio del Toro. Goodies aplenty in this issue
www.mmslondon.co.uk/shop/p/sight...

22.05.2025 13:00 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon: 9781594206108 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books The new novel from Thomas Pynchon Milwaukee 1932, the Great Depression going full blast, repeal of Prohibition just around the corner, Al Capone in the federal pen, the private investigation busines...

new Pynchon novel!!!! about a 1930s private eye!!!! named Hicks McTaggart!!!!

09.04.2025 12:46 — 👍 219    🔁 34    💬 7    📌 14

I've seen neither but am keen to see both. TS is the Tarkovsky that keeps eluding me – one of these days I will catch it!

02.04.2025 17:25 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Saw an accidentally perfect double-bill last night: ‘Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean’ and ‘The End’. Both single-location movies; both about the lies we can so easily tell ourselves as individuals and communities; both sorely under-appreciated on release.

02.04.2025 10:21 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
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Sister Midnight review: deranged marriage Karan Kandhari’s wild debut feature about a newly married Mumbai woman whose life takes a surreal turn when she is bitten by a mosquito is bursting with cinephilic enthusiasm, but at times puts the im...

“Sister Midnight is an attempt, first and foremost, to channel its protagonist’s wild sensibilities’

@arjsaj.bsky.social reviews Karan Kandhari’s darkly funny debut feature about an unhappily married Mumbai woman whose life takes a surreal turn. In cinemas now. www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

14.03.2025 10:25 — 👍 10    🔁 2    💬 1    📌 0

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