Senior Critics

Deborah Young

Deborah Young, EDITOR & SENIOR CRITIC, is an American writer, film critic and festival director based in Rome. In 2008 she became The Hollywood Reporter’s international film editor; formerly, she served as Variety's bureau chief in Rome. She directed the Taormina Film Festival for five years and has been a programming consultant for the Tribeca Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival, among others. As a screenwriter and adapter, Deborah has contributed to key Italian films including Ermanno Olmi’s The Legend of the Holy Drinker, the Taviani brothers’ Good Morning, Babylon and Valerio Zurlini’s Across the River and Into the Trees. Her first novel, Pirates in Black Tie, is published by Europe Books.

Jay Weissberg

Jay Weissberg, SENIOR CRITIC, is a native New Yorker who lives in Rome. A film historian and critic, he began writing for Variety in 2003. His work on contemporary cinema has appeared in international publications and he’s contributed essays in numerous festival and retrospective catalogues, with a particular focus on Arab and Romanian film. He was appointed director of the Giornate del Cinema Muto/Pordenone Silent Film Festival in 2015, writes widely about silent film, and is a co-curator of the Ottoman Film Project. A frequent participant of festival juries, he often takes part in panel discussions on the current state of cinema and film criticism, regularly moderates Masterclasses with filmmakers, and has mentored programs for young film critics worldwide. His discussion on Romanian cinema appears as an extra on Criterion’s Blu-ray/DVD release of Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.  He also has a blog, “The Silent Cat,” which delves into forgotten stories of the silent film era. 

Boyd van Hoeij

Boyd van Hoeij, SENIOR CRITIC, is a film writer based in Luxembourg and Paris. He started as a trade critic for Variety and moved to The Hollywood Reporter in 2013, where he worked until he joined The Film Verdict in 2021. Boyd also regularly writes for De Filmkrant (Netherlands) and has contributed to Indiewire and The Atlantic. He was awarded the 2020 Plume d'Or for his work as a critic by the French Union des journalistes de cinéma. Van Hoeij is also the Curator at Large of the Luxembourg City Film Festival, President of the Selection Committee of the Luxembourg Film Fund and has been part of juries and panels at festivals including Cannes, Venice, Hong Kong, Jerusalem, Sydney, Palm Springs and Mar del Plata. He has taught film criticism workshops and conducted shot-by-shot analyses of film classics around the world and moderated masterclasses with talents including Quentin Tarantino and Todd Haynes.

Stephen Dalton

Stephen Dalton, SENIOR CRITIC, has been writing professionally about cinema and music for over 30 years, including for The Hollywood Reporter as a regular film/theater reviewer and occasional columnist. He has written extensively for The Times of London, where he was a daily TV film columnist for 12 years, Sight and Sound, the BFI (British Film Institute), and the UK film and music monthly Uncut.  His work has also appeared in The Guardian, Rolling Stone, the Evening Standard (London), Wallpaper, New Musical Express, The Quietus, Electronic Sound, Classic Rock, The National (UAE) and other publications. He is based in London.

Contributing Critics

Jordan Mintzer

Jordan Mintzer, CONTRIBUTING CRITIC, is a writer, producer and film critic born in Queens, New York. He produced Matt Porterfield’s feature films Hamilton, Putty Hill and Sollers Point, and is co-writing and producing his upcoming hip-hop movie Check Me in Another Place. Based in Paris, he works as a film critic for The Hollywood Reporter, covering French and international cinema, as well as festivals like Cannes, Berlin and Toronto. His writings have also been published in Le Monde, Cahiers du Cinéma, Libération, So Film and Variety, and he appears regularly on the French radio show On Aura Tout Vu. He is the author of the books Conversations with James Gray (2011) and Conversations with Darius Khondji (2018).

Clarence Tsui

Clarence Tsui, CONTRIBUTING CRITIC, is a Hong Kong-based film critic, programmer and part-time lecturer. He has written for The Hollywood Reporter, South China Morning Post, Cineaste and Film Quarterly, and has served on juries at Cannes, Berlin, Rotterdam and Tokyo. He was the director of the Broadway Cinematheque and the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival from 2019 to 2022. He teaches at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Oris Aigbokhaevbolo

Oris Aigbokhaevbolo, CONTRIBUTING CRITIC, is an award-winning writer and critic. He won the 2015 AFRIMA award for Entertainment Journalist of the Year and has led a team of writers across Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Gambia as West Africa editor for a digital publication supported by the German Cultural Centre. Well-respected as a leading critic of Nollywood and African cinema, Aigbokhaevbolo has covered Sundance, the African International Film Festival, and Africa’s oldest film festival, FESPACO. His writing has appeared in the New York Review of Books, the Guardian UK, the Africa Report, and the London Review of Books. He lives in Lagos, Nigeria.

Patricia Boero

Patricia Boero, CONTRIBUTING CRITIC, is an international film consultant based in Punta del Este, Uruguay. Boero studied cinema at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and worked at SBS TV and Film Australia. In Havana, Cuba, she worked for TV Latina, BBC radio and CNN. In the U.S., Boero was Director of the Sundance Institute's International Program, holding screenwriters’ labs in ten countries, including Brazil, Mexico, Cuba, and Spain. She worked for the Rockefeller and MacArthur foundations, supporting films. From Uruguay she produced documentary series for Al Jazeera English and was a jury for the Havana and Guadalajara film festivals.

Ben Nicholson

Ben Nicholson, CONTRIBUTING CRITIC, is a writer and curator based in London. His words have been published in Sight & Sound, MUBI Notebook, Little White Lies and Hyperallergic, amongst others. He has been involved in programming for Sheffield Doc/Fest and the London Short Film Festival and in 2019 founded ALT/KINO which screens, and publishes writing about, experimental film and artists’ moving image.

Carmen Gray

Carmen Gray, CONTRIBUTING CRITIC, is a New Zealander who lives in Berlin. A film critic and journalist, she has contributed to Sight & Sound, The Guardian, The Observer, Screen International, and more. She has written liner essays for several Criterion releases, and was previously Film Editor of Dazed & Confused magazine in London. She contributes regularly to The New York Times with investigative journalism on culture and politics in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Caucasus, and has written chapters for books on Portuguese cinema and Peter Watkins. As a film programmer, she is on the selection committees of the Generation section of the Berlin International Film Festival and the Winterthur International Short Film Festival in Switzerland, and is a programme adviser for Open City Docs in London. She also consults on projects, and is a regular industry adviser on films at the editing stage for First Cut Lab. She frequently serves on festival juries, and has taught writing workshops in Poland, Serbia, Estonia and the Czech Republic.

Kevin Jagernauth

Kevin Jagernauth, CONTRIBUTING CRITIC, is a Montreal-based film critic and writer. Kevin has written professionally about music and film for over 15 years, most prominently as Managing Editor of The Playlist, where he continues to contribute reviews, and has covered a wide range of festivals including Cannes, TIFF, Fantasia, Savannah, and more. On a consultative basis, Kevin provides script coverage for feature-length independent and international films. He is also the co-founder and co-programmer of Kopfkino, a monthly screening series of cult classics and contemporary favorites that ran from 2017-2020 in Montreal.

Alonso Duralde

Alonso Duralde is the former Film Reviews Editor for TheWrap and the co-host of the "Linoleum Knife," "Maximum Film!," "Breakfast All Day" and "Deck the Hallmark" podcasts. Duralde has appeared on TCM and was a regular contributor to FilmStruck. He is the author of two books, Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas (Limelight Editions) and 101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men (Advocate Books), and the co-author of I'll Be Home for Christmas Movies (Running Press). His book on the history of LGBTQ+ Hollywood will be published by TCM/Running Press in 2024.

Lucy Virgen

Lucy Virgen is a journalist, film critic and programmer who works mainly in Mexico and Argentina. She is the founding editor of the specialized online magazine The Thinking Eye. She has worked with the Guadalajara Film Festival, Ventana Sur in Argentina and a number of film institutions all over Latin America. Lucy Virgen es periodista, crítica y programadora de cine; trabaja en México y Argentina principalmente. Fue directora de programación en el Festival Internacional de cine de Guadalajara, ha colaborado con Ventana Sur -Argentina y varias instituciones más en Latin America.