The challenge of filming The Artist Is Present, Marina Abramovic’s silent three-month performance at MoMA, is the same one the artist confronts in her piece, says Matthew Akers, “To be present, to slow down, and to have a genuine connection with another human being.”

Martin Scorsese has thrown in the towel on 35mm: The Wolf Of Wall Street will be digital, says editor Thelma Schoonmaker. “It would appear that we’ve lost the battle. [He] just feels it’s unfortunately over, and there’s been no bigger champion of film than him.”

Unleash your inner film critic! In honor of the Opening Weekend of the New Walker Cinema (this upcoming weekend, June 22-24), the Walker’s Film & Video department will be handing out 800 sets of magnets devoted to film criticism. From “post modern” to “avant-garde,” from “anti-hero” to “protagonist,” these magnetic sets allow you to create your own refrigerator-review mini-masterpiece. We’ll be handing out magnets while supplies last at each of the three screenings this weekend: Beasts of the Southern Wild on Friday at 7:30pm; This Is Not a Film on Saturday at 7:30pm; and Aelita: Queen of Mars on Sunday at 3pm. Come and experience the Walker Cinema’s brand new Meyer EXP sound system, enhanced acoustic paneling, newly upholstered seats, and upgraded projection equipment; then break…

Influential film critic Andrew Sarris has passed away at age 83. Writing for the Village Voice and the New York Observer, he championed auteur theory, “the idea that a great director speaks through his films no less than a master novelist speaks through his books.”

Officially directed by Mojtaba Mirtahmasb—and unofficially by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi—This Is Not a Film follows a harsh legislative decision that effectively banned Panahi from making movies for 20 years after he was convicted of conspiring against the state. He and Mirtahmasb set out to turn the sentence inside out, obeying the letter of the law in order to implicitly denounce its spirit.

“My ultimate goal in film-making is to make a film which includes a smiling face snap of every single human being in the world,” Yoko Ono said in 1967. Forty-five years later, she’s hoping you’ll upload smiles to Instagram or Twitter with the #smilesfilm hashtag.

Marina Abramovic says she was paid “so little” for her 2010 MoMA show, adding, “[T]hey completely ran over me.” She’s still fond of the museum’s director, however: She says Glenn Lowry is one of the “best-looking directors.”

Of 40 cats living at his studio, one comes and goes as it pleases, says Ai Weiwei in a trailer for the film, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, which screens at the Walker July 25. “If I never met this cat that could open doors, I wouldn’t know cats could open doors,” he says.

The funereal fireworks that conclude Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s short film Ashes (streaming now at Mubi.com) are both a commentary on a medium that’s “transforming or dying” and a reference to his native Thailand: “She’s like a ship that is slowly sinking.”