“Is this boring?” Peter Hujar asked while narrating a day in his life: December 18, 1974.“No. It’s not boring to me,” Linda Rosenkrantz—a writer, his friend—replied as she listened to the photographer recount minutiae. In Ira Sachs’s new film, we see her loving all that he is saying, knowing that one day soon he won’t be here, and that all we’ll have then are the photographs, the memories, the traces of what he did.This one day makes up Peter Hujar’s Day, wherein a great American filmmaker offers one of his strongest films to date—as well as one of the most accurate depictions I know of the internal doubts that plague an artist. On that winter day in 1974, Rosenkrantz recorded Hujar’s quiet but compelling account: He woke up, talked to editors, tried to produce good photographs, worried about not doing enough as an artist. Rosenkrantz went on to type up a transcript up of her conversation with Hujar, who died 13 years later, on November 26, 1987, of AIDS-related complications. She left the text untouched for nearly 50 years, until she rediscovered and published it as a book, to wide acclaim, in 2021.Now, Sachs has made this screamingly beautiful quotidian text into the unlikely basis of an engrossing film, with Ben Whishaw as Hujar and Rebecca Hall as Rosenkrantz. All the little details of Hujar’s day, as well as Whishaw’s slightly nasal New York accent and lilt, will fascinate any sensitive viewer. Its proposition is the same as another of this year’s cinematic successes, Kelly Reichardt’s art heist film The Mastermind: What gets erased when we shackle ourselves to the Hollywood notion of “action”? Sachs restores all the idiosyncrasies of sound, speech, and memory in this loose, ordinary movie—a miracle in an age when one’s sense of space and time is shot to hell and back by smartphones that provide the illusion of being everything everywhere all at once. Sachs, Rosenkrantz, Whishaw, and Hall all shiver in delight at the hierophany of life, staging a valiant effort to prove two beautiful friends’ existence, showing how they were, and how we can be, with intimates in a cold social sphere.I spoke with Ira Sachs on a rainy afternoon at the Criterion Collection offices in New York about the difference a day makes.Still from Peter Hujar’s Day.Courtesy Everett Collection/©Janus FilmsPeter Hujar’s Day seems like a major shift from the more turbulent Passages. I’m wondering if that was a conscious decision on your behalf.I don’t see it as a major shift, personally. The challenge with Passages was that I had committed to being an action filmmaker. I had to figure out how to turn that story [about a chaotic bisexual director and his affair with a woman] into an action film—how to use cinema as a form of movement. I would actually say Passages is a film about space and the body—and maybe about light. What Hujar allowed me to do was to really swim in questions of portraiture, and to explore the impact of light and dark on emotion.How did you first encounter Linda’s text?Director Ira Sachs at Sundance, 2025.Photo Mat Hayward via GettyI must have first seen the book in a gay bookstore in Paris. I picked it up out of curiosity while working on Passages. It’s a short book, and by the time I got to the last page I immediately thought: I should makea film of this—and I should make it with Ben.Last Address [a short film I made about the last New York addresses of artists who died during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and ’90s] came to me similarly, in a single moment: While crossing Houston Street, I suddenly had the idea. With Hujar, the book’s last lines gave me a strong impression of something temporary, human, fragile—of a conversation overheard on the street. That sense of passing drama, immediately forgotten, moved me deeply.Because of Ben’s relationship to me [professional], to experimentation, to queerness, and to queer artists like Peter, I felt we could collaborate and make something out of this material. Honestly, I wouldn’t have made the film without Ben; he was part of the idea from the very beginning.Now, I haven’t seen any footage of Peter—There is no footage. At least, none that anyone has ever shown me. He’s one of the least-documented figures. I’ve only found two pieces: One is an audio recording of him hypnotizing himself to stop smoking, and the other is an interview that David Wojnarowicz did with him. Beyond that, there’s almost no recorded material.Did this give you and Ben more freedom to create?I think I always felt free, because I wasn’t trying to make an archival record. I was creating something new by nature—a document of the interaction between me and the text, between the actors and the past and present.That’s fascinating. With Rebecca, though, it’s different—because Linda is alive. Did you consult with her to get that cadence she has in the film?Yes. I first reached out to Linda through Instagram. Only six months into our conversations did I realize she was 89 years old—and one of the most “with it” individuals I’ve ever met. Rebecca and I both developed relationships with Linda that were very tender and sweet. Rebecca isn’t doing an impersonation, but she captures Linda’s kindness, which is absolutely consistent with who Linda is.Her role as a listener really builds over the course of the film. I see it especially in those late shots where the camera focuses on Linda/Rebecca and goes hazy. It made me think a lot about what it means simply to be present with someone in a room, listening.I think the biggest challenge was figuring out how to break up the physical simplicity of the situation—two people sitting at a table talking. That’s essentially what was happening. My interaction with Portrait of Jason (1967), Poor Little Rich Girl (1965), and My Girlfriend’s Wedding (1969) helped me realize: Oh, I can use the cut. I could use editing to create ellipses, which gave me freedom. At first, I actually tried to block the whole film in real time, but I realized I needed these small shifts: The teapot boils, the window needs to be closed because it’s loud outside. Ultimately, the film became a conceptual, almost John Cage–like experiment. I didn’t choose locations or situations based on dialogue. I chose them based on where I needed to cut. Little things like that gave me moments to play with. That’s the playful side of directing.The film makes you attuned to small things you’d ordinarily take for granted. Suddenly, something like eating Chinese food becomes more vivid because of how you juxtapose it with the conversation. That was my impression watching the film—you tune into sounds, presences, and interruptions that creep into a conversation and then shape it.Exactly. And interestingly, I only realized this after premiering the film. What resonates most with me now isn’t what I expected. For me, the real subject, I realize, is the circular, anxious, hopeful, neurotic, insecure, arrogant dialogue that an artist has with themselves over the course of a day—or an hour. It’s essentially an interior monologue spoken aloud. This was already present in Linda’s text, though only looking back did I realize the film is almost a portrait of how my mind works.It also captures the movements of an artist’s day: the preparation for the work, the work itself, and then—especially in the last third of the film—reflection.I think he is reflecting all the time, just silently. Relatably, most of his conversation with himself is constant questioning: Do I have a good idea or a bad one? Did I do this well or badly? Will I be recognized or shamed?Courtesy Everett Collection/©Janus FilmsHow did you choose the set?I approached Westbeth with the idea of a partnership, aligned with their mission of supporting artists’ lives and work. That’s been their purpose since 1971. It’s two blocks below the Whitney, with about 300–400 affordable housing units for artists and a long waitlist. Merce Cunningham had his studios there; now Martha Graham’s company does. They gave us an empty apartment, which we transformed.There’s a history of New York—particularly the East Village—that’s being channeled in your film: the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, 2000s. How much did you conceive of thefilm as a piece about the East Villageand its history?When I made Last Address, I went around and shot—from the street—the last addresses of New York artists who died of AIDS. It became a kind of reverie about loss, the city, and presence. There’s no biographical information beyond the barest identifiers—no voiceover telling you who’s who—just the address, the sense of place.One of them is 189 Second Avenue, Peter and David [Wojnarowicz]’s apartment. I actually passed it on the way here. Vince Aletti—he’s in the film, the guy who comes over and takes a shower—still lives across the street. Vince is a fantastic writer; he covered photography for The Village Voice and The New Yorker for decades. Hujar made a portrait of Vince. He’s also the one in the film who prefers McDonald’s, those details are true to him.I’m working now on a film set in ’89 in the East Village. What draws me is that, for a lot of artists then, there was no real possibility of global or bourgeois success. Art-making was local, and received by your friends, your immediate community. Those limits created a kind of freedom. People took extraordinary risks; they tried to be good for themselves and the people they loved. They were still ambitious, and they worried about money—it wasn’t utopian—but within those limits they found room to be brave.Cookie Mueller, Jack Smith, Arthur Russell, Peter Hujar: Many died before I got here, but they remain mentors to me. They showed me how to try to be brave. And those years—without being nostalgic—were closer to the ’60s, closer to a counterculture. There was an explosion of sexual freedom and imagery, and a lack of preciousness or prudery. Sometimes I just have to think of Jack Smith to remind myself: You’re a prude, try not to be. I’m not Jack Smith, and I’m not as free visually, but he challenges me. I’ll never be as good, but the anxiety of influence can be productive.