Magazine sends an aspiring poet inside a 2011 New York magazine

An aspiring poet starts an unpaid internship in the summer of 2011. That is the doorway into Magazine, the feature directorial debut of Alexandra Pechman, meaning her first full-length film as a director.

The film is a coming-of-age tale set in the early 2010s in a New York City print scene, according to Variety. Its story is fixed more tightly in time in the latest coverage, which places the action in summer 2011, according to Variety.

Lily McInerny plays Nora. Nora wants to be a poet and lands an internship at Platen, a fictional literary magazine, according to Variety. The post is unpaid. It puts her inside an office hierarchy of editors, assistants and fellow interns.

The office fills out quickly. Lukita Maxwell plays Tabitha, and Ruby Cruz plays one of the interns alongside Maxwell, according to Variety and IndieWire. Daniel Zolghadri plays Leonard. Joshuah Melnick plays Thomas, an assistant editor. Jake Lacy also stars, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Behind the camera, Pechman drew on direct experience. She worked in magazines during the era shown in the film and used her own time in that world to write it, according to Variety. Valeria De Felice served as production designer. Variety also framed the project with a feature headlined "'Magazine' Takes a Nostalgic Look at Last Gasp Before the Digital Age".

Festival coverage has followed in quick succession. Deadline published its Toronto Film Festival review of Magazine in September 2026, and The Hollywood Reporter published a review of the film. Variety then published its review of Pechman's film on 20 September 2026.

What makes this stand out for general viewers is the setting itself. Office internships, print deadlines and a literary magazine with its own pecking order need little explaining. The film uses that familiar workplace to look at a very specific summer, just before phones and feeds changed how magazines worked.