Authors — Filmmaker Staff
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“We’re On the Cusp of a Real Revolution in Independent Film”: Producer Joe Pirro on Cannes 2025
Producers Joe Pirro and Caroline Clark attended the 2025 Cannes Film Festival as Gotham Cannes Producer Network Fellows. Pirro is with the New York company Symbolic Exchange, and Clark L.A.’s Kindred Spirit. The two recently collaborated on Andrew Ahn’s The Wedding Banquet, and here, in a part one of a two-part conversation, that share their festival debrief. First up, Clark querying Pirro. Clark: You were awarded this year’s Sundance Institute | Amazon MGM Studios Producers Award for Fiction at the Sundance Film Festival. From a decorated producer’s point of view, how do you like to prioritize your time at Cannes, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on May 26, 2025 -
American Pavilion Emerging Filmmaker Showcase Announces 2025 Winners
The American Pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival has announced the winners of this year’s Emerging Filmmaker Showcase sponsored by Gold House. Gold House awarded the inaugural Cultural Impact award to Andy “Celeste” Diep for Happy New Year, Ms. Luna. This award was conceived to recognize a filmmaker across the showcase’s categories whose work exemplifies excellence in multicultural narratives or underrepresented perspectives. “Happy New Year, Ms. Luna” also won the Emerging Filmmaker LGBTQ+ Award. The film’s director, Andy “Celeste” Diep is a AmPav Student Program Alumni from 2015. “It’s been wonderful to have almost all the 25 filmmakers with their […]
by Filmmaker Staff on May 22, 2025 -
17 Films We’re Looking Forward to at Cannes 2025
With the Cannes Film Festival underway until May 24, here are 17 films our editors and writers are keenly anticipating. As always, look throughout the festival for reviews from Vadim Rizov and Blake Williams as well as interviews and festival reports. The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt) For her return to Cannes following 2022’s Showing Up, Kelly Reichardt latches onto Josh O’Connor’s rising star; after his profile-elevating turns in La chimera and Challengers, he’s in two competition titles this year (the other is Oliver Hermanus’s The History of Sound). Here he’s opposite Alana Haim, who also has a lot to promote with […]
by Filmmaker Staff on May 14, 2025 -
Poster Premiere: ACID 2025 Selection A Light That Never Goes Out
We’re pleased to premiere the poster for ACID 2025 selection A Light That Never Goes Out. From the Cannes section’s website: Lauri-Matti Parppei, who has recorded several albums in a parallel life, takes us to their hometown in Northern Finland, a place where people speak little and depression is a taboo – this is Pauli’s illness, as he returns home to heal his wounds. With a melancholic tone, the film, through its precise, no-frills directing style, weaves its story like a musical score. Pauli rejects success and returns to life thanks to a chaotic lineup of outcasts. Friendship, stronger than anything, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on May 13, 2025 -
Trailer Watch: “Kira Muratova: Scenographies of Chaos”
It’s been 20 years since Film at Lincoln Center’s last retrospective of Kira Muratova, in which time obviously much has changed: the filmmaker herself has since died, no prints will be in the projection mix this time and Muratova’s identity as a Ukrainian filmmaker (as opposed to a Soviet filmmaker primarily working in a Russian context) has become more prominent. The work, however, remains essential. Check out the trailer above and start investigating her work with 1971’s Long Goodbyes, arguably the great mother-son movie. The retrospective runs May 16 to 25, 2025; click here to learn more.
by Filmmaker Staff on May 8, 2025 -
UFO Announces Spring, 2025 Short Film Lab Cohort
UFO (Untitled Filmmaker Org) announced today the three new filmmakers comprising its 2025 Short Film Lab cohort. Selected filmmakers Daisy Friedman, Carin Leong (a Filmmaker 2025 25 New Face), and Emilio Subía will begin the Lab experience this month as they develop new scripted (Friedman and Subía) and nonfiction (Leong) projects. Filmmakers Emily May Jampel, Arielle Knight, and Samuel Wright Smith from the second Short Film Lab cohort announced last spring will continue in the program through December to develop their second projects engaging scripted narrative, hybrid nonfiction, and animation, in keeping with the Lab’s staggered enrollment model. The UFO […]
by Filmmaker Staff on May 8, 2025 -
Filmmaker Magazine Presents Swoon and Monsoon Wedding at New York’s Paris Theater
Filmmaker‘s monthly series at New York’s Paris Theater, Filmmaker Magazine Presents, continues in June with two new events coupled with in-person conversations. On Monday, June 2, the Paris will welcome director Tom Kalin and producer Christine Vachon for a Q&A following a screening of 1992’s New Queer Cinema highlight Swoon. Kalin co-wrote and directed this stylish take on the infamous murder trial of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr., a case that also provided inspiration for the stage play Rope, later adapted for the screen by Alfred Hitchcock. Swoon will show on a 35mm print courtesy of Kalin and the film’s director of photography, Ellen Kuras. On Monday, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on May 7, 2025 -
Trailer Watch: Frederic Da’s isaiah’s phone
In 2021, we profiled Frederic Da as part of that year’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film on the strength of his debut feature, Teenage Emotions. This May, Da will premiere his sophomore follow-up, isaiah’s phone, at the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival. We’re pleased to premiere the trailer for the film, whose festival synopsis is: “A socially awkward high school student films himself as he blunders through attempts to make friends, spiralling into a dark place where his only close relationship is with his phone.”
by Filmmaker Staff on May 5, 2025 -
Trailer Watch: “Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us”
Japan Society and Metrograph will co-present Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us, a 30-film retrospective devoted to Naruse, the “fourth great” master of Japanese cinema, from May 9th through June 29th. Co-organized with The Japan Foundation, New York, the two-part series will offer the first major New York survey of this signal studio-era filmmaker’s work in 20 years, presented in commemoration of the 120th anniversary of his birth and entirely on rare prints imported from collections and archives in Japan. Notable series highlights include all six of Naruse’s adaptations of celebrated feminist author Fumiko Hayashi’s work (Floating Clouds, Repast, Lightning, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on May 2, 2025 -
Nominees Announced for 2025 Gotham Television Awards
The Gotham Film & Media Institute, Filmmaker‘s parent organization, announced today the nominations in twelve competitive award categories for the 2025 Gotham Television Awards, recognizing a range of series, including Adolescence, The Pitt, The Studio as well as performances from Kathy Bates, Sterling K. Brown, Ted Danson, Linda Lavin, Cristin Milioti, and Michelle Williams, among others. “Building on the success of last year’s inaugural ceremony, the Gotham Television Awards returns with new categories, expanded tributes, and a larger stage to celebrate the creators and artists making their mark on today’s television landscape,” said Jeffrey Sharp, Executive Director of The Gotham. “As […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Apr 29, 2025
