Very high on my list of anticipated works at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival is LoveTrue, Alma Har’el’s follow-up to her stunning documentary, Bombay Beach. For her new hybrid doc, Har’el — a Filmmaker 25 New Face — has followed three very different couples whose behaviors challenge our expectations of what constitutes a love story. She’s also employed actors, who play her real-life subjects past and future selves. Har’el’s work is always provocative, soulful, and rich with stunning images and gorgeous music. Last year, I watched a short work-in-progress cut of this project, and interviewed Har’el. Here she is answering […]
Opening April 15 at the IFC Center and L.A.’s Independent Downtown is Echo Park, the directorial debut of celebrity photographer Amanda Marsalis. A relationship drama starring Mamie Gummer (The Good Wife, Cake) and Anthony Okungbawa (Mother of George), the film is based on a number of incidents occurring in Okungbawa’s life. The actor is a resident of the titular neighborhood — a diverse, pedestrian-friendly swatch of L.A. that forms a microcosm of sorts for this film’s characters-in-transition. The script was written by AFI Grad Catalina Aguilar Mastretta. Check out the trailer above. Echo Park is released by ARRAY Releasing.
Director Steve McQueen hasn’t made another feature since winning an Academy Award for Best Picture for Twelve Years a Slave in 2014. He had been plugging away on the new HBO series Codes of Conduct, which the pay cable network described as Six Degrees of Separation meets Shame. But despite a cast including Paul Dano, Helena Bonham Carter and Rebecca Hall, HBO scrapped the project after initially giving it a six-episode order. But McQueen has kept busy with short film projects including All Day, a 9-minute video installation featuring Kanye West. Of course, he’s no stranger to the short film format, having made some 20 short films since he was an […]
Inspired by Diego Echeverria’s 1984 documentary, Los Sures, Living Los Sures is an expansive documentary produced over five years by 60 artists at Brooklyn’s UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art. Premiering online today here at Filmmaker is Álvaro, directed by Alexandra Lazarowich, Elizabeth Dealaune Warren, Daniel J Wilson & Chloe Zimmerman, a short doc about the daily ritual of longtime Southside, Brooklyn resident Álvaro Brandon. Timed to the restoration and Metrograph screening of Echeverria’s cinema verite work, about the largely Puerto Rican and Dominican community of the Southside of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Living Los Sures consists of 40 short films, the interactive […]
In 2014 we posted Rishi Kaneria’s supercut on Stanley Kubrick’s love of the color red. Now, inspired by that video, Marc Anthony Figueras has created his own video, this time surveying the director’s use of color all across the color spectrum. Films referenced: 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut. And, for those who’d like to simply skip to their favorite hue, here are the chapter markings: Red- 0:07 Blue- 1:30 Yellow- 2:12 Purple- 2:42 Pink- 2:51 Orange- 2:59 Green- 3:15 Black & White- 3:45
Late last week, we published a video essay from Kevin B. Lee, chief video essayist at Fandor, about the spaces in Chantal Akerman’s final documentary, No Home Movie. Lee estimated that about 70% of the film took place within the walls of the filmmaker’s dying mother Natalia’s apartment. To re-orient himself in Natalia’s apartment, Lee reorganized the footage by room. Initially, he edited the video to music, using Schubert’s Impromptu D. 899 Op. 90 No. 3, not coincidentally the same music used in Michael Haneke’s Amour, which also follows an elderly woman’s demise. But after receiving some complaints, including from the distributors of the film, Lee reassessed […]
When the 70mm roadshow version of Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight rolled out in December, the experience was sold on the aesthetic superiority – the scope, the clarity, the subconscious effect of flickering frames of film. At a time when Screening Room may soon allow filmgoers to watch the latest wide releases on their couch, the roadshow offered an unreplicable spectacle. But for me the joy of road-tripping to Chicago to catch The Hateful Eight at the Music Box Theatre during its opening week had nothing to do with film gauge size or grain structure. The bliss came from something that is even more […]
Swiss Army Man, the debut feature from acclaimed music video directing duo The Daniels (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), divided audiences at Sundance 2016 like no other film. Now you can get a peek at the controversial film in its first trailer (above). Following its premiere, Variety declared that the film “could win the festival’s award for the most walk-outs, as a continuous stream of audience members kept standing up and bolting for the door throughout the film.” The premise of the dark comedy is certainly pretty bizarre. Paul Dano plays Hank, a man marooned on an island who is about to commit suicide. […]
Chantal Akerman’s final film, No Home Movie, takes on a deeper resonance following the Belgian filmmaker’s death in October 2015. The film is a documentary tribute to her dying mother, Natalia a.k.a. Nelly and an exploration of their relationship. As with all of Akerman’s work, there’s a deeply autobiographical element to the film — even more so now that we know it was to be her last. In the above video essay from Fandor, Kevin B. Lee has reorganized the film’s footage by each room in the apartment to emphasize how Akerman explores each space to reflect her relationship with her dying mother. Beginning April 1, No Home Movie […]
Whether you missed The Witch in its first time in theaters or you’re ready to return for a second helping of horror, you’ll get a chance to see Robert Eggers’ stunner this weekend. In advance of its return to theaters on Friday, April 1, distributor A24 has released a new trailer (above) for the festival favorite, which initially premiered at Sundance in 2015. Back in February, The Witch gave A24 its biggest weekend opening ever, earning $8.8 million. Having already earned $24 million at the box office, it seems likely to edge out A24’s award-winning Ex Machina, which has grossed $25.4 million. Set in […]