Having world premiered at the Berlinale, played True/False and now proceeding to Cinéma du Réel, Dieudo Hamadi’s extraordinary Kinshasa Makambo has a shot at becoming one of the major political documentaries of 2018. The film follows two young activists, Ben and Jean-Marie, organizing for an end to the reign of Joseph Kabila, current president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While Kabila assumed the presidency in 2001 after the assassination of his father (US-backed autocrat Laurent-Désiré Kabila), Hamadi’s film centers on their dismayed responses to the government’s decision in 2016 to suspend elections until further notice — upturning a […]
The movie: A Quiet Place, which served as the opening night film of the 25th South By Southwest Film Festival The plot: A family struggles to survive in silence on a rural farmstead amid a flock of sonically acute creatures that attack upon hearing the slightest sound. Starring Emily Blunt and John Krasinski, who also directed. The interviewees: Screenwriters Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, who grew up in Iowa together and have been making films as a team since junior high. I met them while working in the camera department on their most recent directorial effort Haunt, which wrapped production […]
An initiative of the Doha Film Institute, Qumra is a focused event that connects Qatari and international directors receiving different stages of DFI-funded support with industry delegates from across the spectrum of the film world as well as a handful of heavy-hitting “Masters,” in a mentor-like capacity who meet with emerging talents and engage in public conversations. Kicking off a series of impressive masterclasses at the fourth edition of Qumra, Tilda Swinton took the stage in a revealing two-hour conversation with TIFF’s Artistic Director, Cameron Bailey. Q&As with big talent are typically geared towards a relatively broad audience formed of […]
Given the sense of suspended time often pervading the narratives and atmospheres of classic westerns, perhaps it’s appropriate that the wait for Valeska Grisebach’s own Western was a protracted one. Arriving eleven years after her previous film, the understated Sehnsucht (Longing, 2006), the third feature by the German filmmaker (and Berliner Schuler constituent) sacrifices none of the depth and focus of her previous work. With a plot following a group of German construction workers in Bulgaria, the film is in some ways far removed from the vast plains and Monument Valley iconography we identify with the Hollywood western tradition, while at […]
I’ve never interviewed a cinematographer who thought they had enough time or enough money — not once, no matter how big or how small the movie. With Black Panther, Rachel Morrison moved from the indie world to the gilded soundstages of the “Marvel Cinematic Universe,” a land of $150 million budgets and 100-day shooting schedules. So did the recent Oscar nominee feel like she had everything she needed? “No, not even close,” laughs Morrison, who earned the Marvel gig after her work on Fruitvale Station, Dope and Mudbound. “I had the naive expectation that once you get to that level […]
“Storytelling makes us human, it’s in our DNA,” said writer-director Darren Aronofsky in a keynote panel at SXSW. Giving Filmmaker a shout-out along the way, Aronofsky recalled his early days at Harvard and the American Film Institute and the hours spent watching the first works of Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch, Robert Rodriguez and Richard Linklater on VHS, wondering how he’d break into directing. His research led him to the making of his feature debut Pi, an experimental psychological thriller that was “weird,” was shot on high-contrast black-and-white reversal film, and opted for a non-linear form of storytelling. The film won […]
Hearing the phrase “a decade in the making” is not that unusual in feature documentary circles, particularly for those stories that, on the surface, look fairly simple and straightforward, yet somehow beg to be told on a big screen. That long duration, though oftentimes frustrating, lends itself to finding the more peripheral, ephemeral elements around the main story. So many documentaries about athletes are reliant upon heavy use of archival footage and sit-down interviews with everyone whoever knew the person, with family members, friends, fellow athletes and coaches all weighing in to form a portrait of the protagonist as champion, […]
Tatiana Riegel’s first step toward becoming an Oscar nominated editor happened on the set of The Love Boat. 20th Century Fox Studios was just a short walk from where Riegel grew up in Los Angeles and around the time she turned 12 she began wandering onto the lot. “There wasn’t much security back then,” laughs Riegel. “I would watch shows like The Love Boat and M*A*S*H being shot, and I would go into the commissary and see everybody all dressed up in their costumes. I think people just assumed I was someone’s kid and kind of ignored me.” Her visits were typically […]
Joe uses a hammer. A tough guy for hire — one who specializes in cases involving pedophilia and child trafficking — Joe owns a gun, of course, and he uses that, too. But for the jobs that truly matter, ones triggering the dark memories that clank painfully around inside his brain, he prefers the brutal simplicity of a simple hammer that can fell an adversary with one silent, well-timed swoop. Arrestingly embodied by Joaquin Phoenix in Scottish director Lynne Ramsay’s fleet, impressionistic work of hardcore noir, You Were Never Really Here, winner of the Best Screenplay prize at last year’s […]
Lucrecia Martel’s ambitious historical drama Zama opens with a decidedly muted image. The film’s eponymous protagonist stands alone at a river’s edge staring into space with a look of quiet expectation. The water faintly laps at his feet, and a pale sky provides an indifferent light. Suited in full colonial regalia, he appears small and lonely against the rugged landscape, a man lost at the edge of the world. Moments later, he is seen hiding in the grass like a naughty child, spying on a group of naked women bathing in the river. They laugh and call out, “Voyeur! Voyeur!” […]