tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24291570550205164362010-04-15T14:55:15.329-04:00Sundance FeaturesSundance Film Festival as covered by Filmmaker MagazineWebmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03643468321632241172noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-84046262713539384812010-02-01T04:51:00.006-05:002010-02-01T10:49:43.703-05:00THE RED CHAPEL'S MADS BRUGGER | By Alicia Van CouveringWhen Danish Zentropa director Mads Brugger decided to take himself and two Korean-Danish comedians to North Korea under the guise of a fake comedy project, he employed what he thought might be the magic word for repressive regimes seeking international image burnishing: “cultural exchange.” The film opens with a shot of Brugger, lying on a hotel bed, calmly reading Kim Jong-Il’s official Scott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-38954731150855308992010-01-28T13:30:00.003-05:002010-01-28T13:45:23.198-05:00DADDY LONGLEGS' JOSH AND BENNY SAFDIE | By Scott MacaulayWhen I was asked by The Huffington Post to comment on New York movies premiering in Sundance, the first film that popped into my mind was Josh and Bennie Safdie's Daddy Longlegs. Now, as you may know, I'm a big fan of the Safdie brothers, selecting Josh for our 25 New Faces for the film he directed, The Pleasure of Being Robbed in 2008. That picture is a delightfully freewheeling romance of sortsScott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-72189568125540978102010-01-27T15:12:00.005-05:002010-01-27T15:34:41.766-05:00HIS AND HERS' KEN WALDROP | By Alicia Van CouveringKen Waldrop’s His & Hers is a documentary focusing on 70 women from the Irish Midlands, arranged chronologically from age 0 to 90, telling small stories about their lives. Irish Midlands women, being funny, sarcastic, charming and warm, are good subjects; Waldrop knew that because he grew up the son of one of very funny and sarcastic Irish Midlands mother. He constructed the film to mirror his Scott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-27496546373150189882010-01-27T00:31:00.002-05:002010-01-27T00:57:28.767-05:00THE ROMANTICS' GALT NIEDERHOFFER | By Alicia Van CouveringGalt Niederhoffer is no stranger to Sundance, having produced films that won awards there beginning in 1997, when Morgan J. Freeman’s Hurricane Streets won the Audience Award. As a founding member of Plum Pictures, one of New York’s most active independent film production companies, she has produced over a dozen films, including Grace is Gone, Dedication, Prozac Nation, Lonesome Jim, The Winning Scott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-52973844214827494962010-01-25T13:17:00.008-05:002010-01-25T16:30:18.382-05:00SUNDANCE SENIOR PROGRAMMER SHARI FRILOT TALKS NEW FRONTIER | By Alicia Van CouveringTasked with “celebrating experimentation and the convergence of art and film,” the New Frontier section at Sundance has been exhibiting feature films and installations for the last four years. Shari Frilot is the programmer, and spent the entire year reviewing work from new artists, figuring out which part of the ground being broken she wants to put in front of the Sundance audience.How to show Scott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-84858750196231517762010-01-24T09:00:00.001-05:002010-01-24T09:00:03.892-05:00SMOOTH CRIMINAL: A LOOK INSIDE MICHAEL WINTERBOTTOM'S THE KILLER INSIDE ME | By Damon SmithThis piece was originally printed in our 2009 Fall issue.As a filmmaker, British writer-director Michael Winterbottom (24 Hour Party People, In This World, A Mighty Heart) doesn’t linger long in one place. Just consider the globe-hopping locations he shoots in (Scotland, Pakistan, Iran, Shanghai), the hyperkinetic pace at which he works (there have been 18 features since 1995), and the Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-74584482316951153012010-01-24T02:22:00.004-05:002010-01-24T12:09:02.802-05:00LOVERS OF HATE'S BRYAN POYSER | By Alicia Van CouveringPlaying in competition this year is Austin filmmaker Bryan Poyser’s Lovers of Hate, starring Alex Karpovsky and Chris Doubek as brothers, Paul and Rudy, vying for the attention of Rudys’ soon-to-be ex-wife, Heather (Heather Kafka.) Paul is enjoying wild success as the author of a Harry Potter-like series of children’s books, which are based on stories that Rudy used to make up for Paul when they Scott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-67826051532817682832010-01-23T09:00:00.006-05:002010-02-05T00:00:11.221-05:00WOMEN WITHOUT MEN'S SHIRIN NESHAT | By Livia BloomUNTITLED (WOMEN OF ALLAH). PHOTO COURTESY OF GLADSTONE GALLERY, NEW YORK."It’s very flattering to be interviewed by a film magazine as opposed to an art publication," said Shirin Neshat. "I am very flattered anybody would think it’s worth talking to me." Widely-acknowledged as one of the most influential contemporary Middle-Eastern artists (and apparently one of the most modest), Neshat and her Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-70051282722412323372010-01-23T09:00:00.004-05:002010-01-23T09:00:02.082-05:00RUNNING OUT OF AIR: PENNING MIDNIGHT MOVIE BURIED | By Melissa SilvestriThis piece was originally printed in our 2010 Winter issue.Hell can be many things — being buried alive in the Iraqi desert, for example, or perhaps just watching your screenplay slowly disintegrate on the shelf during never-ending studio “development.” The opposite of most screenwriters, Chris Sparling knows the former but not the latter. He went directly from struggling indie director to Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-21978596720192717752010-01-22T14:55:00.005-05:002010-01-22T15:06:04.529-05:00CATFISH'S HENRY JOOST AND ARIEL SCHULMAN | By Alicia Van CouveringThe filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman work together in New York as Supermarche, and are prolific producers of music videos, commercials and feature films (Opus Jazz: NY Export, premiering on PBS this Spring, is their latest.) They also share an office with Schulman’s younger brother, Yaniv. One day Yaniv got an email from an eight-year-old girl who wanted to paint a picture of one of hisScott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-62241173115301398162010-01-22T09:00:00.001-05:002010-01-22T09:00:05.828-05:00PLEASE GIVE'S NICOLE HOLOFCENER | By Jason GuerrasioThis piece was originally printed in our 2010 Winter issue.In a New York Times piece written last month on the commercial success in 2009 of films aimed at female audiences (Twilight: New Moon, Julie & Julia, The Proposal), critic Manohla Dargis also took note of the relative paucity of female directors in Hollywood. Sure, there’s Kathryn Bigelow, who won many critic’s Best Director awards with Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-76105850960126496692010-01-21T23:45:00.007-05:002010-01-22T00:34:20.598-05:00MY PERESTROIKA'S ROBIN HESSMAN | By Alicia Van CouveringRobin Hessman’s My Perestroika is a documentary that shows modern-day Russia from the inside out. Five Russian adults reveal their personal histories through interviews and home movies, talking us through their childhood in school together during the die-hard communist Brezhnev years of the 1970s, through Gorbachev, the collapse of the USSR, and, finally, the coups, oligarchs and wealth transfersScott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-62735212836527481692010-01-20T01:40:00.001-05:002010-01-20T01:47:03.658-05:00SUNDANCE DIRECTOR JOHN COOPER TALKS 2010 FEST & BEYOND | By Scott MacaulayWhen filmmakers heard that the Sundance Film Festival’s longstanding Director, Geoffrey Gilmore, was leaving, they wondered if his departure would signify a major change in direction at an institution that more than any other has defined the world of American independent film. When, a couple of weeks later, John Cooper, Sundance’s Director of Programming, was elevated to the Director position, Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-18196523046185661722010-01-19T17:02:00.000-05:002010-01-19T17:13:03.515-05:00PROGRAM DIRECTOR TREVOR GROTH INTRODUCES US TO NEXT | By Alicia Van CouveringOne of the biggest premieres at Sundance this year doesn’t involve a star-studded premiere party or the unspooling of a glossy 35mm print: it’s an entirely new section of programming: <=>, pronounced “Next” by those not brave enough to type or say the symbol. Director of programming Trevor Groth has been involved with the festival for 25 years, and points out that the symbol actually means “Less Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-15503454167975272772010-01-19T17:01:00.001-05:002010-01-21T11:12:20.913-05:00WHEN DOES PLAN B BECOME PLAN A? | By Anthony KaufmanThis is Anthony Kaufman's Industry Beat column from our 2010 Winter issue.Old distribution models die hard.Everyone knows about the passing of that once-established indie film paradigm: Make a movie, show it at a festival, sell it to a distributor, get it booked in theaters, watch it find a home on DVD and cable — and then somewhere down the line, after all the release expenses are recovered, Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-19082220208340663322009-01-25T15:18:00.003-05:002010-02-20T21:12:18.525-05:00ART AND COPY'S DOUG PRAY By Alicia Van CouveringDocumentarian Doug Pray has made films about grafitti artists (Infamy), an iterant surfing family (Surfwise), Seattle punk scene (Hype!) Hip Hop DJ’s (Scratch) and truckers (Big Rig), and now, with Art & Copy, he profiles the living legends of corporate advertising. Advertising has a complicated relationship to filmmaking — for one thing, many feature and documentary directors make a living doingScott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-34650776287825576342009-01-22T23:22:00.003-05:002010-02-20T21:12:18.525-05:00AGAINST THE CURRENT'S PETER CALLAHAN By Alicia Van CouveringPeter Callahan’s Againt the Current is road movie that takes place in a vehicle that “couldn’t out-run a turtle.” It’s a story about Paul Thompson (Joseph Fiennes), a man in his mid-30’s who is still grieving for his wife five years after her death. Emotionally adrift, Thompson decides to make it literal by enlisting his best friend (Justin Kirk) to man a boat as he swims the entire length of theScott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-26342072270805758662009-01-19T20:08:00.006-05:002010-02-20T21:12:18.525-05:00SLAMDANCE: ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE UNDEAD'S JORDAN GALLAND By Alicia Van Couvering
Up there with Snakes On A Plane in the pantheon of catchy titles, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead is a horror-comedy about Hamlet and the Holy Grail premiering in Slamdance this year. The movie stars Jake Hoffman, Devon Aoki, Jeremy Sisto, John Ventimiglia, Ralph Maccio and Waris Ahluwalia and was only the second East Coast feature film to use the Red camera.
The film’s director, Scott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-4853134819211295882009-01-19T19:37:00.006-05:002010-02-20T21:12:18.525-05:00THE MISSING PERSON'S NOAH BUSCHEL By Alicia Van CouveringNoah Buschel’s The Missing Person stars Michael Shannon, last seen as the asylum-bound neighbor in Revolutionary Road, and if Sam Mendes had directed this film, he might have played it straight, disregarding the minefield of clichés to pay reverent homage to The Long Goodbye; Buschel knows what a bold move it is to make a noir in 2007, so he subverts the genre with un-ironic simplicity and a few Scott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-36646805246499904792009-01-18T17:00:00.001-05:002010-02-20T21:12:18.526-05:00SOME KIND OF LOVE By Nick DawsonGreg Mottola's Adventureland screened in the Premieres section of this year's Sundance Film Festival. You can read our story on the film in the Winter issue section.Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-9294383902646093952009-01-18T11:00:00.001-05:002010-02-20T21:12:18.526-05:00CROSSING OVER: LOUIS PSIHOYOS By Alicia Van CouveringUnlike other films playing in our three-part look at crossover artists at Sundance, The Cove is not playing in New Frontier, but in the Documentary Competition, and that’s despite its director’s non-traditional background. Louie Psihoyos was one of the world’s top-ranked photographers, a staff member at National Geographic who had traveled the world taking portraits of the world’s most famous Scott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-48296068257514978522009-01-17T21:00:00.001-05:002010-02-20T21:12:18.526-05:00OFF THE ROPES By Jason GuerrasioJames Toback's Tyson screened in the Premieres section of this year's Sundance Film Festival. You can read our story on the film in the Winter issue section.Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-10738172813962136082009-01-17T17:06:00.006-05:002010-02-20T21:12:18.526-05:00LYNN SHELTON, HUMPDAY By Nick DawsonLynn Shelton has worked in a variety of creative forms for most of her life, but seems to have found her true voice in the role of writer-director. A Seattle native, Shelton spent her formative years immersed in painting, writing poetry, taking pictures and acting. She was a stage actress for ten years (and was told she was destined to work in film), and subsequently studied for an MFA in Nick Dawsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12860797195563953766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-65000834656567354982009-01-17T11:00:00.002-05:002010-02-20T21:12:18.526-05:00CROSSING OVER: CHARLIE WHITE By Alicia Van CouveringCalifornia-based artist Charlie White has made his mark with highly produced, carefully-staged photographs that construct scenes both disturbing and familiar, work that aims to dissect the violence, desires, and social anxieties that trouble the American collective unconscious. From his Understanding Joshua Series (2001), which offered an adorable/repulsive monster character as surrogate for Scott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429157055020516436.post-3781405602186933502009-01-16T16:00:00.003-05:002010-02-20T21:12:18.527-05:00CHAMELEON STREET By Mike PlanteMike Plante wrote about the DVD release of Chameleon Street in our Load & Play section in 2007. The film will screen at this year's Sundance Film Festival in its Sundance Collection section.In Chameleon Street, the enigmatic Doug Street goes through a series of cons, sometimes to make money, sometimes to prove he can do more than what the world expects of him. In short time he goes from a simple Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0