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17 Soundstages and 750 Crew Members: DP Alice Brooks on Wicked
Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo in Wicked
Drawing on a huge fanbase, the screen adaptation of Wicked has helped revitalize the year-end theatrical box office. Director Jon M. Chu's Wicked builds on its Broadway pedigree by casting Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Galinda/Glinda, frenemies who are summoned to the Emerald City by the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum). Wicked unfolds on a massive scale that can feel overwhelming. Nine million tulips were planted for an exterior scene. One set encompassed two soundstages with the wall between them removed. The score by Stephen Schwartz and John Powell was performed by an eighty-member orchestra. Finding intimate, natural moments became key to the film's success. To that end, most of the songs were performed live. Large scale practical… Read more
“We Discover What the Film Is When We Watch It”: Marianne Jean-Baptiste on Hard Truths
Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Hard Truths
Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths is a study in contracts. At the center of the tale are two sisters, Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) and Chantelle (Michele Austin), who are as dissimilar as possible. While Chantelle, a hairdresser and single mother of two adult daughters, has a cheerful outlook on life, Pansy is brash, gruff and downright mean toward everyone she encounters—from strangers in the grocery store and the local furniture shop to her detached husband Curtley (David Webber) and reclusive son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett). Over the course of 100 minutes, it’s easy to despise Pansy because of her shockingly short temper and outward cruelty toward others. But it’s through Jean-Baptiste’s deeply layered performance, which impressively lays bare Pansy’s interiority and vulnerabilities, that Leigh’s… Read more
“You Can Be a Troubled Teen at Any Point in Your Life”: Filmmakers — and MacDowell Fellows — Micaela Durand and Daniel Chew on Their Metrograph Series
Micaela Durand and Daniel Chew
Micaela Durand and Daniel Chew met as undergraduate film students at NYU, where they honed a collaborative practice that responded to the high-budget, high-flown projects of their peers with DIY aesthetics and an emphasis on developing their own formal language. Folding in experiences from their respective careers in the worlds and subcultures of art, fashion, and publishing, First (2018), Negative Two (2019) and 38 (2023) form a triptych of canny portraits of New York subcultures and of personal lives unfolding in uneasy symbiosis with the internet. In advance of a series presented by Metrograph and MacDowell, where Chew and Durand held fellowships in 2020 and 2021, I spoke with the filmmakers over Zoom about these films, their shared sensibility, their… Read more
“Musicals Are the Hardest Thing I Could Ever Cut”: Editor Myron Kerstein on Wicked
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in Wicked
For Myron Kerstein, whose work on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s feature debut Tick, Tick... Boom! earned him a 2022 Oscar nomination for best editing, cutting a musical number is no different than any other scene in a movie. With Wicked, the editor’s third collaboration with director Jon M. Chu (following Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights), Kerstein had roughly 250 hours of footage to assemble into the two-part adaptation of the long-running and beloved Broadway musical that serves as a prequel to The Wizard of Oz—and honoring both the stage show and the classic 1939 film brought extra challenges to the already difficult task of putting a movie musical together. Set before a tornado drops Dorothy Gale into Oz, Wicked charts the… Read more
“We Needed Crazier Ideas”: DP Mihai Malaimare Jr. on Megalopolis
Giancarlo Esposito in Megalopolis
During his storied career, Francis Ford Coppola forged relationships with some of film’s most renowned cinematographers: Gordon Willis, Vittorio Storaro, Bill Butler, John Toll and Jordan Cronenweth all shot multiple projects for him. But with Megalopolis, Mihai Malaimare Jr. becomes Coppola’s most frequent collaborator behind the camera. They first met when Coppola came to Malaimare’s native Romania to shoot 2007’s Youth Without Youth, the beginning of a low-budget experimental phase for Coppola that included the Malaimare-shot Tetro and Twixt. Even then, Coppola was already dreaming of his quixotic passion project Megalopolis, showing Malaimare concept art and B-roll of New York City shot by Ron Fricke. With Megalopolis finally coming to fruition, Malaimare spoke to Filmmaker about the evolution of digital cameras,… Read more
2025 Sundance Film Festival Announces 93 Projects Across Its Feature Film and Episodic Programs
Bunnylovr
The Sundance Institute announced today the 87 feature films and six episodic projects selected for the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Among the films are new pictures from returning filmmakers Cherien Dabis, Bill Condon, Amalia Ulman, Ira Sachs, and Amir “Questlove” Thompson, while in the U.S. and World Dramatic Competitions, all 20 filmmakers are making their first appearance at the festival. Additionally, 41% of the entire feature film program across the festival consists of films by first-time directors. Those statistics, says Eugene Hernandez, Director, Sundance Film Festival and Public Programing, in an interview with Filmmaker, are "a reminder of how much Sundance remains, year after year, about discovery. Just to have so many filmmakers coming to the festival with a feature for… Read more
UTA Partner Theresa Peters Joins the Gotham Film & Media Institute’s Board of Directors
Theresa Peters
The Gotham Film & Media Institute, Filmmaker's parent publication, announced today that UTA Partner Theresa Peters will join the organization’s Board of Directors. Known as a guiding force in entertainment who has shaped the evolution of countless careers across film and media, Peters will work with The Gotham to advance its mission of celebrating and nurturing independent film and media creators by providing career-building resources, access to industry influencers, and pathways to wider recognition. “Theresa Peters represents the very best of what an industry leader can be – someone who not only shapes the careers of renowned artists but also creates opportunities for emerging talent. Her role as Partner at UTA, an agency that has consistently demonstrated its commitment to developing new… Read more
Open Call Announced for the 2025 Oxbelly Retreat for Screenwriters and Literary Fiction Writers
Oxbelly Beach
Oxbelly announced today an open call for the Oxbelly Retreat's 2025 edition, to be held June 28 through July 6 at Costa Navarino in Messinia, Greece. Also announced are Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World director Radu Jude as the leader of the Screenwriters Program and The Road to the Country author Chigozie Obioma as leader of the Fiction Writers Program. The application deadline is January 22, 2025. There is no cost to apply, and all expenses for fellows are covered. More from the press release: The Oxbelly Retreat is an annual gathering of international storytellers, dedicated to the exchange of ideas, deepening of craft and broadening of artistic horizons through intercultural dialogue. In 2025, the Oxbelly Retreat… Read more
