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Watch Now: Short Films from the 2023 Filmfort Film Festival
Filmmaker is happy to partner once again with the Filmfort Film Festival by exclusively hosting four short films from this year's lineup, which will be available to view on our site through Sunday. The three day festival—which occurs during the Treefort Music Fest in Boise, Idaho—highlights an array of emerging independent cinema. Alongside robust film programming, Filmfort also features DIY panels and filmmaker Q&As in the heart of the city's downtown area. The four short films we've teamed up to share include an experimental documentary with music by Phillip Glass, a time-loop narrative spurred by insomnia and grief, the story of a scholar of vibrations whose life becomes shaky as a result and an engrossing tale of a mythical goddess. You can… Read more
Ghostface Takes Brooklyn: DP Brett Jutkiewicz on Scream VI
Scream VI
In 1989, Friday the 13th transplanted its hockey-masked slasher from summer camp to concrete jungle for the franchise’s eighth installment, Jason Takes Manhattan. That titular promise was not fully delivered upon: Manhattan was mostly Vancouver and Jason spent much of the running time on a boat full of high schoolers traveling to the city. The newest Scream offers up a similar relocation as Ghostface follows the previous chapter’s survivors from Woodsboro to college. Again, a Canadian city (this time Montreal) stands in for New York. But this time, the killer actually spends the entire running time chasing his victims through bodegas, subway cars and unaffordable apartments. With Scream VI out in theaters, cinematographer Brett Jutkiewicz spoke to Filmmaker about bringing Ghostface… Read more
SFFILM Announces Full Lineup for the 66th San Francisco International Film Festival
Jharrel Jerome in Boots Riley's I'm a Virgo.
SFFILM announced today the full lineup for the 66th annual San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM Festival), which will take place in the Bay Area from April 13-23. The longest-running film festival in the Americas, this year's program will screen films from 37 countries at various theaters in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland. “It is SFFILM Festival season once again and I cannot wait to share this year’s program with local audiences,” said Jessie Fairbanks, SFFILM’s Director of Programming in a press release. “The line-up includes a wealth of Bay Area filmmakers across all sections, and highlights new—and seminal—work from eminent filmmakers. Our curatorial team, dedicated to showcasing evocative stories, prioritized films that unite us all through cinematic expression and outstanding… Read more
Applications Are Now Open for The 2023 Gotham Week Project Market
Applications are now live for The Gotham Film & Media Institute's (formerly IFP, and Filmmaker's publisher) annual Gotham Week Project Market. The overarching Gotham Week event takes place between September 16-22, and the Project Market will be held from September 18-22. This year's programming will consist of in-person events in New York City as well as virtual offerings. The Project Market connects new documentary and fiction projects in various stages of production with industry executives looking to develop, finance or distribute works across mediums, whether they be audio, feature-length film or episodic works. In addition to pitching and receiving feedback, attendees often develop long-spanning professional relationships with distributors, financiers, production companies, festival programmers, sales and talent agents, collaborators and others. Several recent… Read more
Trailer Watch: Alex Lehmann’s Acidman
Thomas Haden Church and Dianna Agron in Acidman.
Watch the trailer for Acidman, Alex Lehmann's most recent directorial effort. Co-written by Lehmann and Chris Dowling, the film was produced in part by Liz Cardenas, who won the 2022 Film Independent Spirit Award for producing the Duplass Brothers’ 7 Days. This year, she was nominated for the Independent Spirit Producers Award. The film stars Dianna Agron as Maggie, a woman who decides to track down her long-estranged father Lloyd (Thomas Hayden Church), a recluse who's been given the nickname "Acidman" by locals. Part of their reunion entails attempting to make contact with UFOs, a search that reveals difficult truths about Lloyd's mental health. In a newsletter dispatch from a U.S. in Progress panel he moderated in Poland this past November, Editor-in-Chief Scott Macaulay wrote: As… Read more
Applications Are Now Open for the Chicken & Egg Pictures Research and Development Grant
Chicken & Egg Pictures has announced their latest initiative, teaming up with Netflix on a $450,000 fund to support women and non-binary documentary filmmakers who have previously made at least two feature films and are currently working toward their next project. As many as 30 filmmaking teams will receive a $10,000 grant for research or a $20,000 grant for development. In addition to the grant, recipients will be provided with "peer support, mentorship opportunities and deeper connections in the documentary film industry." The Chicken & Egg Pictures Research & Development Grant is accepting applications through 12 p.m. ET on Monday, April 24. Recipients will be announced sometime this summer. As an organization, Chicken & Egg Pictures has supported many prominent non-fiction filmmakers, such… Read more
Filmmaker Seeks New Media and Audio Writers
At Filmmaker, we are seeking freelance writers to cover new media — AR, VR, XR, the metaverse, AI-generated work, etc. — as well as audio (podcasts, etc). Opportunities exist for regular print columns as well as web columns and one-off web pieces. Ideal writers will have published writing samples and deep knowledge of these topics and be able to cover them from a Filmmaker style, which is to mix critical appraisals with insights into the production, technical and financing issues that affect both individual works and the respective fields. If you feel you qualify and would like to pitch or learn more, please send me an email at smacaulay@thegotham.org with “Audio” or "New Media" in the subject line. Please include one… Read more
Trailer Watch: Nicole Holofcener’s You Hurt My Feelings
Julia Louis-Dreyfus in You Hurt My Feelings.
After premiering at Sundance earlier this year, a trailer and release date have arrived for Nicole Holofcener's latest, You Hurt My Feelings. The film stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus (who previously starred with James Gandolfini in Holofcener's 2013 effort Enough Said) as a struggling author and instructor at the New School in Manhattan who receives unexpected negative feedback about her forthcoming book. Also starring are Tobias Menzies, Owen Teague, Michaela Watkins, Arian Moayed and Jeannie Berlin. In my review out of Sundance, I wrote: The real crux of the film’s story involves Beth overhearing her therapist husband Don (Tobias Menzies) voicing his honest opinion regarding her manuscript. Though she’s given him countless drafts to mark up with suggestions, he’s always insisted that her prose… Read more
