Filmmaker

Challenging Five Untruths about Women in the Film Business at IFP Week’s Persona Project Panel

(l to r) Aijah Keith, Sara Kiener, Dana Vladimir, Taylor Shung, Taylor Hess

It’s been a wild summer for the film industry — and for anyone who has fucked with females. At IFP Week, I was happy to see Filmmaker contributor Taylor Hess touch, ever so delicately, on some of the issues around discrimination and mistreatment that have been plaguing us all. She hosted a panel version of her Persona Project column, which celebrates up-and-coming women in film. On the panel were Sara Kiener, Head of Distribution Strategies at Cinereach; Taylor Shung, Co-Producer, A Woman, a Part; Aijah Keith, Manager of Acquisitions & Production at IFC; and Dana Vladimir, Head of Communications and Special Events at Metrograph. The choice of who to include on the panel was refreshing. We get to see directors,…  Read more

By Meredith Alloway

Personal Doesn’t Mean Small: IFP Week Filmmakers On Tackling Big Issues With Intimate Stories

Filmmakers David France, Cecilia Aldaronod and Yance Ford talk about their films at IFP Week 2017.

“I think we have this profound misrepresentation around personal films being small,” said Cecilia Aldarondo, one of three filmmakers of personal docs who spoke at IFP Week 2017. The panel was called “When the Personal Gets Political and the Political Gets Personal.” In the case of all three filmmakers’ films, they’re both. “I’ve gotten so many responses from potential funders of people who think that way. They hear ‘personal’ and they hear ‘small.’ They think it won’t have an audience. With these projects, I think we’ve demonstrated that’s not the case. If we’re dealing with questions of social change and justice, we also have to be thinking about the intimate.” Aldarondo was present at the talk, moderated by Sundance Institute…  Read more

By Matt Prigge

Five Questions for Stronger Director David Gordon Green

Jake Gyllenhaal and David Gordon Green on the set of Stronger. Photo: Scott Garfield (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions)

David Gordon Green finds it difficult to focus on one type of project at any given time, and as a result, frustrates his agents in working out how to market him. But the Arkansas-born, South Carolina-based writer/ director, whose diverse filmography includes early aughts independent standouts like All The Real Girls and George Washington as well as mainstream hits like Pineapple Express, is okay with that — so long as he is aggressively working on projects that he is both passionate about and that challenge him. Opening today in theaters is his modestly-budgeted drama Stronger, which depicts the true story of Boston Marathon bombing victim Jeff Bauman who is forced to rebuild his life after losing both his legs. The…  Read more

By Tiffany Pritchard

“Women Don’t Always Get to Play the Funny Parts”: Julie Klausner Talks Making Difficult People Herself at IFP Week

Julie Klausner stops by IFP Week 2017 to talk about her show Difficult People

If there’s a common thread that runs through any truly original work, it’s this: The creators saw something that wasn’t in the world, so they created it themselves. You hear that a lot in independent films. You also hear it, increasingly, in TV now too. The lines separating cinema and television are getting blurrier. For further proof, witness Julie Klausner’s appearance at IFP Week 2017. Klausner is the creator of Difficult People, which is not a movie but a hit TV show on Hulu. But the way she approached her TV show sounds a lot the way indie filmmakers talk about their passion projects. For starters, the thing Klausner wasn’t seeing in the world was not just bigger roles for…  Read more

By Matt Prigge

“Gain the Trust of the Audience”: Cenk Uygur Talks Trump, News and the Internet at IFP Week

Political commentator Cenk Uygur, of The Young Turks, talks at IFP Week 2017.

Cenk Uygur isn’t happy Trump got elected, but he is fine with stealing parts of his playbook. Not the bad moves — just the ones that are, arguably, good. As the main host and co-creator of The Young Turks, a progressive show which began on Sirirus and now lives online, Uygur is after the same slice of the populist pie as the president he so despises. Cenk Uygur isn’t a household name, but perhaps he should be. He is, literally, internet-famous. The Young Turks gets 200 million views a month, meaning he has more fans that a Wolf Blitzer or a Joe Scarborough. In other words, Uygur is using both new media and the populist revolution unleashed by the Orange Menace to hoover…  Read more

By Matt Prigge

Finding Communion at the 2017 Camden International Film Festival

All That Passes By Through a Window That Doesn't Open