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Reflections on Independent Film and 33 Years of Filmmaker
Photo by Jem Cohen In 2017, for the 25th anniversary of Filmmaker, we commissioned a radical redesign and also initiated a new upfront section: Reflections. For four issues we published pieces looking back at the history of the magazine as well as ones that meditated anew on its enduring concerns, such as struggles of early career filmmakers, the changing models of independent producing, the role of print magazines in a digital culture, and the shifting definitions of the word “independent.” When our anniversary year was over, I decided to keep the section, reasoning that “reflections” didn’t have to just refer to the past; these reflections could speculate towards the future as well. Some of my favorite pieces of the last eight years have been published here, a portion of the magazine designed to be capacious enough to include personal memoir, advocacy pieces, dialogues on filmmaking, film history and more.
So, for my final issue of Filmmaker as Editor-in-Chief, I decided to think again about this section, and to do so in a very personal way. Consider the pages that follow as kind of a mind map expressing some of the interests, curiosities and obsessions that have animated my years as both the Editor-in-Chief but also as a film watcher and film producer. Rather than create a master plan for this issue, I decided to let serendipity and chance take over. Random encounters at film festivals and workshops, trips abroad, conversations in movie theater lobbies, a rummage through my hard drive and perusing through back issues prompted ideas for pieces, and I’m grateful to the writers and photographers here for responding so thoughtfully and eloquently to my asking, “Hey, would you write something for my last issue?”
For what is something of a magazine within a magazine (thanks to designer Charlotte Gosch for the visual realization of this idea) I’ve written italicized personal introductions for each work. So, as you read this final Reflections of mine, allow yourself to skip backward and forward through Filmmaker’s 33 years, joining these writers as they both celebrate and self-interrogate, indulge in and resist nostalgia, motivate and render doubt, and pen manifestos as well as confessions, all while somehow staying in the game of independent filmmaking. I hope each page turn is a surprise.
A Letter from the Brink, by Brandon Harris
On Eisenstein, Godard and Welles: Michael Almereyda & Radu Jude in Conversation
Microbudget Case Study: Free Time, by Ryan Martin Brown
Richard Kern on Shooting for Filmmaker
I Want Aura, by Nicholas Rombes
On Filmmaker’s Fall, 2003 Issue, by Ricky D’Ambrose
The Way It Was, by Eric Mitchell
Learning from Amos Poe, by Jaime Levinas
Dwelling, by Iva Radivojević
Producing and Motherhood, by Taylor Hess
Images of the World (After the Death of Cinema), by David Barker
Revisiting the Neoliberal Echo Chamber, by Keisha Nicole Knight and Sophia Haid
Back to Zero: Yong Soon Min, Film Theory and Genocide, by James Schamus
So You Want to Rule the Indie Film World (Redux), by Ted Hope
Anthony Dod Mantle on Cinematographer Origins, as told to Scott Macaulay
A Most Violent Year: Vampires, Families and 2025 in Film, by Mark Asch
A Return to the Video Store, by Jonathan Marlow
Shooting the 25 New Faces, by Richard Koek
Independent Film’s Next Chapter, by Mike Ryan
Going Again: Laura Klein, interviewed by Scott Macaulay
Film and Psychoanalysis, by Andrea Sisson
Historicizing the Independent Awards Race: Manohla Dargis Speaks with Scott Macaulay
Big Art/Little Debt/Together, by Esther Robinson
Everything is Fine (Maybe?), by Brian Newman
On Filmmaker’s First Decade: a Conversation between Scott Macaulay, Karol Martesko-Fenster and Holly Willis
