28 WEEKS LATER
After bringing us recent gorefests like The Hills Have Eyes remake and Turistas, Fox Atomic is set to release the much-anticipated sequel to 28 Days Later. 28 Weeks Later takes place, as the title suggests, about six months after the government-created virus known as Rage overtook the globe. The remaining survivors are now struggling to re-populate London, which supposedly has just been safely fortified by the U.S. Army. Then all hell breaks loose...again. Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (of 2001's Intacto) is taking the reigns from Danny Boyle, so it will be interesting to see how closely 28 Weeks Later follows in the style of the original.

DAY NIGHT, DAY NIGHT
Written and directed by Julia Loktev, Day Night Day Night is a frightening look into the mind of a disturbed 19-year-old girl who aspires to be a suicide bomber. The girl, who's name, ethnicity, and backstory is never revealed, is played by newcomer Luisa Williams. The film follows her sole perspective as she walks the swarming and industrious streets of NYC, ultimately determined to blow herself up in Times Square. This is Loktev's second film to date and was shot with practically no budget, yet it manages to create more tension and suspense than any big budget Hollywood movie has in years.

Read more about this film in the Spring 07 edition of Filmmaker, out now!

DUCK FLIES UNDER THE RADAR
It wasn't until today, when Film Ick flagged up the film's trailer, that I discovered that Duck was being released next week.

From Duck's trailer, it is very apparent that writer-director Nicole Bettauer has a singular vision of the direction in which America is heading. Indeed who else would conceive a futuristic film about Los Angeles revolving around Philip Baker Hall and his pet duck?! The movie premiered at Cinequest back in 2005, where it won the audience award, played at festivals around the world, but seemingly failed to find a distributor willing to put their weight behind such an unusual film...

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OLIVER CASTS THE FIRST STONE
I was at a press conference in 2003 where Oliver Stone scornfully dismissed George W. Bush as "a synthetic person... an ex-alcoholic who believes in Jesus. What could be more dangerous!" It was a memorable put-down, and Stone's contempt for Bush (who, incidentally, he was at Yale with) was all too evident. In the light of all that, it is not surprising that Stone has made a 60-second TV spot for MoveOn.Org Political Action backing the move to pull troops out of Iraq.

Read the complete stories at Filmmakermagazine's Blog...

THE DIRECTOR INTERVIEWS - OREN RUDAVSKY, THE TREATMENT - By Nick Dawson
After studying at Oberlin College and NYU Film School, director and cinematographer Oren Rudavsky carved out a niche for himself in filmmaking: if you have seen a documentary about Judaism made in the last 20 years, most likely Rudavsky was involved in it. He has made numerous documentaries for television, many of them Jewish-themed, and has recently graduated to making documentary features, with notable success. The highly-praised A Life Apart (1997), an examination of the Hasidic lifestyle in America co-directed by Rudavsky with Menachem Daum (and narrated by Leonard Nimoy and Sarah Jessica Parker) was followed two years later by And Baby Makes Two, a heartwarming film Rudavsky made with his wife, Judy Katz, about women who choose to have children on their own. Rudavsky's most recent documentary, Hiding and Seeking (2004), was another collaboration with Daum and told the compelling story of a New York Orthodox Jewish family's journey to their ancestral home in Poland. It was released by First Run Features, and was nominated for Best Documentary at the Independent Spirit Awards....

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