Authors — Nick Dawson
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Five Questions with Arcadia Director Olivia Silver
Winner of the Crystal Bear at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival, Olivia Silver’s debut feature Arcadia puts a more intimate spin on the road movie. In the film, father Tom (the always excellent John Hawkes) takes his three kids, teenager Caroline (Kendall Toole), 12-year-old Greta (Ryan Simpkins) and nine-year-old Nat (Ty Simpkins) on a 3,000-mile cross-country road trip to California, saying that their mother will join them soon in their new home. However, as the journey progresses, it is clear that the situation is much different than it seems. To coincide with Arcadia‘s opening today at the reRun Theater, Brooklyn-based […]
by Nick Dawson on Apr 12, 2013 -
Five Questions with Soft in the Head Director Nathan Silver
Nathan Silver’s Exit Elena was one of the surprises in the 2012 crop of American indies, a delightfully idiosyncratic lo-fi portrait of a withdrawn live-in nurse who becomes a key figure in the family household where she’s working, far beyond her professional role. The film, which featured all non-actors including Silver’s mother, girlfriend and Silver himself, premiered at Edinburgh and has played around the world since then, in the process winning fans such as director Hal Hartley and Filmmaker‘s own Brandon Harris (who recently programmed the film as part of Hammer to Nail‘s screening series). Though Exit Elena is still on […]
by Nick Dawson on Apr 10, 2013 -
Rambling On… About Reshoots and Editing on Set
In the final clip from this roundtable discussion between host Russell Constanzo and directors Alex Karpovsky (Red Flag), Ry Russo-Young (Nobody Walks), Antonio Campos (Simon Killer) and Craig Zobel (Compliance), the quartet talks about the advantages of budgeting for reshoots and how they managed to edit during production. From April 1, the full hour-long roundtable conversation from which this clip is taken will be live on 4/1 at RamblingOn.tv.
by Nick Dawson on Mar 29, 2013 -
Director Bob Byington on Somebody Up There Likes Me
It’s rare to come across a film that genuinely feels “different,” but Bob Byington’s Somebody Up There Likes Me is one of those films. Byington is an Austin-based writer/director and has worked (on both sides of the camera) with a number of mumblecore and post-mumblecore figures, directing Justin Rice and Alex Karpovsky in his 2009 feature Harmony and Me while also cameoing in Andrew Bujalski’s Beeswax and Alex Ross Perry’s The Color Wheel. His recent films, the gleefully edgy RSO [Registered Sex Offender] and the charming, sweet Harmony, were quirky indie comedies but definitely felt like they fit within a […]
by Nick Dawson on Mar 29, 2013 -
Armando Iannucci Talks Veep
Armando Iannucci is a veteran of British comedy who came through the ranks with such luminaries as Steve Coogan and Chris Morris, collaborating with them both on the seminal mock news show The Day Today and with Coogan alone on a number of shows featuring Alan Partridge. Recently, though, writer/director/producer Iannucci has become one of the foremost political satirists, starting with the BBC’s astute, dry Parliamentary mockumentary The Thick of It. That show then spawned a big-screen spin-off, In the Loop, a riotously funny dissection of U.S/U.K. political relations in the buildup to the Iraq War that not only became a major commercial hit but also […]
by Nick Dawson on Mar 26, 2013 -
Five Questions with My Brother the Devil Writer/Director Sally El Hosaini
Sally El Hossaini’s My Brother the Devil finally arrives in U.S. theaters on the back of a celebrated festival run that started at Sundance 14 months ago, and continued throughout 2012, as the film picked up prizes not only in Park City but at the Berlin and London Film Festivals and also the British Independent Film Awards. This debut feature from Welsh-Egyptian writer/director El Hosaini, a former documentarian who’s been working in film for many years, is set in the East London neighborhood of Hackney and concerns the relationship between two first generation British Egyptian brothers, gang member Rashid (James Floyd) and […]
by Nick Dawson on Mar 22, 2013 -
Music Video: “Brennisteinn” by Sigur Rós
After going four years without making a studio album, Sigur Rós finally released Valtari last May and just today announced that a new record, Kveikur, will drop this June 18. The band, now a three-piece after the departure earlier this year of Kjartan “Kjarri” Sveinsson, has a darker and more primal sound as evidenced in the track “Brennisteinn,” which translates as “sulfur.” The track’s video, directed by Andrew Thomas Huang, perfectly captures the band’s heavier sonic palette.
by Nick Dawson on Mar 22, 2013 -
Win a Prize Pack for The Place Beyond the Pines
The follow-up to his breakout hit Blue Valentine, writer/director Derek Cianfrance’s excellent epic crime drama The Place Beyond the Pines comes out next Friday, March 29, and one Filmmaker reader can win themselves an extra special viewing experience, thanks to a prize pack being offered by the film’s distributor, Focus Features. The lucky winner will get a $25 Visa Gift card to see the film in theaters, a T-shirt, the official soundtrack (featuring the original score by Mike Patton, plus tracks by Arvo Pärt, Bon Iver and Ennio Morricone) and a poster for the film. To win this prize pack, send an email to […]
by Nick Dawson on Mar 21, 2013 -
Rambling On… About the Definition of Success
In this week’s episode of Rambling On…, host Russell Costanzo talks to directors Alex Karpovsky (Red Flag), Ry Russo-Young (Nobody Walks), Antonio Campos (Simon Killer) and Craig Zobel (Compliance) about the parameters they put on success, and the pitfalls of being too focused on the perceived success of their movies. Check back next week for another episode of the show, exclusively here on the Filmmaker website.
by Nick Dawson on Mar 21, 2013 -
Latest Round of SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grant Finalists Announced
The San Francisco Film Society does a fine job supporting emerging talent through their Filmmaker360 program, and most notably the Kenneth Rainin Foundation grants. For success stories, you don’t have to look far: Destin Daniel Cretton’s Short Term 12, which was a recent KRF grant winner, just won SXSW, and the Oscar-nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild received multiple grants from Filmmaker360. (Cretton was recently profiled by the SFFS, which you can view here.) The latest group of KRF finalists have now been announced, and it includes Jonas Carpignano for his feature version of A Chjana, the stunning short that last year […]
by Nick Dawson on Mar 20, 2013
