Authors — Nick Dawson
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Foreign Language Film Shortlist Announced for the 85th Academy Awards
Just announced were the nine films that will advance to the next round of voting in the Foreign Language Film category for the 85th Academy Awards®. (71 films had originally qualified in the category.) The list is a mixture of accessible crowd favorites (The Intouchables, A Royal Affair), with the rest being made of up critical darlings that have established themselves on the festival circuit, most notably Haneke’s Amour. Two films which will definitely benefit from the exposure are Baltasar Kormákur’s The Deep (which I wrote about just a few days ago) and another Nordic maritime tale, Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg’s Kon-Tiki, as neither were […]
by Nick Dawson on Dec 21, 2012 -
Kevin B. Lee’s Top 12 Films of 2012
He’s one of the sharpest film minds out there, and knows how to fashion great video essays. Here’s Kevin B. Lee pondering his favorite 12 of ’12.
by Nick Dawson on Dec 20, 2012 -
Baltasar Kormákur on The Deep
Since making his transition from actor to writer/director in 2000 with the raucous comedy 101 Reykjavik, Baltasar Kormákur has rapidly established himself as one of the most gifted and versatile European filmmakers. The Icelandic multi-hyphenate has moved with seeming ease from grand family dramas (The Sea) to gritty police procedurals (Jar City) and poignant comedies (White Night Wedding), while also turning out English-language indie thrillers such as 2005’s A Little Trip to Heaven (starring Forest Whitaker, Julia Stiles and Jeremy Renner) and the 2010’s Inhale, with Diane Kruger, Dermot Mulroney and Sam Shepard. Though Kormákur had arguably the biggest film of his career this year with Contraband – the Mark […]
by Nick Dawson on Dec 18, 2012 -
Trailer Watch: Pablo Larrain’s No
A hit at the Cannes and New York film festivals, a selection at Sundance next month and Chile’s official entry at the Academy Awards, Pablo Larrain’s No is a rousing and entertaining piece of cinema that details the “No” referendum campaign that aimed to unseat Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet in 1988. Out theatrically on February 15 through Sony Pictures Classics, the film got its first trailer today.
by Nick Dawson on Dec 17, 2012 -
Starting Today: 25 New Faces Week at the reRun Theater
During the fall, Filmmaker magazine organized a traveling screening series showcasing the work of this year’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film,” which included a fantastic show at the IFC Center. Tonight, the 25 New Faces series returns to NYC for a week of screenings at the reRun Theater in Dumbo, with the festivities kicking off with an excellent shorts program followed by an opening night party. Screening this evening are shorts by Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari (Aquadettes), Desiree Akhavan and Ingrid Jungermann (3 episodes of their web series The Slope), Julia Pott (Belly), Ian Harnarine (Doubles with Slight […]
by Nick Dawson on Dec 14, 2012 -
Coogler, Tully, Guerrero, de la Vega and Cretton Among SFFS KRF Grant Winners
In recent weeks, we profiled in three posts on the site, the 13 finalists for the San Francisco Film Society’s Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grants. (In the current Fall issue of Filmmaker, we also spotlight the SFFS’s Filmmaker360 program, of which the KRF grants are the centerpiece.) Today, the winners of the KRF grants were announced, and five of the six were “25 New Faces” alums. Ryan Coogler, got postproduction funds for his forthcoming first feature, Fruitvale, which will debut at Sundance next month, while Michael Tully got money to finish his current film, Ping Pong Summer, which wrapped a […]
by Nick Dawson on Dec 11, 2012 -
Critic David Ehrlich’s Top 25 Movies of 2012
Here’s a great top 25 films of 2012 and a really great video to showcase them all. I’m happy to say that David Ehrlich and I agree on our favorite (nay, the flat out best) movie of the year, but I won’t tip my hand to say what it is as you should really watch this video in its entirety. (And congrats to Girl Walk // All Day, the first film Filmmaker/IFP programmed at the reRun Theater, which is number 10 on this list.)
by Nick Dawson on Dec 7, 2012 -
David Lowery’s First Film, St. Nick, Now Playing for Free at NoBudge
Today is St. Nicholas’ Day, and very fittingly David Lowery’s debut feature, St. Nick, is available to watch for free on the NoBudge website. In advance of the world premiere of Lowery’s second film, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, at Sundance in January, it’s also a great time to revisit this film — or watch it for the first time. You can watch St. Nick here from today until December 13.
by Nick Dawson on Dec 6, 2012 -
Slamdance Film Festival Competition Lineup Announced
Directly following a week of Sundance announcements, the Slamdance Film Festival, which takes place in Park City between January 18 to 24, has revealed its competition lineup. The narrative competition features films from five different countries — including, interestingly, three from Germany — and the film that I will definitely try to catch from that strand is Nadia Szold’s Joy de V., which stars both Evan Louison (the lead in Filmmaker contributor Brandon Harris’ feature debut Redlegs) and the legendary Claudia Cardinale. In the doc section, Where I Am (whose logline reads, “The courageous story of Gay American writer Robert Drake and his […]
by Nick Dawson on Dec 5, 2012 -
2013 Sundance Film Festival Announces Short Film Program
I must admit that I didn’t have any real expectations about the just-announced shorts lineup at the forthcoming Sundance Film Festival, but this slate looks really strong, a good mixture of familiar names (many with feature experience) and emerging talents. Scanning through the selection, I’m excited to see new works by Cat Candler, Nash Edgerton and Spencer Susser, Guillermo Arriaga, Jillian Mayer, Lucas Leyva (from 2012’s “25 New Faces”), Lauren Wolkstein, Goran Dukic and Damien Chazelle in the U.S. narrative section. And kudos to a “25 New Face” from 2010, Robert Machoian, who has two shorts — Movies Made From Home # 6 […]
by Nick Dawson on Dec 4, 2012
