Authors — Erik Luers
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SXSW 2017: Nanfu Wang’s I Am Another You and Jason Cortlund & Julia Halperin’s La Barracuda
While resisting the urge to hyperbolically and lazily link any one film I see at this year’s SXSW to another, allow me to quickly note that Nanfu Wang’s I Am Another You (a world premiere in the Documentary Feature Competition section) and Julia Halperin and Jason Cortlund’s La Barracuda (which world premiered in Narrative Feature Competition) are, at their core, about women voluntarily visiting a piece of America foreign to them (Florida and Texas, respectively) to reveal their bare selves in the process. Wang is from China, the character of Sinoloa is from England; both come to town with a purpose that may not always be clear, […]
by Erik Luers on Mar 20, 2017 -
Richard Linklater on the Future of the Austin Film Society: “This is the Best Year We’ve Ever Had”
The Austin Film Society hosted a media-exclusive lunch this past Friday to discuss their most exciting current project: the redesign and expansion of their cinema and event space. Presented by Founder & Artistic Director Richard Linklater, CEO Rebecca Campbell, Head of Film & Creative Media Holly Herrick, architect Michael Hsu and Designtrait, the afternoon stressed a shared belief in making a place for Austinites to discover artistically significant cinema old and new. A repertory house, a first-run theater, a shrine to great records and beautiful poster art, and an event space equipped to host a multitude of special gatherings: it’s clear that the AFS […]
by Erik Luers on Mar 14, 2017 -
“I’ve Always Been Cautious of Measuring Success”: Kazik Radwanski on How Heavy This Hammer
After premiering on home soil at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, Canadian filmmaker Kazik Radwanski’s second feature film, How Heavy This Hammer, screened at the Berlin International Film Festival to critical acclaim. A New York premiere, as part of the Museum of the Moving Image’s annual winter First Look series, wouldn’t surface until a year later where, in anticipation of its Gotham debut, it was deemed by the Village Voice as “striking, clear-eyed, and very, very funny” and “justly celebrated as one of the best Canadian films in years.” A microbudget film about an overweight Canadian father saddled with a combative attitude and love for computer games (well, one […]
by Erik Luers on Feb 17, 2017 -
Race, Robbery and Going Viral: Eight Short Films from Sundance 2017
As the 2017 Sundance Film Festival wraps up another edition of high-profile features with notable stars, secret screenings and exorbitant sales, attention must be paid to the less-covered but no less worthy shorts that premiered in Park City last week. Brought together in eight blocks (Animation, Documentary, Midnight, and Shorts Programs 1-5), these films represent an equal mix of prolonged, thought-out narratives and fleeting moments of inspiration discovered on the fly. For better or worse, shorts are often seen as a director’s calling card for upcoming feature work. While that’s all well and good (and I hope further success comes their way!), […]
by Erik Luers on Jan 26, 2017 -
Keith Fulton and Lou Pepe on The Bad Kids, Achieving Documentary Shot/Reverse Shot with One Camera and Balancing Advocacy and Aesthetics
Placed deep in the secluded landscape of the Mojave Desert, Black Rock High School isn’t your typical institution for American teenagers. A continuation school designed specifically for trouble students for whom Black Rock is their last chance at academic redemption, the men and women frequenting these halls face a daily struggle of balancing their studies with often toxic home lives (and fearing that the destructive family cycle could repeat itself over the next generation). As society appears ready to deem them unworthy of fitting in, the title characters in the documentary The Bad Kids work increasingly hard to fight against their stereotypical image. As the […]
by Erik Luers on Dec 29, 2016 -
“There’s No Such Thing as a Post-Racial America”: Sam Pollard on Two Trains Runnin’
In the summer of ’64, after President Lyndon B. Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act which enabled African-Americans to vote for their government, many young men and women (primarily white) took to Mississippi to join the Mississippi Summer Project, a season long initiative that would register African-Americans to vote in an increasingly dangerous, highly segregated and hate-filled state. At the same time — and as politically removed from the tense, racist climate as could be — two groups of white, male country blues fans (unbeknownst to each other) from the “big cities”also headed to Mississippi to search for the whereabouts of two […]
by Erik Luers on Dec 6, 2016 -
“More Publicity Means More Protection”: Sonia Kennebeck on National Bird
Sonia Kennebeck’s National Bird is a humanistic look at those responsible for and affected by America’s divisive drone war program. Those working in drone warfare are thousands of miles removed from the destination of their attack, so National Bird is primarily placed in suburban America, away from the crimes at the film’s core. Through three former air force workers turned whistleblowers (and their victims), Kennebeck’s film is equally about an emotional and spatial disconnect. We do not interact with those we are affecting most – please feel free to draw your own parallels to current American politics here – and therefore the country can […]
by Erik Luers on Nov 11, 2016 -
From AD to UT: Keith Maitland on Tower
Racking up three prizes upon its premiere at SXSW 2016 (Best Documentary Feature, the Louis Black “Lone Star” Award, and an audience award), Keith Maitland’s Tower debuted on home turf — which doesn’t mean that audiences knew the tragic details. A breathtaking retelling of the horrific 1966 University of Texas campus shooting that left 16 dead, Tower tirelessly recreates, through modern day interviews, archival footage, and meticulously crafted rotoscope animation, the life-or-death situation many found themselves unexpectedly thrust into. By having the viewer live through the experience while simultaneously listening to the stories of those affected by it, Maitland’s film emphasizes memory and shared experience. Impressively incorporating animation, Tower is […]
by Erik Luers on Oct 14, 2016 -
Racism in Baltimore via Pest Control: Theo Anthony on Rat Film
An ethnographic and sociological nonfiction horror film, Theo Anthony’s Rat Film is a free-form experience with topical relevance. Long burdened by a documented history of residential segregation, Baltimore, Maryland — Anthony’s current place of residence — has served as a recent political hotbed due to the unjustified death of African-American resident Freddie Gray while in police custody. Less than a month after a court ruling declared (in the midst of the strengthening Black Lives Matter movement) all tried police officers not guilty of any wrongdoing in the Gray homicide, Anthony’s challenging film debuted in Switzerland at the Locarno Film Festival to much […]
by Erik Luers on Aug 19, 2016 -
Deformed Creatures for Everyone: The 20th Fantasia International Film Festival
Independent of the intent of hardworking programmers and staff, a film festival can occur at an unexpectedly opportune time. That I attended the 20th edition of the Montreal-based Fantasia International Film Festival as many New York colleagues spent their evenings watching the genre-defying, quasi-patriotic spectacle known as the Republican National Convention only made my politically-removed self more grateful. Creating and celebrating horror within the confines of narrative and nonfiction cinema proved to be a more peaceful environment than gawking at the horrific notions of those in power. At the festival’s midway point, the Frontières International Co-Production Market — a four-day event where […]
by Erik Luers on Aug 1, 2016
