Citadel New Video – January 29 A cousin of sorts to 2011’s Attack the Block, Irish writer/director Ciarán Foy’s Citadel ruminates on the sad lot of a new widower, caring for the prematurely born young child he lives with in a soon-to-be-demolished British suburban housing project. Little does he know that the hooded gangbangers who attacked his deceased wife with syringes and continue to hound him from afar are, in fact … wait for it … goblins! Skating around (or perhaps right through) some pretty ugly ethnopolitical undertones (the movie was clearly made pre-Trayvon), Citadel has the savage intensity and […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2013[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 8:30pm — Library Center Theatre, Park City] This past summer, I traveled to my hometown of Athens, Georgia, and shot a movie in the neighborhoods and streets of my childhood. Our film’s production office was the recently vacated office of Athens’ local heroes, R.E.M. On weekends the cast and crew partied in local bars and rock clubs (the Manhattan, the 40 Watt Club, the Georgia Theatre). I saw my parents all the time. It was a dream — a second childhood, balmy and green, somehow better than the first. I was so, so lucky. But […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2013After collaborating with Cinereach for many years on films including Benh Zeitlin’s four time Academy Award-nominated film, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Joshua Marston’s The Forgiveness of Blood, and Tom Gilroy’s The Cold Lands (premiering at the 2013 Berlin Film Festival), Paul Mezey has signed on as Producer in Residence at the not-for-profit production company and foundation. Mezey will support development, production and distribution of Cinereach’s films, as well as being involved in the organization’s grant-making activities and other key initiatives. Mezey is the founder of Journeyman Pictures, through which he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and award-winning […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2013[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 3:00pm — Yarrow Hotel Theatre, Park City] In making this film, I sacrificed time and plenty of sleep! The organizational nightmare that comes with working almost exclusively with archive has provided its own set of challenges. Creating a whole new working practice for myself and the team these past few films – and by that I mean the migration away from what we all as filmmakers would understand to be the daily routine, the broadly known elements of documentary making – has been tough. Watching thousands of hours or archive and selecting the material was […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2013[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 9:00pm — Egyptian Theatre, Park City] It’s independent thinking that makes filmmaking independent. Let me tell you a story. In the village there’s one inn. And the owner’s name is Jim. Jim’s surprised when someone comes in. ‘Cause usually no one comes in. But that day Ava came in, drank some gin, and asked Jim for a room to sleep in. “What does it cost?” Ava asked. “50 bucks,” Jim said, and she gave it to him. And Jim stared at the note which he hadn’t seen for a while at the inn. He went […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2013[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 3:00pm — Sundance Resort Screening Room, Sundance Resort] Metaphysically-speaking, there were many times during the more than five years it took to make this film when I felt like I had sacrificed my sanity and freedom… I suppose every documentary filmmaker experiences similar despondency at some point or other, but there were certainly long periods when it seemed like I was desperately trying to find my way through a labyrinth in the fog, and because I had no documentary community to look to for support and guidance here in Mumbai, it was often very lonely. […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2013[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 8:30pm — Prospector Square Theatre, Park City] I am the co-director of Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer and an executive producer on Jehane Noujaim’s The Square. The concept of sacrifice is at the heart of both movies. It would be hard to exaggerate the sacrifices made by the thousands of young people who have spent two years battling for freedom and justice in Egypt. Many have died, been tortured, beaten and arrested and their sacrifice and that of their families will be recognised as one of the most significant in Egypt’s long history. What the protestors […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2013[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, Noon — Temple Theatre, Park City] Telling the story of a country in the last 45 years, especially when the storytellers are the heads of the secret service, required a lot of sacrifices to be made; especially in depth and length of content. We spent a long time in the editing room, and our first cut was 3.5 hours. The biggest challenge is to understand where the heart of the film lies. One hard decision, for example, was the personal childhood stories of The Gatekeepers, especially the story of Avraham Shalom, who was born in […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2013[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 6:30pm — Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Salt Lake City] A good film takes great sacrifice. A great film takes an almost unbearable amount. Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours to get good at something. That’s nothing compared to making good documentary. A good film is like an iceberg, for every bit you can see there’s at least 10 times more work invisibly undergirding it. The scenes and characters that didn’t make the cut, the cuts that were recut, the time you invested researching, the time you spend waiting for the right shot, going […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2013[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 18, 12:15pm — Eccles Theatre] It’s funny, just getting a moment to address this interview question is a small sacrifice. It’s Christmastime, my kids are out of school and wild beyond reason, my husband just got back from a long work trip (making said kids wild), there are neighborhood Christmas gifts piled all over the house, a birthday party to throw together tonight, a possible baby to adopt, and a dog to bathe….sacrifice….isn’t that a synonym with motherhood already. So when asked what I sacrificed to make Austenland — it’s obvious to everyone who saw my kids that […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 17, 2013