Authors — Filmmaker Staff
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Stowe Story Labs Awards $50,000 Short Film Production Grant to Ali Imran Zaidi for The Boy with the Dinosaur Head
Stowe Story Labs is awarding their inaugural $50,000 Short Film Production Grant to Ali Imran Zaidi for The Boy with the Dinosaur Head, a story about a first-grade foster child whose teacher is “trying to help him out of his shell after a localized extinction level event.” Zaidi is a Black List Feature Writers Lab alum, and an inaugural fellow in Riz Ahmed’s Pillars Fund Artist Fellowship for Muslim Creators supported by Amazon, Disney and Netflix. He is currently developing a TV series with Ley Line Entertainment. Zaidi’s short will be directed by Imran J. Khan, whose debut coming-of-age feature, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 26, 2025 -
Chicken & Egg Announces Seven Award Recipients, One Finalist For 2025
Chicken & Egg Films, the organization that champions women and gender-expansive documentary filmmakers with funding, mentorship, and access, today announced more than $550,000 in grants to seven recipients and one finalist of its 2025 Chicken & Egg Award. Each cohort member will receive a $75,000 grant: a $50,000 unrestricted career grant and $25,000 to be applied to a project the filmmaker will work on during their breakthrough award year. The Award recipients are Rita Baghdadi, Kelly Duane de la Vega, Carola Fuentes, Angelo Madsen, Habiba Nosheen, Jenni Olson, and Anupama Srinivasan. The 2025 Chicken & Egg Award Finalist is Marcela […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 24, 2025 -
Watch: John Wilson’s Video for Bon Iver’s “Everything is Peaceful Love”
It’s Valentine’s Day, and what better way to celebrate than a romance-themed new song from Bon Iver with a video by…John Wilson? The eponymous How To with John Wilson creator, director and star returns with a music video for Bon Iver’s forthcoming comeback album, SABLE, fABLE. In a press release, musician Justin Vernon states that “I knew what kind of record I wanted to make the day we made ‘Everything Is Peaceful Love.’ I always knew that would be the feeling I wanted to share first. I wanted the video to just be people smiling uncontainably. Luckily, Eric Timothy Carlson suggested […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 14, 2025 -
“I Made Sure My Presence and Camerawork Reflected the Difficult Position They Were Put In”: DP Amy Bench on Shooting The Librarians
With a style influenced by her work with documentary director Albert Maysles as well as shadowing DP Emmanuel Lubezki on The Tree of Life, Amy Bench wanted her work on Kim Snyder’s Sundance-premiering doc The Librarians, about a group of Texas librarians fighting censorship, “to shoot in the way that showed audiences the urgency, alarm, and fear felt by librarians and students in Texas.” Below, Bench, whose previous credits include the 2016 Sundance title Holy Hell and the 2015 Berlinale Silver Bear-winner Bad at Dancing, discusses those influences, anonymizing her subjects, and for what scene she brought in a second […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 10, 2025 -
“The Final Film Often Grows From a Process of Letting Go of Preconceived Ideas…” Editor Stephania Dulowski on Bunnylovr
In Katarina Zhu’s Sundance Competition debut, Bunnylovr, a New York City-based Chinese American cam girl (played by the writer/director) navigates a number of fraught personal relationships (her ex, terminally ill father, artist best friend and one boundary-pushing client) while also caring for a white rabbit, a gift from said client. Working with Zhu to hone and focus these storylines was editor Stephania Dulowski, a Sundance veteran who cut Haley Elizabeth Anderson’s 2024 title, Tendaberry. Below, Dulowski talks about focusing on character, delineating the film’s final beats, and how working within a commercial house has influenced her approach to editing. Filmmaker: […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 10, 2025 -
“Only Four Weeks for Prep — Including Casting — and 16 Days to Shoot the Entire Film”: Paolo Maria Pedullà on Producing Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo)
Director Joel Alfonso Vargas made Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces list in 2024 on the basis of his short film, Mad Bills to Pay, which is now a debut feature selected for both the 2025 Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals. “A shoestring-budget production” realized by a “minimal team,” Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) is also a debut feature for producer Paolo Maria Pedullà, a UK National Film and Television School graduate whose previous work includes associate producing Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God as well as shorts and various high-end TV shows. Below, Pedullà discusses […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 10, 2025 -
“We Wanted to Get Across a Sense of the Overbearing Heat”: DP Rufai Ajala on Mad Bills to Pay
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“Loads of the Story Was Abstracted”: Editor Irfan Van Tuijl on Mad Bills to Pay
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“I Just Wanted to Make Art with My Friends”: Producers Luke Patton & Joe Camerota on Didn’t Die
In Meera Menon’s Sundance Midnights selection Didn’t Die, a podcast host in a post-apocalyptic finds herself faced by challenges both familial and professional. Didn’t Die was produced by Menon; her husband, co-writer, VFX supervisor and DP Paul Gleason; Erica Fishman; Luke Patton; and Joe Camerota. Camerota and Patton are both first-time producers, and below, they talk about the beauty of making small art with friends and the value in pressing on until you find solutions. See all responses to our annual Sundance first-time producer interviews here. Filmmaker: How did you connect with this filmmaker and wind up producing the film? Camerota: I met […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 28, 2025 -
“Any Type of Work Has Things to Teach”: Editor Geoffrey Boothby on Didn’t Die
Meera Menon’s 2025 Sundance Film Festival Midnights selection follows Vinita, a snarky podcast host in a post-apocalyptic world dealing with a philandering ex, traumatized siblings, and a dwindling audience. The film is a low-budget, black-and-white homage to George Romero updated for contemporary anxieties. Geoff Boothby served as the film’s editor. Below, he talks about cutting in placeholders that allowed for future shoots to be carefully designed and how choices of what equipment to use in the shoot reverberate in the edit. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 28, 2025
