Authors — Filmmaker Staff
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The Popcorn List Releases Second Annual Survey of 19 Recommended Feature Films
The Popcorn List has released its second annual survey of recommended feature films. From the press release: The Popcorn List (TPL), an annual survey of acclaimed feature films returns for its second year with 19 film recommendations. TPL was founded in 2024 as a discovery and visibility initiative to amplify independent films that deserve to be seen more widely, highlight the discovery nature of film festivals and the craft of film curation, and respect audiences’ desire for story-driven movies. The result is an open-source database of acclaimed films without U.S. distribution (theatrical, VOD, self-distributed), as recommended by festival programmers across […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Apr 25, 2025 -
Inaugural Henry Awards for Public Interest Documentary Announce Grand Prize Winner, Finalists and Honorable Mentions
The inaugural Henry Awards for Public Interest Documentary, awarded by the Documentary Film in the Public Interest Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, have been announced, including a grand prize of $100,000 for While We Watched, whose director Vinay Shukla contributed an essay to our fall 2023 issue about his creation of the best-selling board game Shasn. The awards were decided by a jury consisting of Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, Mandy Chang, Petra Costa, Ron Nixon and Michèle Stephenson. From the press release: The Documentary Film in the Public Interest Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School’s […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Apr 17, 2025 -
Tribeca Festival Announces 2025 Features Including New Films by RZA, Mariska Hargitay
The Tribeca Festival, which runs from June 4 to 15 in 2025, has announced the feature film lineup for this year’s edition, including the debut feature from 25 New Face of Independent Film 2022 Walter Thompson-Hernández. From the press release: The final selections were chosen from a record-breaking number of submissions (13,541). This year’s program includes 118 feature films representing 95 world premieres, 135 filmmakers and 36 countries. 48 (40%) of the features are directed by women and 42 (36%) are directed by BIPOC filmmakers. 44 filmmakers are making their feature debut at this year’s Tribeca Festival and 32 directors […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Apr 16, 2025 -
ACID Announces 2025 Cannes Lineup
The ACID section of Cannes has announced its lineup for this year’s edition. From the press release: ACID (Association du Cinéma Indépendant pour sa Diffusion) is a collective of filmmakers who support independent films by giving them greater exposure. Their goal? To help original, daring films reach their audience, both in France and abroad. […] ACID stands out for its unique selection process: filmmakers choose the films they support. Each year, 14 filmmakers see over 600 feature films for the Cannes Film Festival and select 9 of them, to receive invaluable support for their release in theaters and at festivals, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Apr 15, 2025 -
New Henry Awards Announces 15 Inaugural Semi-Finalists for Public Interest Documentary Annual Prize
The Documentary Film in the Public Interest Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy announced today a new award for documentary film — The Henry Awards for Public Interest Documentary —and its first list of 15 semi-finalists. “The Henry Awards recognize nonfiction films that advance public understanding of the critical issues of our time while demonstrating outstanding cinematic achievement,” the Center announced today in a press release. “Guided by the hallmarks of ethical practice, rigorous investigation, and courageous storytelling, the Henry Awards are intended to honor and encourage a documentary filmmaking practice grounded in […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Mar 18, 2025 -
Trailer Watch: Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2025
The forthcoming edition of the annual Rendez-Vous with French Cinema series, taking place this year at Film at Lincoln Center, will be the 30th anniversary of the series. The lineup this year includes two underrated films from last year’s Cannes, Patricia Mazuy’s Visiting Hours and the late Sophie Fillières’ final film, This Life of Mine. Watch the trailer above for the series, which will take place from March 6 to 16.
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 28, 2025 -
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
