A squirm-inducing sensation on the festival circuit, Harvard Sensory Lab leaders Lucien Castaing-Tayler and Véréna Paravel’s De Humani Corporis Fabrica has a new trailer ahead of its limited release next month. The film consists of raw medical footage—eye surgery, genital drilling and an assortment of equally unsettling internal procedures—shot between eight different French hospitals. Vadim Rizov covered De Humani during its Cannes premiere last year, writing: …Fabrica toggles between something like Fantastic Voyage and a particularly grody Wiseman documentary. Defamiliarizing images on the former front include a camera being inserted deep inside….whatever (I don’t want to know) that made me wonder why I’ve never […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Mar 24, 2023SFFILM announced today the full lineup for the 66th annual San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM Festival), which will take place in the Bay Area from April 13-23. The longest-running film festival in the Americas, this year’s program will screen films from 37 countries at various theaters in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland. “It is SFFILM Festival season once again and I cannot wait to share this year’s program with local audiences,” said Jessie Fairbanks, SFFILM’s Director of Programming in a press release. “The line-up includes a wealth of Bay Area filmmakers across all sections, and highlights new—and seminal—work from […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Mar 22, 2023Applications are now live for The Gotham Film & Media Institute’s (formerly IFP, and Filmmaker‘s publisher) annual Gotham Week Project Market. The overarching Gotham Week event takes place between September 16-22, and the Project Market will be held from September 18-22. This year’s programming will consist of in-person events in New York City as well as virtual offerings. The Project Market connects new documentary and fiction projects in various stages of production with industry executives looking to develop, finance or distribute works across mediums, whether they be audio, feature-length film or episodic works. In addition to pitching and receiving feedback, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Mar 22, 2023Watch the trailer for Acidman, Alex Lehmann‘s most recent directorial effort. Co-written by Lehmann and Chris Dowling, the film was produced in part by Liz Cardenas, who won the 2022 Film Independent Spirit Award for producing the Duplass Brothers’ 7 Days. This year, she was nominated for the Independent Spirit Producers Award. The film stars Dianna Agron as Maggie, a woman who decides to track down her long-estranged father Lloyd (Thomas Hayden Church), a recluse who’s been given the nickname “Acidman” by locals. Part of their reunion entails attempting to make contact with UFOs, a search that reveals difficult truths about Lloyd’s […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Mar 21, 2023Chicken & Egg Pictures has announced their latest initiative, teaming up with Netflix on a $450,000 fund to support women and non-binary documentary filmmakers who have previously made at least two feature films and are currently working toward their next project. As many as 30 filmmaking teams will receive a $10,000 grant for research or a $20,000 grant for development. In addition to the grant, recipients will be provided with “peer support, mentorship opportunities and deeper connections in the documentary film industry.” The Chicken & Egg Pictures Research & Development Grant is accepting applications through 12 p.m. ET on Monday, April […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Mar 21, 2023Talking to The Guardian’s Xan Brooks in 2014, Kelly Reichardt reflected on the students she’s taught in her teaching position as an artist in residence at Bard. “The kids I know, I love them, but they’re not mad the way we used to be,” she noted. “They seem so unafraid and so un-angry. It makes them very nice people. It doesn’t make for great art. I ask them all the time: ‘Aren’t you mad at anything?’ They look at me like I’m off my rocker.” That sense of simmering discontent percolates through Michelle Williams’s performance as Lizzy, a ceramics sculptor […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Mar 16, 2023The ever-changing landscape of New York City is the captivating, challenging backdrop of A Thousand and One, writer-director A.V. Rockwell’s feature debut. Chronicling a mother and son’s loving yet fraught relationship from 1993 through 2005, the film incorporates speeches and news reports detailing specific policies of mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg across two decades, a device that serves as a concrete reminder of time passing and stakes rising for the film’s protagonists. Strict jaywalking laws, the advent of stop-and-frisk and increased gentrification initiatives become tangible perils that the Harlem-based characters must navigate, lest they lose the freedom they’ve worked […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Mar 16, 2023With the 40th anniversary of Jonathan Demme’s impeccable Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense on the horizon, A24 has announced a worldwide theatrical re-release of the film, which has been remastered in 4K. While dates have yet to be announced, it’s likely that the restoration’s theatrical run will tie into the band’s forthcoming deluxe vinyl reissue of the soundtrack, which will hit shelves on August 18. Notably, the vinyl reissue will also feature two previously unreleased tracks: “Cities” and “Big Business/I Zimbra.” Tied into the announcement is a brief teaser that depicts David Byrne picking up his iconic “big suit” […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Mar 16, 2023Today, Metrograph announces Inge de Leeuw as their newly appointed Director of Programming, who joins the New York-based company after working as a programmer of English-language titles at International Film Festival Rotterdam for over a decade, where she introduced European audiences to filmmakers like Kogonada, Terence Nance and Eliza Hitman. (Notably, the aforementioned filmmakers each previously appeared on our 25 New Faces of Independent Film list). “Metrograph is a family built around film curation—daring, inspiring, personal programs that have driven our growth since we opened in 2016,” said Alexander Olch, Metrograph’s Founder, via a press release. “These countless detailed choices […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Mar 15, 2023Following his 2016 feature Operation Avalanche and re-launching Nirvana the Band the Show in 2016, director Matt Johnson returns with BlackBerry. The film, co-written by Johnson and longtime producing partner Matthew Miller, was adapted from the book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff. The film’s short synopsis reads: BlackBerry tells the story of Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, the two men that charted the course of the spectacular rise and catastrophic demise of the world’s first smartphone. Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton star as Lazaridis and […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Mar 15, 2023