Authors — Filmmaker Staff
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Trailer Watch: Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter
The first trailer for The Card Counter, Paul Schrader’s keenly anticipated follow-up to First Reformed, has arrived. The premise is straightforward: sentenced to ten years in prison, fall guy Oscar Isaac learns how to count cards. The tone here is intriguingly all over the place, including Isaac’ flirtatious casino floor meeting with dealer Tiffany Haddish, promises of cold-blooded revenge and at least one shot directly quoting, per Schrader’s usual reference point, Pickpocket. (It’s the hands reaching towards each other through a prison visiting room’s glass pane.) The Card Counter premieres at this year’s Venice Film Festival before entering release on September 10 from […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 27, 2021 -
Across Time: Filmmakers Reflect on Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror
The year after I graduated college, I’d go to Andrei Tarkovsky double bills a lot. In the New York of the mid-1980s, there would be a Tarkovsky retrospective every few months at Film Forum and now-shuttered spots like the Thalia and Metro Twin. The Russian director’s 1975 Mirror would always be the second film on the program—Andrei Rublev and Mirror, Stalker and Mirror, Solaris and Mirror—so, I wound up seeing Mirror many times. This was partly due to fatigue. My day job was writing grants for a nonprofit. I’d see these movies after work and would invariably drift off during […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 12, 2021 -
Love and Memories: Director Phil Lord Interviews Director Heidi Ewing About Her Debut Narrative Feature, I Carry You With Me
This article was originally published in Filmmaker‘s Spring, 2021 edition. It is being posted today online in conjunction with I Carry You With Me‘s release in theaters from Sony Pictures Classics. Arriving amidst a number of recent pictures exploring notions of hybridity—mostly documentaries that incorporate narrative or meta elements—nonfiction filmmaker Heidi Ewing’s feature dramatic debut, I Carry You With Me, deploys its formal invention in movingly unexpected ways. Taking the recounted memories of an undocumented Mexican couple living in New York, Ewing tells a swooning, deeply romantic period love story. And it’s one that achieves an arresting sobriety with contemporary […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jun 25, 2021 -
Sundance Institute Documentary Fund Announces Grants for 18 Projects
The Sundance Institute today announced the latest cohort of Sundance Institute Documentary Fund Grantees. A total of $590,000 in unrestricted grant support has been provided to 18 projects in various stages including five in development, eight in production, and five in post-production. From the press release: This granting cycle’s supported projects are from 20 countries and territories across five continents (Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America), with over half the projects having international roots. Granting focused on projects by artists from historically underrepresented communities, ensuring that these stories are being told from within the communities. This year all […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jun 8, 2021 -
The Gotham Announces 20 Projects and Selected Fellows for the 2021 Documentary and TV Series Labs
The Gotham Film & Media Institute (formerly IFP), Filmmaker’s parent organization, announced today twenty feature and series projects participating across two labs this month: the Gotham Documentary Feature Lab (May 17-21) for debut non-fiction feature films currently in post-production and the Gotham TV Series Lab (running May 24-28), for outstanding projects in development and written/created by first-time series creators. “We are living through a period of remarkable innovation in the independent film industry. This year marks our second virtual lab series which has helped us to provide greater access to The Gotham’s resources so that creatives can expand their network and further develop […]
by Filmmaker Staff on May 27, 2021 -
Trailer Watch: Theo Anthony’s All Light, Everywhere
All Light, Everywhere—Theo Anthony’s follow up to his feature debut Ratfilm—premiered during this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Now scheduled for theatrical release on June 4, All Light is a sweeping essay-film look at modes of surveillance and the ways they feed racism. Drone surveillance and police bodycams manufactured by Axon (formerly TASER) are just some of the subjects under consideration by Anthony (a 25 New Face of Film in 2015). (And click here to read Anthony’s interview with Sky Hopinka, the cover feature from our most recent issue.)
by Filmmaker Staff on May 18, 2021 -
Exquisite Shorts Program, A New Online Platform, Opens Submissions
Last year, Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari (who’s previously written for Filmmaker) launched the concept and a campaign for a new online short film platform. The Exquisite Shorts Program is designed to create a new model for short film exhibition. After a development period, the website and submissions are now live and ready to receive short films. Every film that screens in the program will be selected from submissions made through the website. The first short film will be selected by acclaimed Lingua Franca filmmaker, Isabel Sandoval. Here’s a refresher on how the program works: Filmmaker 1 → Picks a short […]
by Filmmaker Staff on May 7, 2021 -
Sponsored Content: ActionVFX’s New Crowd VFX Will Make Crowd Replication Easier, Cheaper & Faster
ActionVFX.com has released 650+ clips of their new Sports and Concert Crowd VFX. As productions all around the world were canceled or postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw the landscape of what we considered “normal” completely shift. Now, we have to be more careful than ever when being in large groups, which can hinder industry productions. ActionVFX saw a chance to propel the industry forward in unprecedented times. Following their governing authorities’ guidelines, they got to work. ActionVFX hired real actors and actresses to safely visit their studio to film crowd plates that can be easily replicated in […]
by Filmmaker Staff on May 3, 2021 -
Nomadland, Promising Young Woman, I May Destroy You Win Multiple 2021 Film Independent Spirit Awards
The Film Independent Spirit Awards were held last night — virtually, as opposed to at its customary Santa Monica beach location — and Nomadland was the big multiple winner, scoring wins for Best Feature, Director, Editing, and Cinematography. Other multiple winners included Promising Young Woman, Sound of Metal and, in the new television categories, I May Destroy You and Unorthodox. The complete list of winners follows as well as Melissa Villaseñor’s opening monologue. BEST FEATURE – Nomandland (PRODUCERS: Mollye Asher, Dan Javey, Frances McDormand, Peter Spears, Chloé Zhao) BEST DIRECTOR – Chloé Zhao, Nomadland BEST FEMALE LEAD – Carey Mulligan, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Apr 23, 2021 -
Trailer Watch: New Directors/New Films 2021 Selection Wood and Water
One of the highlights of this year’s edition of New Directors/New Films, Jonas Bak’s strong feature film debut Wood and Water stars his own mother, Anke. Shot on 16mm in both the director’s native Germany and Hong Kong, where Bak is currently based, Wood and Water follows Anke in the immediate days following her retirement. When she leaves her small town to visit her long-gone son in Hong Kong, Anke finds herself adjacent to the protests unfolding there. With a keen compositional eye, palpable warmth towards all the strangers she meets and the occasional musical assist from Brian Eno’s New Space Music, Wood and […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Apr 22, 2021
