Film at Lincoln Center announces exclusively via Filmmaker this year’s participants for both the Artists Academy and Critics Academy, which will take place during the 61st annual New York Film Festival. Led by filmmaker Stacey Marbrey, the 2023 Artists Academy will entail a three-day workshop that will feature insight from working filmmakers, industry professionals and Artist Academy alumni. Specifically, some of the 2023 Academy mentors are film executive and former president of IFC Films Arianna Bocco and Emmy Award-winning producer Liz Nord. Per a press release, this year’s Artists Academy will include “panels, case studies, roundtable discussions, and networking opportunities […]
by Natalia Keogan on Sep 6, 2023Check out the trailer for Wim Wenders’s Cannes-premiering 3D documentary Anselm, which follows German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer. His fourth feature shot in the format (with a fifth already in the works), Anselm will have its North American premiere at Telluride tomorrow. An official synopsis reads: In Anselm, Wim Wenders creates a portrait of Anselm Kiefer, one of the most innovative and important painters and sculptors of our time. Shot in 3D and 6K-resolution, the film presents a cinematic experience of the artist’s work which explores human existence and the cyclical nature of history, inspired by literature, poetry, philosophy, […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 30, 2023The following interview was published in Filmmaker‘s Summer 2023 issue and is being reposted today as Bottoms arrives in theaters via Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Bottoms, the sophomore feature from Shiva Baby writer-director Emma Seligman, takes the concept of blood and guts in high school to a queer, campy pinnacle. Co-written by Seligman and Rachel Sennott—who starred in Shiva Baby and returns to act in Bottoms alongside frequent comic collaborator Ayo Edebiri—the project embraces a streak of absurdist satire that’s been present in Sennott’s sensibility since launching her highly popular, if now infrequent, Twitter presence. Coupled with Seligman’s directorial desire to “always do […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 25, 2023Film at Lincoln Center announces today the Currents lineup for the 61st New York Film Festival, which will take place at FLC and select theaters across NYC from September 29 through October 15. Comprised of 11 features and 36 shorts, the 2023 Currents lineup—which serves to highlight “filmmakers and artists working at the vanguard of the medium”—will feature films from 23 countries and compliment the NYFF Main Slate. “The filmmakers in this year’s Currents lineup range from well-known veterans to prodigious newcomers, and the films encompass narrative, documentary, and experimental modes, sometimes recombined and redefined,” said Dennis Lim, Artistic Director, […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 23, 2023Filmmaker is happy to share the official trailer for Blow Up My Life, the debut feature from co-writers, directors and producers Ryan Dickie and Abigail Horton. The duo appeared on our 25 New Faces of Film list in 2016 with their production outfit New Media Ltd. alongside their collaborator Mike Anderson. The film has screened at the Austin Film Festival, Chattanooga Film Festival, Cucalorus Film Festival and Harlem International Film Festival, where it won Best Film. The film stars Jason Selvig (of the political satire comedy duo The Good Liars) and Kara Young (I’m a Virgo). Co-starring are Davram Stiefler (Selvig’s The Good Liars […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 22, 2023The Sundance Institute announces today 23 projects that have been selected for the 2023 Documentary Fund, which provides unrestricted grant funding totaling just over $1,000,000 for filmmakers from around the globe. Among this year’s recipients, six projects are in development, 14 are in production and three are in post-production. Grants are made possible by the Open Society Foundations, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Gucci and the Kendeda Fund. Highlights among 2023 grantees are Looking at Ourselves directed by Oscar and Emmy-nominated filmmaker Lourdes Portillo, Adam’s Apple directed by artist and filmmaker Amy Jenkins, Untitled Uvalde Documentary by Anayansi […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 21, 2023The following interview was originally published during our Sundance 2023 coverage and is being republished today ahead of birth/rebirth hitting theaters via IFC Films and Shudder this weekend. — Editor The narrative kernel of birth/rebirth, Laura Moss’s debut feature, was originally planted in the writer-director’s mind 20 years ago. The filmmaker (and former EMT) was creatively stirred after reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and feeling that its interest in unnatural procreation could translate well to an all-female retelling. As the decades passed, Moss began negotiating integral facets of their identity—namely coming out as non-binary and becoming increasingly convinced they would never have […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 18, 2023A breakout at Sundance, Berlinale and New Directors/New Films this year, Chilean-Serbian writer-director Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s debut feature Mutt is as scrappy and charming as its canine title. Following a frenzied 24 hours in the life of New York trans man Feña (Lío Mehiel, the first trans actor to win the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting at Sundance), Mutt explores the constant micro-aggressions that trans people face daily—even in a supposedly hyper-tolerant locale, especially from loved ones—and the connections and community that make these encounters sting a little bit less. Even when Feña faces his capricious ex-boyfriend, moody tween […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 18, 2023World premiering at TIFF before hitting IMAX and theater screens later this fall, the trailer arrives from A24 today for the 40th anniversary 4K restoration of Jonathan Demme‘s Stop Making Sense. The seminal Talking Heads concert film captures the band—comprised of David Byrne, Jerry Harrison and spouses Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, married now for 45 years—performing at Hollywood’s Pantages Theater in December of 1983. The September 11 TIFF world premiere of the 4K restoration will be followed by a Q&A conducted by Spike Lee with all of the original Talking Heads band members (this should be juicy in its […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 17, 2023Film at Lincoln Center announces today the Spotlight lineup for the 61st New York Film Festival, taking place from September 29 through October 15. The full spotlight slate arrives shortly after FLC announced that the North American premiere of Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro will be presented at a Spotlight Gala event at David Geffen Hall on October 2. Highlights include world premieres of Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie’s co-directed episodic effort The Curse and Garth Davis’s adaptation of Iain Reid’s novel Foe, starring Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal. Other notable selections are Harmony Korine’s infrared-shot AGGRO DR1FT, which will […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 17, 2023