Authors — Sarah Salovaara
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Michel Gondry’s Low-Budget Taxi Driver Remake
Swede: to remake a film with limited resources, cheap effects and obsolete technology, as per Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind. The idiosyncratic Frenchman put his own concept to the test with his low-budget re-imagining of Taxi Driver. Upon watching the short, screenwriter Paul Schrader had this much to say: “I always maintained Taxi Driver should never [have a] sequel or [be] remade. Michel Gondry is making me rethink this position.” With Schrader recently dismissing talk of a Lars Von Trier Taxi Driver remake, now is the time to revisit Gondry’s version.
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 19, 2014 -
Trailer Watch: Eliza Hittman’s It Felt Like Love
At times, independent film can be a homogenous place for women. Since the Lena Dunham boom, tastemakers obsessively concern themselves with tales of 20-something perpetual adolescents, jobless and adrift in Brooklyn, looking for love in all the wrong places. Not so much a tonic as a blast of originality, Eliza Hittman’s It Felt Like Love announced the arrival of one of the most assured and exciting young filmmakers in recent memory when it premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Though the film’s narrative may not seem entirely unfamiliar — we’re still coming of age in Brooklyn, experimenting sexually — Hittman’s atmospheric […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 19, 2014 -
Nas Documentary Time Is Illmatic To Open 2014 Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Film Festival announced that Time Is Illmatic, a documentary commemorating the 20th Anniversary of Nas’s iconic debut album, will open its 13th festival on April 16. Directed by multimedia artist One9 and written by Erik Parker, the film tracks the musical legacy of Nas’s family and his youth in Queensbridge, among other facets that shaped this modern benchmark of East Coast hip hop. To celebrate the world premiere, Nas will be on hand to perform Illmatic, front to back. Time Is Illmatic was supported by the Tribeca Film Institute’s All Access program and The Ford Foundation’s Just Films. For two years running, […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 19, 2014 -
Trailer Watch: Tom Hardy in Locke
The UK trailer for the Tom Hardy one man show Locke just dropped ahead of its April 25th U.S. release. Written and directed by Steven Knight (the screenwriter behind Eastern Promises and Dirty Pretty Things), the film plots the unravelling of Ivan Locke over the course of a singular drive home from Birmingham to London. Well-received upon its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, the constrained character study conveys dynamism despite its four door setting.
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 18, 2014 -
Patrick Wang’s The Grief of Others Accompanied By iBook Detailing Production Process
Patrick Wang, who made our 25 New Faces list in 2012 with the release of his debut film, In The Family, is gearing up to shoot his sophomore picture, The Grief of Others, based on the novel by Leah Hager Cohen. Starring Rachel Dratch, Wendy Moniz and Trevor St. John, the film examines the grieving process of a couple who lose their child 57 hours after his birth. In accordance with the the production process, Wang and author David Chien will maintain a regularly updated multimedia and interactive iBook entitled, “Post Script: The Making of the Film, The Grief of Others.” With […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 18, 2014 -
Watch Agnès Varda’s 1976 Short Film Plaisir d’Amour en Iran
Barely five minutes long, Agnès Varda’s 1976 short Plaisir d’Amour en Iran finds a breadth of emotion in its surroundings. Shot in Esfehan at the Shah Masjed, Varda conveys the blossoming relationship between a French tourist (Valérie Mairesse) and an Iranian (Ali Raffi) across narration, dialogue and, most effectively, architecture. It’s a transported exercise indigenous to its original time and place (France, Rive Gauche/Nouvelle Vague) that proves visuals and words can do their finest work as distinct properties. Read more at UbuWeb.
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 17, 2014 -
Behind The Scenes At The Criterion Collection
You’d be hard pressed to find a modern movie lover who doesn’t own at least one DVD/Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection. With a catalogue of hundreds of auteur and contemporary titles, Criterion is just as much about preservation as it is curation. This video from Gizmodo takes you behind the scenes at Criterion’s Gramercy office and inside the process of restoring Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent. Beginning with a negative from the Library of Congress, the print is scanned, color corrected, retouched and sound edited before making its way into one of the company’s signature disc covers. I recently visited the office to interview […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 14, 2014 -
How Camera Movement Shapes A Narrative
Ryan Connolly of Film Riot is a rather perky fellow, but he’s also got some good insight into how camera techniques affect a film’s narrative. Connolly begins with a simple scene of two actors walking across a yard, examining how a dolly versus a tripod versus a handheld shot conveys tonality to the audience. A tripod pan, for instance, may insinuate that the actors are being watched. Connolly covers a number of mechanisms — including the implications of a jib — in the above video, which serves as a helpful reminder that the camera should always being doing more than […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 14, 2014 -
Submit to True/False’s “Gimme Truth!”
This should be fun. For “Gimme Truth!,” an off-kilter game show at the True/False Film Festival, attending filmmakers (or celebrities, depending on your definition) judge 10 two-minute short films not on quality, but on their persuasiveness. The objective is to craft a scenario that is 100% false and convince the judges it’s 100% true, and vice versa. The three winning films will receive passes to next year’s festival, with the first place netting a RED rental package and four-hour color grading session, among other prizes. Head to their site for more information on how to submit. The deadline is February […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 13, 2014 -
Is the Future of Film Distribution in the Live Format?
A few weeks back, I went to see a one woman show called HAPPY, performed by my friend Eleanore Pienta. It was confluence of many emotions and personalities, but found a recurring framework in the live realization of film. A projection of Eleanore, in character, in a setting, would appear against a backdrop for several minutes, before the lights switched on and Eleanore strode onto stage as that same character. She was effectively bringing these short films to life, something I recalled while reading Sheri Candler’s post at Hope for Film entitled “Creating ‘Live’ Films Can Be Artistically and Financially […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 13, 2014
