Authors — Scott Macaulay
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“Just Say No to Poverty Porn”: Maggie Steber on She Does Podcast
Maggie Steber is a prolific documentary photographer who has worked in 65 countries around the world focusing on humanitarian, cultural, and social stories. For over three decades, Maggie has worked in Haiti, an experience that has impacted her emotionally and personally and led to her book “Dancing on Fire.” She has received the Leica Medal of Excellence, and recognition from World Press Photo Foundation, the Overseas Press Club, Pictures of the Year, and the Medal of Honor for Distinguished Service to Journalism from the University of Missouri. Her work has been featured in National Geographic Magazine, The New York Times […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 1, 2015 -
Five Questions for Sabrina Dridje about the Creative>>Founder Lab
The Creative>>Founder Lab is the newest offering from the Made in New York Media Center by IFP, a eight-week program intended to help creative professionals develop the business skills required to see their projects to fruition. Design thinking, monetization, rapid prototyping, how to speak with developers, gamification and systems thinking will all be taught by a team of leaders in their fields. (Note: IFP is Filmmaker‘s parent organization.) The fee for the program is $1,200, and only 20 spots are available. Deadline is June 18 at 11:59PM. More information can be found here at the link. Below, we ask Sabrina […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 3, 2015 -
The Safdies + Karl Ove Knausgaard on the Film Society’s Close-Up Podcast
Over the last several months, the Film Society of Lincoln Center has launched one of the better film podcasts out there, with guests including Paul Thomas Anderson, Olivier Assayas and David Cronenberg. (The podcast can be subscribed to on iTunes or listened to on Soundcloud.) But today’s doubleheader is particularly great and more than worthy of its own post. Sharing the episode are Josh and Benny Safdie, whose Heaven Knows What is this weekend’s must viewing, and Karl Ove Knausgaard, who has just released the fourth volume of his autobiographical magnum opus, My Struggle, here in the States and who […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 27, 2015 -
“The Need to Crowdfund is a Major Curse, Indeed”: The Yes Men on the Changing Funding Landscape
Over at the Creative Capital blog, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno of the Yes Men have posted a sober essay about the changes they’ve seen in the documentary funding landscape since 2000, when they received one of the organization’s first grants for their feature, The Yes Men. Two films and 15 years later, the two are still at it — creatively agitating for social change while producing actions and making documentary films. Their latest film, The Yes Men are Revolting, directed with Laura Nix, opens June 12, and it mixes their trademark anarchic political humor with more ruminative passages reflecting on […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 27, 2015 -
Artel Great Launches Project Catalyst at Cinema Research Institute Event
Project Catalyst, an “innovative transmedia initiative that fuses creative community building with cinema, art, music, and technology” and is aimed at multicultural communities was pitched at an NYU Cinema Research Institute event last month, hosted at AOL Build. In the video above, learn how Great intends this smartphone app to connect audiences with filmmakers in original ways and in order to support diverse content.
by Scott Macaulay on May 26, 2015 -
Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan Wins the Cannes Palme d’Or; Son of Saul, The Assassin, Rooney Mara Score Other Top Prizes
A jury headed by Joel and Ethan Coen awarded the Palme d’Or to Jacques Audiard’s immigrant drama Dheepan at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, which concludes today. The film tells the story of a Tamil fighter fleeing the Sri Lankan civil war who improvises a family — a wife and daughter — in order to better seek asylum in what turns out to be an inhospitable France. The award was something of a surprise, with most English-language journalists pegging either Laszlo Nemes’ Holocaust drama Son of Saul or The Assassin, a period martial-arts picture from Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-Hsien for […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 24, 2015 -
Camden International Film Festival Announces Points North Fellowship Call for Entries
The Camden International Film Festival is now accepting submissions for its Points North Fellowship, which provides grants bringing five teams of documentary filmmakers to September’s Points North Documentary Forum and trains them in the art of the pitch. The Fellowship takes place before, during and even after the festival. Before the festival, filmmakers receive a day of intensive training and mentorship, sponsored by the Main Media Workshops. Then, filmmakers go on to pitch their projects to an array of international funders, broadcasters, distributors and producers — all before a live audience. Past panelists include representatives from the BBC, HBO, A&E […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 14, 2015 -
Watch for 24 Hours: Die Wilderin vom Montafon and Sabbatical from the Eastern Oregon Film Festival
As the Eastern Oregon Film Festival runs this weekend in Le Grande, Oregon, the festival and filmmaker bring you another day of 24-hour online premieres. Below are Evamarie Shaller’s short, Die Wilder vom Montanon, and Brendan Colvin’s feature Sabbatical, starring Robert Longstreet as “a middle-aged Kierkegaard scholar.” Both are embedded below and are free to view for the next 24 hours only. Die Wilderin vom Montafon from Evamaria Schaller on Vimeo. DIE WILDERIN VOM MONTAFON (dir. Evamaria Shaller) Technical Info 2014 / Austria / 21min / Experimental Short Synopsis The Austrian mountains. Legend of itself. Powerful and wild. Dangerous and […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 9, 2015 -
Watch for 24 Hours: In Search of the Miraculous and Friendship from the Eastern Oregon Film Festival
As part of this weekend’s Eastern Oregon Film Festival, Filmmaker is partnering with the fest to stream four online selections. Today, for an exclusive 24-hour window, you can view Sam Kuhn’s short film, In Search of the Miraculous and Nathaniel Bennett’s short feature, Friendship. Program notes for both are below, and check back tomorrow at 9:00 AM EST for Evamaria Shaller’s Die Wilder von Montafon and Brandon Colvin’s Sabbatical. In Search of the Miraculous from Lion Attack on Vimeo. In Search of the Miraculous (dir. Sam Kuhn) Technical Info 2014 / USA / 15min / Experimental Short Synopsis A seventeen-year-old […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 8, 2015 -
Anagram Creators May Abdalla and Amy Rose on Door into the Dark
The best work I saw at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival wasn’t a film at all. It was, instead, a lovely piece of conceptual counterprogramming in Tribeca’s Storyscapes section, Door into the Dark. An immersive theater piece by May Abdalla and Amy Rose of the U.K.-based company Anagram, Door into the Dark wasn’t positioned by curator Ingrid Kopp against the films in the festival. Rather, by including Door into the Dark within a program largely dominated by Oculus Rift VR work, Kopp used Door in the Dark‘s simply generated yet expansive mindscapes as a way of setting a high bar […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 4, 2015
