Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Filmmaker Announces Curated Indiegogo Partner Page
With our friends at Indiegogo Filmmaker has just launched a new partner page on the crowdfunding site. Featuring our curated selection of film (and possibly other) projects you should be taking a look at, the page will be updated frequently with new picks. If you have an Indiegogo project you’d like us to consider, you can email me at scott AT filmmakermagazine.com, and please put the words “Indiegogo Project” in the subject line. Currently up on the site are three projects we’ve supported, one of which just launched. That film is Jake Mahaffy’s Free in Deed, currently in post. Published […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 16, 2014 -
Laura Poitras’s CITIZENFOUR Will World Premiere at the New York Film Festival
Laura Poitras’s long-anticipated third film in her trilogy dealing with post-9/11 foreign policies and the security state, CITIZENFOUR, will world premiere in the Main Selection of the 2014 New York Film Festival, the Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced. Poitras had been working on the film following her Oscar-nominated The Oath when she was contacted by a mysterious whistleblower, who later revealed himself to be Edward Snowden. That encounter changed the course of her film, to say nothing of our national dialogue concerning the limits of our freedom in the internet age. From the Film Society of Lincoln Center: […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 16, 2014 -
Five Questions with Before We Go Director Chris Evans
Making his directorial debut with a nighttime two-hander, Before We Go, actor Chris Evans has gravitated to dramatic material far removed from the effects-driven world saving of his Captain America movies. Starring alongside Alice Eve, Evans puts his own spin on the “one night” film, a sub-genre that has been explored over the years in pictures ranging from Before Sunrise to Into the Night to In Search of a Midnight Kiss. Here, Evans tells us what he tried to do differently and what’s unique about Gotham at night. Before We Go premieres this week at the Toronto International Film Festival. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 12, 2014 -
Five Questions for The Editor Writer/Directors Matthew Kennedy and Adam Brooks
With the recent Berberian Sound Studio and now The Editor, we’re in a bit of a giallo revival. Or, more accurately, the gory, gloriously art decorated Italian horror thrillers of the 1970s have inspired a new generation to pay homage in the form of their own meta-commentaries. Interestingly, Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio and this year’s Toronto-premiering The Editor both feature post-production crew as their protagonists. In Berberian Sound Studio, it was a foley artist; in The Editor, Matthew Kennedy and Adam Brooks’ horror comedy, our hero is a once-vaunted picture editor who, following an accident, now must wield his […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 11, 2014 -
Five Questions for Shelter Writer/Director Paul Bettany
Actor Paul Bettany makes his directorial debut with Shelter, a drama about homeless junkies on the streets of New York starring his wife, Jennifer Connelly, and Anthony Mackie. Although Bettany references below Jerry Schatzberg’s classic Panic in Needle Park, he also emphasizes that his film moves far from those gritty New York streets of yore, finding an unexpectedly beautiful visual style to capture the life of a new generation of Gotham addicts. Shelter screens at the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday, September 12. Below, I talk with Bettany about cinematic inspirations, city moments and directing his wife. Filmmaker: There’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 11, 2014 -
Five Questions for Merchants of Doubt Director Robert Kenner
It’s hard to think of a documentary that was more effective in getting viewers to at least think about altering their behavior than Robert Kenner’s Food, Inc. If you walked out and didn’t change your grocery-shopping habits or scan a food label, then you must have fallen asleep during the movie. But Kenner’s follow-up, Merchants of Doubt, would seem to face a challenge in the “call to action” department. Here, Kenner deals with climate change, an urgent issue that requires not simply single actions but massive social and economic change to conquer. Climate change, however, is the film’s broad focus. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 10, 2014 -
Five Questions for Learning to Drive Director Isabel Coixet
Reteaming director Isabel Coixet with her Elegy stars Patricia Clarkson and Ben Kingsley, Learning to Drive is an adaptation of Katha Pollit’s 2002 New Yorker essay about a Manhattan writer (Clarkson), facing a sudden break-up, who gains wisdom from a driving instructor (here a Sikh played by Ben Kingsley) going through his own relationship evolution. It’s Coixet’s eight film, and below she answers questions about the process of adaptation, her interest in intimacy and the challenge of shooting in moving vehicles. A world premiere, Learning to Drive screens at the Toronto International Film Festival on Tuesday, September 9. Filmmaker: Your […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 9, 2014 -
Five Questions for Still Alice Writer/Directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland
In Still Alice, based on Lisa Genova’s novel, Julianne Moore plays a Columbia University linguistics professor with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, a diagnosis that threatens to erode her relationship with her family as well as the city she has long called her home. With a supporting cast including Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart and Kate Bosworth, Still Alice promises a realistic depiction of the disease by one of America’s finest actresses, and it’s a return to character-based human dramas by the directorial duo of Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, whose films include The Last of Robin Hood, the Sundance Grand Prize-winning Quinceañera […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 8, 2014 -
Five Questions for Adult Beginners Director Ross Katz
Five years after transitioning from producer to director with the HBO veteran drama, Taking Chances, Ross Katz returns to the director’s chair with a comedy about going home. Nick Kroll plays a young entrepreneur whose product launch has flamed out, who has burned through his investors’ dough, and who has lost his girlfriend. He returns home to work as a nanny for his sister’s young child in what is described as a movie about beginning again. Adult Beginners world premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on Monday, September 8. Filmmaker: After having written and produced your directorial debut, you’re […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 8, 2014 -
Five Questions for 99 Homes Writer/Director Ramin Bahrani
Based on its stellar reviews out of Venice and Telluride, Ramin Bahrani’s “eviction stunner” 99 Homes infuses the sad and infuriating tale of America’s real estate bust with visceral, gut-punching drama. Andrew Garfield and Michael Shannon star as the down-and-out construction worker and shady realtor who come up with a get-rich scheme involving, of course, the exploitation of those even less fortunate. Screening Monday, September 8 at the Toronto International Film Festival, 99 Homes is already picking up Oscar buzz. Below, we ask Bahrani about researching real estate, name actors and the decline of Western civilization. Filmmaker: What attracted you […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 8, 2014
