Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Legendary Producer Marin Karmitz on Great Directors, Producing, and Why Money is Never the Real Problem
Combining taste, business savvy, and enduring idealism for the role cinema can play within the broader culture, legendary producer, distributor, director and exhibitor Marin Karmitz has helped shape the course of world cinema since launching his MK2 Films in the early 1970s. Beginning his career as an assistant director to, among others, Jean-Luc Godard and Agnes Varda, Karmitz went on to become one of the most distinguished producers of his generation, with such classics as Kieslowski’s Three Colors trilogy, Jean-Luc Godard’s Every Man for Himself and Claude Chabrol’s Ceremonie to his name. But his list of producing credits only tells […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 5, 2014 -
Trailer Watch: POV’s 2014 Season Preview
POV, the PBS series for “documentaries with a point of view,” kicks off its 2014 season on Monday, June 23 with Jason Silva’s powerful and inspiring When I Walk. The following weeks feature many other Filmmaker favorites, including American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, Big Men (pictured), After Tiller and the broadcast premiere of the boundary-breaking The Act of Killing. Check out the complete schedule here and the trailer above.
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 4, 2014 -
Kickstarter Simplifies Guidelines, Now Instantly Approves Campaigns “by Algorithm”
Kickstarter announced today major changes to its process for accepting applications, simplifying its guidelines for creators and allowing campaigns to “launch instantly” by bypassing the human approval process. Kickstarter’s new rules boil down, writes founder Yancey Strickler, to three points: Projects must create something to share with others. Projects must be honest and clearly presented. Projects cannot fundraise for charity, offer financial incentives, or involve prohibited items. (The rules in full can be read here.) In his post, Strickler emphasizes that “Launch Now” is just an option; creators will still be able to propose projects to Kickstarter’s Community Managers, who […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 3, 2014 -
The Independent Screenwriter: Jon Raymond
Portland-based Jon Raymond has four screenplay credits, all in the last decade, to his name, but his iMDB page only tells half the story. Raymond began his career and is still well known as a writer of novels and literary short fiction, and his film career has come not from the usual Black-Listed spec script but from adaptations of his work co-authored by a director/collaborator/friend, Kelly Reichardt. Two stories from his short story collection Livability, “Old Joy” and “Train Choir,” became Reichardt films (Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy, respectively), with the two co-authoring their scripts. That work, and the […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 31, 2014 -
Fassbinder and His Friends: Ira Sachs
Entering its final weekend, “Fassbinder: Romantic Anarchist” is part one of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s massive survey of the work of the late, great Rainer Werner Fassbinder — a madly prolific, protean figure of the German New Wave. Marrying social commentary with emotional melodrama and, sometimes, genre entertainment, Fassbinder cranked out four and five movies a year, drawing from a repertory group of actors, exploring themes of love and obsession, and building a sustained critique of post-war capitalism that still penetrates today. In 1997, the Museum of Modern Art programmed a Fassbinder retrospective, and we asked several directors […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 31, 2014 -
Fassbinder and his Friends: Lynne Stopkewich
Entering its final weekend, “Fassbinder: Romantic Anarchist” is part one of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s massive survey of the work of the late, great Rainer Werner Fassbinder — a madly prolific, protean figure of the German New Wave. Marrying social commentary with emotional melodrama and, sometimes, genre entertainment, Fassbinder cranked out four and five movies a year, drawing from a repertory group of actors, exploring themes of love and obsession, and building a sustained critique of post-war capitalism that still penetrates today. In 1997, the Museum of Modern Art programmed a Fassbinder retrospective, and we asked several directors […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 31, 2014 -
Trailer Watch: Walter Potter, The Man Who Married Kittens
Walter Potter: The Man Who Married Kittens is a new short documentary by The Midnight Archive webseries creator Ronni Thomas scheduled to have its premiere June 6th at the new Morbid Anatomy Museum at 424A 3rd Avenue Brooklyn, New York. From the Walter Potter Taxidermy website: This surprisingly tender and heartfelt film features never before seen footage of the great tableaux of eccentric Victorian anthropomorphic taxidermist Walter Potter and the collectors around the world who treasure them. You will meet in the course of this film tiny kittens in gowns attending a wedding or having a tea party; toads playing […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 30, 2014 -
Fassbinder and his Friends: Everett Lewis
Entering its final weekend, “Fassbinder: Romantic Anarchist” is part one of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s massive survey of the work of the late, great Rainer Werner Fassbinder — a madly prolific, protean figure of the German New Wave. Marrying social commentary with emotional melodrama and, sometimes, genre entertainment, Fassbinder cranked out four and five movies a year, drawing from a repertory group of actors, exploring themes of love and obsession, and building a sustained critique of post-war capitalism that still penetrates today. In 1997, the Museum of Modern Art programmed a Fassbinder retrospective, and we asked several directors […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 30, 2014 -
Thunder Funder Talks its New Independent Film Financing and Production Venture
Thunder Funder is the recently announced film production arm of Thunder Studios, a Long Beach, California soundstage and production house, and it’s making a bold play for independent projects. Rodric David, founder and CEO of both Thunder Funder and Thunder Studios, has announced $12 million in annual investment and partnerships with several other companies — post-production services vendor Pace Pictures, Red Digital Cinema and, to handle distribution, indie vet Cassian Elwes of Elevated Film Sales — to bring to independents “all the tools required to present audiences with a film that is truly the best it can be.” A dive […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 28, 2014 -
Cannes 2014: Mr. Turner, Salt of the Earth, Force Majeure and the Art of First Impressions
“What’s your elevator pitch?” people ask — the same people who’d recoil backwards, their body language flashing danger signals, if you actually collared them in an actual elevator and launched into a pitch of your movie. Indeed, it’s a paradox of the film business that the smooth-talking hustler is held up as some kind of model when most film industry types would prefer an approach by someone genuine — personable, even — who understands both the cultural and the transactional nature of their business. I watched one exec from an established production and distribution company last week at the 2014 […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 26, 2014
