Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Trailer Watch: Hal Hartley’s My America
“What is my America?” That was the question asked 50 playwrights by Centerstage, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year. Their answers were filmed by Hal Hartley, who is exclusively debuting the resulting feature documentary, My America, on Fandor for its SVOD premiere beginning July 4. From Centerstage: Filmed by Possible Films, led by award-winning director Hal Hartley, these 50 monologues by writers including Anna Deavere Smith, Neil LaBute, Christopher Durang, and Lynn Nottage explore our particular American moment—the ideas and people that make the country what it is today. The responses, ranging from the political to the personal, form […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 19, 2014 -
The Hands of Robert Bresson
Filmmakers, how much attention do you pay to a single body part, to a gesture? This elegantly beautiful supercut on “the tactile world of Robert Bresson” by Kogonada for Criterion shows the great French director’s notoriously precise skill is applied even at the slightest hand gesture. There are no faces in this video yet the drama of these scenes is palpable.
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 19, 2014 -
Six Filmmaker Picks for the 2014 Northside Film Festival
The Williamsburg-based Northside Film Festival is in swing this week with its typically eclectic mixture of pictures curated by various local film partners (including IFP, Filmmaker‘s publisher) as well as, for the DIY Competition, their in-house team. Below are seven picks for those on the L train this week. More details on these screenings can be found at the Northside site here. i hate myself :). Any cultural critic namechecking Lana, Lena and Leslie (Jamison) while untangling the limits of autobiography, masochistic self-portrayal and the representation of female sexuality in the pornified internet age should reserve a paragraph or two […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 17, 2014 -
Five Questions for Recommended by Enrique‘s Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia
Director Rania Attieh was born in Tripoli, Lebanon, and her partner Daniel Garcia grew up in South Texas. Their first feature together, Okay, Enough, Goodbye crisscrossed Attieh’s hometown, canvassing 30 locations in 40 days to create a story, they say, that is a “love/hate relationship with the city itself.” So, after that feature won plaudits on the festival circuit — and landed the two on Filmmaker‘s 2011 25 New Faces list — it seems only appropriate that they head to Texas for their follow-up. Premiering tonight at the Los Angeles Film Festival, Recommended by Enrique is described as “a tale […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 13, 2014 -
Stuck in an Airport Overnight… “All By Myself”
A cancelled flight, early morning rebooking and when a hotel is not a possibility — being stuck overnight in an airport brings on a particularly eerie kind of melancholy. To kill the time, I suspect some camera (or just smartphone)-toting Filmmaker readers might try to create a Twilight Zone-ish horror short, impromptu slasher flick, or perhaps a Winogrand-inspired visual tone poem. Marooned in the Las Vegas aiport, Richard Dunn reached for another inspiration: Celine Dion. His iPhone-shot video, above, resulted in a personal response from the singer, who offered him tickets to her show (and use of her bathroom) next […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 13, 2014 -
James Franco, Vince Jolivette Launch Online Screenwriting Class
Continuing to disprove the assertion that there are 24 hours in a day, prodigious multi-hyphenate James Franco, who has taught at USC, UCLA, CalArts and NYU, and his Rabbit Bandini producing partner Vince Jolivette are launching another new venture: an online course, “Introduction to Screenwriting for Short Films,” on the Skillshare site. Over 30 short video lessons beginning screenwriters will learn the craft by penning an eight-page adaptation of one of three texts: John Steinbeck’s Pastures of Heaven, a story from The Spoon River Anthology, or Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-Town Life. Right now […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 11, 2014 -
Letter to the Editor: A Response from the Richmond International Film Festival
“Kentucker Audley, the Richmond International Film Festival and A Checklist for Avoiding Bad Publicity,” by Lauren Wissot, an article based around contributing editor Wissot’s trip to the Richmond International Film Festival, drew the following response from Heather Waters, the festival’s founder and producer. Aside from editing out email signatures and footers, we are reprinting it in full. Dear Scott, When Lauren Wissot contacted us about covering the Richmond International Film Festival (RIFF) for your magazine, we were excited about the national press (“Kentucker Audley, the Richmond International Film Festival and A Checklist for Avoiding Bad Publicity,” published May 7). However, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 5, 2014 -
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
