Authors — Scott Macaulay
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CPH:DOX Film Festival
Any great film festival needs to do two things. The first is establish an identity, a curatorial purpose that draws attendees by promising them something defined, different and necessary. And the second, far harder thing to do is to constantly upend that identity, throwing enough curveballs so that visitors know they’ll be challenged on every trip. Finishing it’s 9th year this past November, Copenhagen’s CPH:DOX does both these things brilliantly. Positioned just before the mammoth doc bellwether IDFA, CPH:DOX takes as its mission the challenging of staid notions of the documentary form itself. CPH:DOX director Tine Fischer told Sight and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 10, 2012 -
Rewind
One year ago in this spot I cautiously heralded “signs of life” in the independent film world, citing, among other things, all the independently financed features (Black Swan, Winter’s Bone, The Kids Are All Right) headed for the Oscars. A month after I wrote my piece, Sundance 2011 concluded with a record number of acquisitions, which included films like the tough, defiantly independent Martha Marcy May Marlene and the no-budget Another Earth by none other than Fox Searchlight. And while American independents didn’t sweep the Oscars, they did figure prominently, with a Best Actress win for Natalie Portman. But, as […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 10, 2012 -
Let Me Out: Ti West on The Innkeepers
The problem with so many horror films today is that you feel like you’ve seen them before. I’m not talking about their plots or characters because ghosts, vampires and serial killers have been and will be dramatized again and again. No, I’m talking about the feeling of watching these films, the internal clock that prepares you for this jolt by minute three, that one by minute 10 and a final shocker just before, or after, the closing credits. Among the many excellent qualities of writer-director Ti West’s filmmaking is its refusal to be straitjacketed by the more programmatic notions of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 10, 2012 -
TRAN ANH HUNG TALKS ABOUT “NORWEGIAN WOOD”
For many Japanese readers — and readers around the world too, actually — Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood is one of those novels, a book read during youth that somehow defines, at least for a few years, your inner self. Like Catcher in the Rye, it’s a book readers feel they have an intimate relationship with, which makes it also a tough film adaptation. A filmmaker can always do the plot and the characters, but what about capturing that something else? With his adaptation of Murakami’s 1987 novel, director Tran Anh Hung (Cyclo, The Scent of the Green Papaya) has shaken […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 8, 2012 -
SUNDANCE TRAILER WATCH: “KEEP THE LIGHTS ON”
One of the films I’m most anticipating at Sundance 2012 is Keep the Lights On from writer/director Ira Sachs (The Delta, 40 Shades of Blue). The film essays art, autobiography, and New York gay culture in the 1980s, ’90s and early aughts, and even before its arrival it has spawned a rich website that riffs on all of those themes. Just posted at that site is the film’s teaser trailer, embedded below. Keep The Lights On — Trailer from KTLO Movie on Vimeo.
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 8, 2012 -
JAY SCHEIB ON FASSBINDER’S “WORLD OF WIRES”
For many years Welt am Draht, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1973 three-and-a-half hour, made-for-TV science fiction opus was one of the late German directors’ most underscreened films. Dazzlingly stylish, and with narrative and thematic concerns anticipating the cyberpunk themes that would take root in science fiction more than a decade later, the film was only shown in America once in 1997 — that is, before it was restored and received a short run at MoMA in 2010. Fassbinder was quoted in MoMA’s catalogue as saying the film, translated as World on a Wire, is “a very beautiful story that depicts a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 7, 2012 -
CINEMA EYE AND FILMMAKER ANNOUNCE 2012 HETERODOX AWARD NOMINEES
Here’s the just issued press release announcing the nominees for the 2011 Heterodox Award, given by Cinema Eye Honors and sponsored by Filmmaker. New York – The Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking today announced the five nominees for its second annual Cinema Eye Heterodox Award, sponsored by Filmmaker Magazine. The 2012 Heterodox Award will be presented at the Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking on January 11 at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, New York. The Cinema Eye Heterodox Award honors a narrative film that imaginatively incorporates nonfiction strategies, content and/or modes of production. These […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 3, 2012 -
More New Year’s Resolutions for Filmmakers
In 2011 on New Year’s Day I posted “New Year’s Resolutions for Filmmakers” — 10 items filmmakers could embrace to improve their practice and thought processes for the year ahead. Last year, I thought about revising or updating it but couldn’t think of much to add. This year I looked at it again, and had some new thoughts. It’s still a decent list, and if you want to read something that will prod you in the gentle, empathetic, self-help-y manner of lists of these kind, a post full of to-do items you can file alongside “lose weight” and “be present […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 1, 2012 -
ON KEEPING YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS
In case you stumble upon my January 1, 2011 post on “New Year’s Resolutions for Independent Filmmakers,” you might want to bookmark this blog post by Richard Wiseman, in which he discusses ways to keep your New Year’s vows. Here are the first three, and the complete list is at the link. And check out the video below, in which Wiseman explains the experiment he constructed around this topic. 1) Make only one resolution, your chances of success are greater when you channel energy into changing just one aspect of your behaviour. 2) Don’t wait until New Year’s Eve to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 31, 2011 -
Our Top Ten Posts of 2011
As 2011 comes to a close, here, based on Google Analytics, are this site’s top ten posts of the year. 1. 25 New Faces of 2011. I mean, of course — what else would have been our top traffic-getter of the year? As it does every year, the unveiling of our 25 New Faces list outpaced everything else on the site by almost three to one. And one thing I’m especially proud of — at the time we pick them, the people on this list are real discoveries. As I look at lists with similar ambitions on other sites, I’m […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 31, 2011
