For our U.S. readers partaking in the shopping ritual known as Black Friday, Filmmaker is this weekend discounting our one-year print subscriptions 40%. One year — four issues — of Filmmaker is now only $10. And by subscribing you’ll also immediately receive our fully searchable and downloadable library of digital editions going back to 2007. In two weeks you’ll receive the our Winter, 2020 digital edition, and then your print subscription will begin with the Spring, 2020 issue. Filmmaker‘s print edition is a stylish, compelling read with a look and feel unlike any film magazine. Plus, our print issue includes […]

The Sundance Institute announced today $1.5 million in grants to 47 nonfiction film projects hailing from 27 countries. The grants, which include specialized grants administered by The Kendeda Fund and the Stories of Change Fund, support films across development, production, post-production and audience engagement. From the press release: “These grantees comprise a snapshot of the boldest visions in nonfiction storytelling today,” said ​Hajnal Molnar-Szakacs​, Director of the Documentary Film Program’s Film Fund. “From the intimate to the epic, their scopes and ambitions illuminate not only the world around us, but new ways of seeing, telling and showing.” Today’s slate of […]

Josh and Benny Safdie’s Uncut Gems and Robert Eggers’s The Lighthouse topped the nominations list with five nominations each as Film Independent announced today the 2019 Film Independent Spirit Award nominees. Chinonye Chukwu’s Sundance winner Clemency, Julius Onah’s Luce and Alma Har’el’s Honey Boy also received multiple nominations as did lesser-promoted films such as Kirill Mikhanovsky’s Give Me Liberty and Tom Quinn’s Colewell. And so did one festival sleeper that premiered in Tribeca before then going to Netflix: Stefan Bristol’s See You Yesterday. That particular Spirit blend of higher-profile titles mixed with smaller ones continues throughout the rest of the […]

SFFILM, in partnership with the Westridge Foundation, announced today the five narrative feature film projects that will receive $100,000 in development funding from the organization. Awarded twice annually, the SFFILM Westridge Grants are one of the few U.S. sources of grant support for narrative features in the development phase. The grants target US-based filmmakers whose films take place primarily in the States and which focus on “social issues and questions of our time.” FALL 2019 SFFILM WESTRIDGE GRANT WINNERS 
all dirt roads taste of salt
. Raven Jackson, writer/director; Maria Altamirano, producer – development/packaging – $20,000 
Through lyrical portraits evoking the […]

Overwhelming by design — that’s the first impression offered by the 2019 edition of DOC NYC, the packed-to-the-rafters non-fiction film event currently underway in New York until November 15. Celebrating its tenth anniversary, the festival boasts over 300 events, including 28 world premieres, an expanded DOC NYC PRO seminar series, and 46 doc works in progress shown to industry attendees. Says director of programming Basil Tsiokos, “It’s our tenth anniversary, and we wanted to make it bigger and better. We just kept pushing [during the programming process] to include more and more films. “Every year we’ve tried to grow the […]

Receiving its world premiere tomorrow at DOC NYC is filmmaker Cara Jones’s Blessed Child, a documentary about her own childhood spent in Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church. From the press release: More than a decade after leaving the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church (the “Moonies”), through a trove of never before seen footage from within the church and extraordinary home videos of her family’s upbringing alongside Reverend Moon and his disciples, filmmaker Cara Jones attempts to finally break free from the religious cult which dominated her childhood. Blessed Child is one daughter’s attempt to unpack the legacy of the […]

Beth B’s Lydia Lunch: The War is Never Over, her doc about the provocative and pummeling musician, writer, multi-media artist, social critic, No Wave pioneer and recent podcast host premieres Saturday night at DOC NYC, and the first trailer is online. Writes B about the film: Voicing the unheard and seeing the unseen are themes that have run through my films with an eye to creating dialogue, community, and a place for self-knowledge and acceptance. My documentary films are social, political and personal investigations; home movies focusing on people I know or have come to know. Lydia Lunch was 19 […]

Premiering in New York this Thursday in a one-time event prior to its free streaming launch the next day is Luigi Campi’s coming-of-age thriller My First Kiss and the People Involved. Starring Bobbi Salvör Menuez, it’s the tale of a quiet, recessive young woman (Menuez) living in a group home who goes on the hunt for her missing caregiver. Said Campi in a Filmmaker interview, “The film’s tension arises when violent events that she can’t fully grasp force her to step out of her safe zone. My first connection was to the main character’s unique way of seeing the world, […]

Strand Releasing, the inventive, carefully curated independent distributor known for its release of both American and international arthouse auteurs, turns 30 this year, and to celebrate it has invited its filmmaker friends to create short iPhone films that speak in various ways to Strand’s mission and film culture today. I’m happy to premiere here exclusively at Filmmaker shorts by Ira Sachs, whose Frankie opens this Friday, October 25th; Indignation director, screenwriter and producer James Schamus; and Shulie and A Woman, A Part director Elisabeth Subrin. Previously released have been shorts by Fatih Akin and Karim Ainouz. Comments Strand co-founder Marcus […]

Borne of what the festival cites as its fun and nourishing values, the Nevada City Film Festival Filmmaker Residency honors the region’s Nisenan and Chinese-American communities by hosting diverse storytellers, with a priority on filmmakers of indigenous and Asian descent. The Residency originated from producer Karin Chien, NCFF Director Jesse Locks and NCFF Founder Jeff Clark. Wrapping its second year this past August, the 2019 Nevada City Filmmaker Residency turned a creative spotlight onto independent producers. NCFF hosted prolific independent producer Zhang Xianmin from Beijing for a three-week residency in Grass Valley, CA. NCFF also hosted four US indie producers […]