With his features Modern Love is Automatic and Vacation!, filmmaker Zach Clark has caught our eye at Filmmaker. In this interview with Lauren Wissot, he discusses his refreshing aesthetic, which looks towards the stylized melodramas of Douglas Sirk and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, ’60s beach party flicks, and ’80s new-wave porn like Cafe Flesh. And, he does this on a tiny budgets. In Wissot’s interview he explains: Luckily, I have talented friends who have been willing to work for no money. I also like making movies in places that aren’t big hubs of film production, which keeps costs down, so a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 29, 2011Choreography and a carpark. Directed by Nathalie Canguilhem.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 27, 2011Graham Leggat, the executive director of the San Francisco Film Society and a former Contributing Editor of Filmmaker, died yesterday at his Bay Area home from cancer. Always erudite and elegant, Leggat brought intelligence and real creativity to the worlds of film festivals, exhibition and journalism. From his obituary in Variety: For nearly six exciting and transformative years, Graham Leggat led the San Francisco Film Society with irrepressible determination, dash and design,” said Pat McBaine, president of the Film Society’s board of directors. “His vision, leadership, passion, work ethic, tenacity, imagination and daring along with his colorful language and wicked […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 26, 2011Over at the literary site The Millions, Edan Lepucki had a post yesterday entitled “Shutting the Drawer: What Happens When a Book Doesn’t Sell?” After receiving rejections from multiple publishers, she writes about her first novel: The truth is, my novel isn’t selling, and it probably won’t. There, I’ve said it. Eventually, a writer must accept rejection, accept the death of her first true darling, and move on. Can I face that sobering reality? Can I put my first book into the drawer, and shut it? Oh, you say, what about self-publishing? DIY? Connecting directly to fans? Bypassing the gatekeepers, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 24, 2011Forgive my brief step into celebrity stalkerville, but via my favorite neighborhood blog, EV Grieve, comes this video showing, apparently, Ryan Gosling stepping into some rather low-key fisticuffs at Astor Place in the East Village. What’s great here is the soundtrack as the shooter slowly realizes that she’s got a celeb in her iPhone sights. (“That’s the guy from the movie!”)
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 22, 2011Because Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra Van Kant is one of my favorites by the late German director, I’m reprinting here this email from Ira Sachs, whose IFC Center Queer/Art/Film series is screening the film tonight at 8:00 PM. It’s being presented by choreographer Jack Ferver, who has written a fantastic intro to the film. Dear Friends of Queer/Art/Film, “That little girl’s finger is worth more than the lot of you.” For this month’s August screening, we’re thrilled to finally be able to present a film by the visionary gay German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, especially one […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 22, 2011Okay, I’m weird — I’ll stop and notice a movie poster when I have no idea what it’s advertising. Like this wall of one sheets in Manhattan’s East Village for Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene, that makes street art out of giant QR codes. By the way, this controlled and eerie film, which boasts a riveting performance by Elizabeth Olsen, is highly recommended. It comes out October 21 from Fox Searchlight. (If you blow this picture up on your desktop you can scan the codes and go to trailers and clips of the film.) (Post amended after the perceptive […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 21, 2011About a year ago I posted a call for new writers, a post that led to amazing folks like Zack Wigon and Nicholas Rombes showing up in these pages. So, as we continue to build out and add content to the website, I thought I’d let any journalists out there know our current needs. I continue to look for people who can write with knowledge and authority about the business side of independent film. And I’m also looking for people who know something about filmmaking itself and are genuinely interested in the below-the-line and production worlds (i.e., film sets and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 21, 2011Each week I write an original newsletter that I usually don’t repost to the blog. Here’s this week’s, about a favorite documentary I just found on YouTube. To receive future newsletters, you can sign up for free here. If I ever teach a course in the film business, there’s a documentary I’m going to make required viewing. My guess is that you probably haven’t seen it because it was made for AMC a few years ago as part of a short-lived strand of docs about film. It’s called Malkovich’s Mail, and it was directed by the independent filmmakers Keith Fulton […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 21, 2011As a Filmmaker reader, you undoubtedly know Koo from his appearance on our 2008 “25 New Faces” list. Included in the “25” with his partner on The West Side web series, Zack Lieberman, Koo was one of the first filmmakers whose initial medium was the web to be profiled in our round-up. Since The West Side, which remains one of the web’s best narrative series, Koo has developed other projects, including his longest running: NoFilmSchool.com, an invaluable website covering DSRLs, editing software, crowdsourcing, new media, and Web 2.0 in general. One of the site’s best features is the pop-up you […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 18, 2011