Authors — Scott Macaulay
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KANYE, GONDRY AND JONZE IN CANNES
We didn’t catch much of the glamour of Cannes this year, so here’s Nowness with parties, performance and some nice interviews with Michel Gondry and Joachim Trier. (Click on the headline if you don’t see the video.) Diary of Cannes on Nowness.com.
by Scott Macaulay on May 26, 2011 -
TAKING THE PULSE OF THE CANNES FILM MARKET
“The end of the recession in independent film has occurred,” agent-turned-producer Cassian Elwes proclaimed by Twitter during the Cannes awards ceremonies Sunday night. “Sundance signaled it and Cannes has confirmed it.” Indeed, most people I talked to at the Cannes Film Market this year confirmed that it was a good one. The German producing and sales company K5 (Get Low, The Visitor) came to Cannes with the fortuitously timed Vehicle 19, an action drama starring a car and Paul Walker, whose Fast 5 is burning up the box-office. “This was the best market of the past year,” Bauer told me. […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 25, 2011 -
Cannes: The Producers Network And Short Film Corner
I tell people every year, but they don’t believe me: it’s actually pretty easy to attend the Cannes Film Festival. If you’ve got a business card and some reasonable connection to the film industry, you can usually register on site. Or, to be on the safe side (which is recommended), accredit yourself through Unifrance by their mid-March deadline. An industry badge gets you into all the movies, but, again, if you want to be on the safe side, you can buy a market badge for 350 euros (about $500). This gets you into all the regular screenings and the usually […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 24, 2011 -
KICKSTARTER: IRA SACHS’ “KEEP THE LIGHTS ON”
Sundance Grand Prize-winning filmmaker Ira Sachs (40 Shades of Blue) is fundraising for his new feature, Keep the Lights On, through Kickstarter. Here, from his Kickstarter page: I began working on Keep the Lights On with my co-writer Mauricio Zacharias because we were both frustrated by how few films exist that reflect life as we have known it as gay men living in New York City. I also wanted to make a very personal film, in the vein of some of the filmmakers that I have most loved, artists like Jean Eustache, Jacques Nolot, Chantal Akerman, and that great film-memoirist […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 24, 2011 -
TALKING NEW DISTRIBUTION THINKING AT CANNES
Attend most U.S. festivals these days, and you’ll notice a certain anxiety around the issue of new technologies. There are the transmedia sidebars and also the distribution initiatives that bring festival films into your own living room, sidestepping the red carpets that in many cases unfurl only blocks away. And then there are the fests that temptingly allow you to screen films on your iPad without leaving your hotel room. But still, despite such gestures, all these festivals spend most of their energies, rightly, on their core mission — projecting films for live audiences — even as their blogs, op-eds, […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 24, 2011 -
KYLE HENRY ON ATTENDING CANNES… AND SKIPPING HIS FILM
I ran into filmmaker — and Filmmaker “25 New Face” — Kyle Henry at the American Pavilion in Cannes, and I was startled to learn that he was attending the festival… but skipping his screening. He offered to explain in a blog post. Your film gets into the Directors’ Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival, and you can’t stay for your screening… are you crazy? Well, that was my case this year. My film Fourplay: Tampa, a short that is part of the anthology-of-shorts feature Fourplay, got the magical golden ticket to one of the festival sections at Cannes this […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 23, 2011 -
LIVE BLOGGING THE CANNES AWARDS CEREMONY
The Cannes Awards Ceremony has just begun, hosted by Melanie Laurent. I’ll be refreshing this page as the awards unfold. The Short Film Prize, announce by Michel Gondry, goes to Cross Country, by Ukraine’s Maryna Vroda. The Camera d’Or, given to best first film, goes to Argentinia’sLas Acacias, by Pablo Giorgelli. To the strains of Morricone’s score for Once Upon a Time in America, jury president Robert De Niro joins Laurent on stage to introduce his fellow jury members: Olivier Assayas, Uma Thurman, Johnnie To, Martina Gusman, Nansun Shi, Linn Ullman, and Mahamat Saleh Haroun. And they announce the Jury […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 22, 2011 -
DONALD KRIM, 1945 – 2011
Sad news today: the passing of veteran independent distributor, Kino’s Donald Krim, who has been responsible for the U.S. release of many of the best films ever made. Throughout his long career, he handpicked excellent world cinema titles as well as the best of the American independents, creating one of the most enviable libraries around. Remarkably, Krim’s taste remained on the cutting edge even in his later years — witness last year’s release of the extraordinary Dogtooth. He will be missed. Below is the press release we received from Kino. May 20, 2011 – Donald B. Krim (b. October 5, […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 21, 2011 -
JAMIE STUART AT LINCOLN CENTER
Filmmaker‘s Jamie Stuart has moved uptown where he’s documented the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s build of their new Elinor Bunin theaters. He’s made four new pieces, characteristically backlit, and in black-and-white, and they have premiered at Vanity Fair, which also runs an interview with him. Below is his sit-down with Executive Director Rose Kuo, and a video in which he geeks out on all the new gear. And here, from the interview, is his take on the filmmakers of the future: Traditionally, the director’s job is to oversee things, and make decisions while you have a cameraman who shoots […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 20, 2011 -
LARS VON TRIER IS CANNES’ “PERSONA NON GRATA”
I missed the Wednesday morning Melancholia screening, having to moderate a table at the Producers Network breakfast the same time, but afterwards I happened to catch a snippet of the press conference. I tweeted a few comments, namely ones in which the director talked about this relationship with the film’s d.p., who started the project by telling him not to behave like so many “old or middle-aged directors and make [his actresses] younger and more naked.” “Don’t tell me that,” Von Trier said he told the cinematographer. Watching press conferences on those little TVs in the basement of the Palais […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 20, 2011
