Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Brit Marling and Mike Cahill on Another Earth
Here’s the beginning of my interview with Another Earth screenwriter/star Brit Marling and screenwriter/director Mike Cahill, pictured here at the Crosby Street Hotel. The film is highly recommended, particularly for our specific readership. Not only is it a good movie, but it’s also an excellent example of how a fresh concept and skillful execution can amplify a tiny budget. Read the rest of my interview in this Summer’s print edition. Filmmaker: There’s a lot in the movie. There’s the psychology of grief, science, and metaphysics, all wrapped up in the form of a science-fiction fable. How did all of these […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 22, 2011 -
TRAILER WATCH: NICHOLAS WINDING REFN’S “DRIVE”
Here’s the just released redband trailer for Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive, which stars Ryan Gosling and picked up the Best Director award at this year’s Cannes’ Film Festival. I flat out loved this smart throwback to the neon lit, stylish and smart genre movies of the ’80s. More Drive (2011) Videos
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 22, 2011 -
DAVID ROBERT MITCHELL ON MYTHICAL TEENAGERS
For this opening day of Myth of the American Sleepover, which I hope you will all go see this weekend, I thought I’d repost this short Flip interview I did with director David Robert Mitchell at Cannes last year. Also, make sure to check out James Ponsoldt’s interview with Mitchell and his producing and creative team.
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 22, 2011 -
NINA MENKES, AZA JACOBS LAUNCH CINEMAD PODCAST SERIES
Our friend and contributor Mike Plante has just launched a podcast series at his Cinemad site. Below listen to conversations with directors Nina Menkes and Aza Jacobs. Here’s how he intros them: Called “Brilliant, one of the most provocative artists in film today” by The Los Angeles Times, Nina Menkes’s radical and pioneering work synthesizes inner dream-worlds with harsh, outer realities. Her seven films are a body of work Sight and Sound has called “Controversial, intense and visually stunning.” We talk about her films, the notion of the avant-garde tag, her teenage witch school, violence in cinema, freaky animals and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 22, 2011 -
25 New Faces of Independent Film – 2011
Welcome to the 14th edition of Filmmaker’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film.
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 20, 2011 -
Rania Attieh & Daniel Garcia
“Like a lot of partner dynamics, a healthy amount of arguing begins most of our working situations,” write Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia from Karlovy Vary, where their evocative debut feature, Ok, Enough, Goodbye, is receiving its European premiere. “There is yelling and calling each other names. Then we settle down and begin actually working. Perhaps what makes our process work is the fact that we are completely unafraid to be brutally honest with each other about our opinions regarding each other’s ideas.” Attieh, born in Tripoli, Lebanon, and Garcia, from South Texas, met in Texas in an undergrad drawing […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 17, 2011 -
Alison Klayman
Alison Klayman remembers the moment people knew she was really making a movie about Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. A Brown University graduate, Klayman had moved to Beijing with the intent of learning Mandarin and becoming a documentary filmmaker and journalist. “I bought my first camera there,” she remembers, “and was doing video for hire, trying to get into television.” In 2008 a friend asked her to make a short video to accompany a gallery show of Ai’s New York photography — shots of the artist and the downtown scene taken during his years living there in the 1980s. “My camera […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 17, 2011 -
Rola Nashef
When Michigan-born writer-director Rola Nashef started thinking about her film, Detroit Unleaded, there wasn’t much of a film scene in the state, independent or studio. Now, after several years of tax incentives and high-profile productions, she laughs, “I go to restaurants and hear people talking about their scripts.” But Nashef was inspired by Detroit long before the state’s recent production boom. The city didn’t just provide her debut feature’s location, but also its subject matter — specifically, the tales that come out of its Arab-American community. “Living within an Arab immigrant family, dating within the Arab-American community, the restrictions Arab […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 17, 2011 -
Sheldon Candis
The URL for Los Angeles-based filmmaker Sheldon Candis’s website is cinephileacademy.com, speaking to not only the USC grad’s artistic interests but also his fusion of film and life. As a child born in Baltimore, “I was one of those kids who loved movies,” he says, “and would watch them on my grandfather’s old VHS player.” Then, he’d spend time with one of his uncles, and those hours too, “even for a nine-year-old, felt like a movie.” Learning Uncle Vincent is the film arising from those childhood memories — spiked with a healthy amount of imagination. “‘It’s about a young child […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 17, 2011 -
Brent Hoff
Before completing Dirty White Boy, his screenplay about the last days of rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard and his relationship with VH1 p.a.-turned-manager Jarred Weisfeld, Brent Hoff had 24 partially written scripts on his hard drive. “One of them was over 200 pages long,” he says. “I came up with lots of ideas, but I never completed them.” But when Hoff heard that producer Todd Hagopian had bought Weisfeld’s life rights along with those of ODB’s mother, he knew that he was the guy to write — and finish — that story. “I worked at VH1,” says Hoff, “and I met […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 17, 2011
