In the midst of shopping, cooking and, yes, trying to close the next issue of the magazine, which ships at the end of this week, I want to take a second and wish all of our readers a great holiday and New Year. We really appreciate your readership and look forward to bringing you lots of great stuff, both in the magazine and online, in the coming year.
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 24, 2007Writing in Salon, Andrew O’Hehir captures what a lot of people are thinking: it wasn’t a bad year for movies, but when it comes to independents, the long-form theatrical experience may be on its way out. There are no grand conclusions here, but O’Hehir talks to the right people — IFC’s Jonathan Sehring, Killer Films’ Christine Vachon, Milos Stehlik of Facets — in his attempt to assess the healthiness of independents surviving on the other side of the mini-major divide. An excerpt: Milos Stehlik, director of the Chicago-based video distributor and art-house proprietor Facets Multi-Media (which occasionally dabbles in theatrical […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 20, 2007I received an email from writer/director Maria Maggenti (Puccini for Beginners) announcing the launch of A Working Writer, a website that she and writer Michael Seitzman have launched during the midst of this current WGA strike. The site will feature short video interviews of writers discussing their work and their thoughts about being working writers. First up: Eva Saks.
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 18, 2007I want to take a moment and tell you guys about a new website that Peter Bowen, Nick Dawson and I from Filmmaker are involved with. First, the history. In the late Spring of this year Peter and I had several conversations with Focus Features president James Schamus about film websites — what’s good out there, what’s not, and, most specifically, what’s missing from the film blogosphere. James talked to us about his vision of a site that would be dense with original content appealing to both cineastes as well as a more general audience enthusiastic about specialty film. Intrinsic […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 17, 2007At the recent Monterey Jazz Festval, two film legends — Clint Eastwood and John Sayles — talked about about the blues in an onstage discussion. The clip is below. Eastwood’s love of jazz and blues music is well known and can be felt through his numerous film scores. Sayles’s take on the art form can be best seen in his forthcoming film, Honeydripper, which is one of his best and hits theaters this holiday season.
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 17, 2007Sadly, this just in from Adrienne Jones, Treasurer and Membership Director of the Black Documentary Collective: We regret to inform everyone that St Clair Bourne, our founder, has passed away. Details of his passing will follow. Also, information about his memorial service will be sent as soon as we have it. Members have expressed interest in making donations to the family. We would like to contribute money through our BDC/St Clair Bourne fund. If you wish to make a donation, please forward payment to: BDCP.O. Box 610Hamilton Grange StationNew York, NY 10031. In the memo line please write BDC/St Clair […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 16, 2007Filmmaker‘s Managing Editor, Jason Guerrasio, returned from the film festival in Dubai this weekend and, like most visitors, he was knocked out by the pace of construction there. (See his photo-essays, below). In fact, a discussion of Dubai’s explosive growth — the political, social and design repercussions of such — is a hot topic at the moment, and two very different takes on the build-up of Dubai can be found online. The current issue of Metropolis contains three articles on Dubai, one of seven states belonging to the United Arab Emirates. (Thanks to Bergen Swanson for the link.) The first, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 16, 2007As today is Human Rights Day, the 49th anniversary of the U.N.’s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it’s a good time to link to Witness.org, the organization founded by musician Peter Gabriel that, as it explains on its home page, “uses video and online technologies to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations. We empower people to transform personal stories of abuse into powerful tools for justice, promoting public engagement and policy change.” Witness recently launched The Hub, which it calls “the first global platform dedicated to human rights media and action.” This section […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 10, 2007One of the twentieth century’s great artists, the composer and electronic music pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen, died last week. Pitchfork has a short appreciation, and our memoriam, his Helicopter Symphony, is below.
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 10, 2007Cynthia Lester’s film My Mother’s Garden has been selected for the Slamdance Documentary Competition and will premiere at Park City in January. The film has a MySpace page which streams the extraordinary show reel (also embedded below) and contains this summary of the film: My Mother’s Garden explores one woman’s extreme attachment to material objects and her emotional struggle to let go of them. My Mother’s Garden is the story of Eugenia Lester whose hoarding disorder has entered a dangerous and life threatening stage. Directed by her daughter Cynthia, it documents how one family comes together to cope with their […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 9, 2007