Authors — Scott Macaulay

WHEN A TREE FALLS IN BERLIN

Over at Indiewire, Eugene Hernandez has an excellent report from Berlin on the premiere of Ryan Eslinger’s When a Tree Falls in the Forest. Eslinger, who was one of our 25 New Faces in 2004, is one of the youngest directors to premiere a film in Berlin’s Competition. If you read the industry papers, it’s been a mixed blessing as the film received several negative trade reviews and star Sharon Stone didn’t show for the post-screening Q and A. Hernandez offers a more balanced view, noting fest head Dieter Kosslick’s support for Eslinger and quoting Raj Roy, the American member […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 16, 2007
ZODIAC X NINE

For those of you excited about the March 2 release of David Fincher’s latest, Zodiac, IESB.net has posted nine clips from the film. And, if you haven’t read it yet, check out Jamie Stuart’s “Are We there Yet?”, an article on HD cinematography that talks with d.p. Harris Savides about his work on the film.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 13, 2007
NIGHT AND THE CITY

I was surprised how purely lovely I found Doug Aitken’s Sleepwalkers, currently on display through tomorrow (Monday) night outside the Museum of Modern Art. Using multiple projectors to beam images onto walls and screens affixed outside the museum, Aitken’s public art film has an appealingly simple concept: the synchronous, small-scale moments that echo between a group of otherwise disparate New Yorkers going about their daily lives. With actors like Tilda Swinton, Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power), Seu Jorge and Donald Sutherland and carefully composed images that alternate between shallow focus portraits and geometric abstraction, Aitken’s silent city cinema does what […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 11, 2007
EASY COME, EASY GO?

It’s late at night in Europe, and I’m not quite sure what to make of this article I’ve just read in Variey by William Triplett entitled “IRS strips indie film tax breaks.” The thrust of the article: the IRS has ennacted onerous restrictions on the film financing tax break contained in the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004. This tax break has incentivized private investors to invest in independent film by allowing them to deduct the full amount of their investment in the first year rather than amortizing it over multiple years. According to the Variety article, the IRS is […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 9, 2007
HOOKING UP

Mike Mohan, who some of you may know from his work at the Sundance Institute, is also a director, and he’s just launched a new web series at Atom Films called “Casual Encounters.” It’s a sort of mockumentary spoof on the whole phenomenon of finding a one night stand on internet sites like Craig’s List. Two episodes are already posted, with more promised for the coming weeks. Here’s episode one (and it’s, as they say, NSFW — “not safe for work”).
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 8, 2007
THE YEAR IN SELF-DISTRIBUTION

Over at his Wild Diner Films blog, Sujewa Ekanayake is asking what should be more than a rhetorical question: “So, self-distribution in 2006: how did it go?” He’s requesting that DIY distributing filmmakers share some of their experiences and to start it off, he’s posted the numbers on his own Date Number One.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 8, 2007
UN FILM DE MICHAEL BAY

I’m in Paris for a few days, and there are posters up everywhere for Jonathan Liebesman’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning., but the director’s name can’t be seen on the poster. There is, however, an outside-the-billing-block “Un production de” credit for producer Michael Bay, whose powerful film brand is now validated by this most auteur-centric of film cultures. As recognition, here (via Defamer) is “Bay’s Touch,” a totally nuts tribute to Bay (and be sure to click on the link for the lyrics).
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 7, 2007
HANGING ON THE TELEPHONE

Two issues ago Chris Campion profiled for Filmmaker the Dutch director Cyrus Frisch, who was in post on his latest feature at the time. Now, that film, Why Didn’t Anybody Tell Me it Would Become this Bad in Afghanistan?, has premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival, and Campion has written another piece on Frisch, this time in The Observer. The film, shot entirely with a mobile phone, is a first-person POV movie about a Dutch soldier returning from Afghanistan who finds his own daily life inflected with the violence he witnessed there. From Campion’s piece: A huge plume of black […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 6, 2007
GUATEMALAN IN THE NORTHWEST

One of the coolest and most original indies of the last year gets its theatrical debut this Friday in Seattle at the Northwest Film Forum. Todd Rohal’s The Guatemalan Handshake runs for a week in Seattle before moving on to Portland where it opens at the Hollywood Theater on February 17. Rohal, who will attend every screening along with producer Megan Griffiths, has organized a series of special events to go along with the screenings. There will be live performances by composer David Wingo (whose new album, recorded under the name Ola Podrida, is released on Plug Research) and Kimya […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 5, 2007
FASCINATING FASCINATION

Steve Loff and Prichard Smith, the filmmakers behind Mr. Fascination, a doc in post-production, have launched a MySpace page full of clips and info about their film, which tells the story of a man obsessed with a vintage boardwalk game. Here’s what they say about it: Mr. Fascination, a feature-length doc currently in post-production, tells the story of Randy Senna, a man obsessed with a dying boardwalk game called Fascination. The film follows him over the course of his 2006 season at Flipper’s Fascination in Wildwood, NJ, as he looks for new ways to make the game more appealing to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 5, 2007

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