In a newly released featurette, writer/director/actor Jesse Eisenberg, actor Kieran Culkin, producer Emma Stone and others discuss Eisenberg’s Sundance-premiering feature, A Real Pain, out Friday from Fox Searchlight. It’s a comedy/drama about two cousins navigating long suppressed tensions while on a Holocaust remembrance tour to Poland, and one obvious question to ask is in what order those two elements occurred within the development process? Was Eisenberg attracted to the Holocaust tour concept first, or wanting to explore the family rivalry? That question is answered, along with more, in the above clip.
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 28, 2024The latest venture from MEMORY — the 25 New Face-selected production company of producers Sebastian Pardo and Riel Roch-Decter — has kicked up a bit of mainstream attention this week, with TMZ, People Magazine and Daily Telegraph, among others, covering coded comments by The 1975’s Matty Healy on a certain ex. But the project – the Doomscroll political talk show series/podcast hosted by artist and writer Joshua Citarella and featuring Healy as the latest guest — is not another celebrity chat fest but rather a series of long-form discussions on contemporary politics, culture and theory — “‘Lex Fridman for the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 25, 2024Alfred Hitchcock, the director as well as self-analyzing critical observer, is evoked in the latest documentary from Mark Cousins, titled, appropriately, My Name is Alfred Hitchcock. During the pandemic lockdown, Cousins was invited by producer John Archer to make a film about the great director timed to the 100th anniversary of his debut film. Cousins set about watching all of Hitchcock’s films in chronological order, reading various critical book as well as works by his daughter and The Birds actress Tippi Hedren, all the while filling up notebooks of thoughts, reflections and details. That research and viewing produced a script, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 24, 2024Next Thursday, October 17, over Zoom at 2:00 PM Eastern, Jon Reiss — a longtime Filmmaker contributor and author of the new and highly recommended (and distribution-focused) 8 Above Substack — and I will be hosting a distribution case study on DIY hit Hundreds of Beavers with producer Kurt Ravenwood. We’re going to investigate how the Hundreds of Beavers became a breakout success that grossed over $500K at the theatrical box office — more than tripling their production budget of $150K. Kurt will reveal how their team identified, mobilized and grew their audience, how they eventized their theatrical release and created […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 10, 2024Returning following a one-year hiatus precipitated by the WGA strike is the Gotham Week Project Market, which runs today through October 4 at the Brooklyn Navy Yards. (The final Expo day on branded content will take place at Soho Works.) Produced by The Gotham Film & Media Institute, Filmmaker’s publisher, the Gotham Week Project Market is the latest iteration of the non-profit’s annual event, which began as the Independent Feature Film Market in 1979, when the organization was known as IFP (the Independent Feature Project). Originally a showcase presenting finished films to buyers, the event has morphed several times over […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 30, 2024Robert Kolodny’s Venice-premiering The Featherweight is the dramatic story of real-life boxer Willie Pep as he exits retirement to attempt a comeback in the ring — all as he’s shadowed by a documentary crew. The film’s action occurs two decades after Pep’s 1940s heyday, with Kolodny and his team, who include producer and screenwriter Steve Loff and editor Robert Greene, convincingly replicating the look and rhythms of 1960s verite documentary to meditate on both the past as well as the boxing film’s durability in the present. Wrote The New Yorker’s Richard Brody in his review, “It’s an instant classic of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 28, 2024On the eve of the opening of the 62nd New York Film Festival, dozens of filmmakers have published an open letter calling on the festival to end its partnership with Contributing Partner Bloomberg Philanthropies, which they write is “directly implicated in facilitating settlement infrastructure in the West Bank and denying Palestinians their basic rights.” Among the signers are over three dozen filmmakers with films in the current 2024 edition, including Mike Leigh (Hard Truths), Julia Loktev (My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow), Neo Sora (Happyend), Basel Adra, Hamdam Ballal and Yuval Abraham (No Other Land), Truong […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 26, 2024With Sean Baker’s Anora winning five Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Original Editing and Best Actress) last night at the 2025 Academy Awards, we’re reposting our Fall, 2024 cover story interview with Baker. “Tonight, this could be the greatest night of our lives/let’s make a new start/The future is ours to find.” The lyrics of Take That’s 2008 hit “Greatest Day” burst from the soundtrack at the start of Sean Baker’s exhilarating, Palme d’Or–winning eighth feature, Anora. Drew Daniels’ camera tracks across a row of strippers and customers at a Manhattan club before cutting to handheld shots […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 18, 2024Welcome to the fall 2024 issue of Filmmaker—our 32nd anniversary edition. Inside you’ll find, alongside our features, interviews and longform articles, our annual 25 New Faces section, which makes its 27th appearance. Over the past 12 months, we’ve been on the hunt for early career filmmakers who, individually and as a group, make a statement about how independent film is conceived of and practiced today. There is an unusually large number of hyphenates on the list this year—particularly producers, but also festival directors and cinematographers who are moving into directing while not necessarily giving up their day jobs. There’s a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 18, 2024With the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival now underway, we at Filmmaker picked 12 films we are anticipating seeing. Consider it a given that higher-profile Telluride and Venice premieres such as the two Sigrid Nunez adaptations (The Friend and The Room Next Door), Conclave, Saturday Night are on our list too, but don’t overlook these films, for which TIFF is either their world premiere or North American launch. Bonjour Tristesse. For her debut feature author (Too Much and Not the Mood) and cultural critic Durga Chew-Bose — she interviewed Mia Hansen-Love for Filmmaker several years back — has ambitiously adapted […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 5, 2024