Authors — Scott Macaulay
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IFP Announces Jeffrey Sharp as New Executive Director
Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), Filmmaker‘s publisher, announced today Jeffrey Sharp as its new Executive Director. Sharp, as longtime Filmmaker readers will know, is a veteran producer whose credits include Boys Don’t Cry, You Can Count on Me, Evening and The Yellow Birds. He was also co-founder and President of Open Road Media, a pioneering digital publishing company that has an early innovator in the book space. Sharp’s non-profit experience comes from his role as co-founder and Chair of the Hamptons International Film Festival Advisory Board, and his most recent producing work with his Sharp Independent Productions has focused on productions […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 6, 2019 -
Trailer Watch: Ari Aster’s Sunlit Horror Film Midsommar
After the extraordinary and accomplished Hereditary, writer/director Ari Aster returns quite quickly to the screen with a new feature from A24, Midsommar. Based on this trailer, visually, at least, this film, which stars Jack Reynor, Will Poulter and Florence Pugh, is quite different, moving from the dark interiors and woodsy exteriors of Utah to the sunlit Swedish countryside. That said, a similar menace can be felt, as well as a similar vibe to that A-frame house at trailer’s end. Here’s plot info from the press release: “Pugh and Reynor will play a couple that travels to Sweden to visit their […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 5, 2019 -
Watch: Short Film Series Twentieth Century Faux, by Jake and Will
With a sea of short films washing up on the shores of YouTube and Vimeo each day, how can filmmakers make their work stand out? One team with a solution is Jake & Will — Will Blank and Jake Bradbury — for whom their 16-episode online short film series Twentieth Century Faux is both a smartly packaged exploration of millennial anxieties as well as a kind of personal filmmaking challenge that connects these two filmmakers back to the essential pleasures of making movies. The shorts run from one to three minutes each, are released weekly, are titled after well-known movies, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 5, 2019 -
Sundance Institute Announces Its 2019 Screenwriter Intensive Fellows
The Sundance Institute announced the eleven screenwriters who will take part in their seventh annual Screenwriters Intensive. Taking place in Los Angeles tomorrow and Friday, the Intensive is “a two-day workshop for writers or writer/directors from underrepresented communities developing their first fiction feature. Fellows at the Intensive will advance the art and craft of their work under the guidance of experienced filmmakers and in collaboration with Institute’s Feature Film Program.” Advisors are Andrew Ahn, Kyle Patrick Alvarez, Patricia Cardoso, Deena Goldstone, Tanya Hamilton, Elgin James, So Yong Kim, Sarah Koskoff, Tracy Oliver, Joan Tewkesbury, and Andy Wolk. The program is […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 27, 2019 -
Clemency, One Child Nation Top a Packed 2019 Sundance Film Festival Awards
Clemency, Chinonye Chukwo’s somber and bracing examination of the corrosive effects of capital punishment — on a woman, a marriage, and a society — won the U.S. Dramatic Competition Grand Jury Prize tonight at the Sundance Film Festival’s Closing Night Ceremony in Park City Utah. One Child Nation, Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhangze’s disturbing 36-year chronicle of the effects of China’s “one-child policy,” took the top prize in the U.S. Documentary Competition. And then there was great diversity among the remainder of the awards, with many of the most well-received films at the festival scooping up recognition. These included Joe […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 2, 2019 -
Wrapping Their 25th Year, Slamdance Co-Founders Discuss the Festival’s Past, Present and Future
“In a way, I see the festival as run like a punk rock label — a successful one!” says filmmaker and Slamdance “co-conspirator” Paul Rachman. With its award ceremony and final screenings, the Slamdance Film Festival concluded its 25th year last night (read the full list of winners here) — an astonishing fact of longevity that none of its founders could have predicted when they launched the outsider event in Park City back in 1995. “We were a wild bunch of filmmakers who got together to do something different,” says co-founder Peter Baxter. “And we’re realizing now how naive we […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 1, 2019 -
Dollhouse: The Eradication of Female Subjectivity in American Popular Culture and Kifaru Win Top Prizes at Slamdance 2019
Dollhouse: The Eradication of Female Subjectivity in American Popular Culture, Nicole Brending’s puppet animation about the rise and fall of a female pop star, took home the Narrative Feature Grand Jury Prize and the George Sparks Spirit of Slamdance Award at the Slamdance Film Festival’s award ceremony at Treasure Mountain Inn in Park City Utah tonight. Kifaru, David Hambridge’s documentary about two young Kenyan men who join a rhino caretaking conservatory, won the Documentary Feature Grand Jury Prize as well as a documentary Audience Award. “Dollhouse wasn’t like any other film at the festival or any festival,” said the jury […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 1, 2019 -
Watch: A Clip from Mark Jackson’s Slamdance Closing Night Film, This Teacher
25 New Face filmmaker and Spirit Award-winning director Mark Jackson’s latest film, This Teacher, is tonight’s closing night film at this 25th anniversary of the Slamdance Film Festival. Previously, the film won the Grand Jury Prize at last year’s final edition of the Los Angeles Film Festival. From the Slamdance guide: This Teacher follows a French Muslim woman (Cesar-winner Hafsia Herzi) as she travels to New York City to visit her childhood best friend from the rough neighborhoods outside of Paris. When the reunion proves disastrous, Hafsia steals her friend’s credit card and identity, and disappears to a remote cabin […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 31, 2019 -
“I Make Stories to Chase that Freedom”: Five Questions for Selah and the Spades Director Tayarisha Poe
When we put together our 25 New Faces list for 2015, Tayarisha Poe was one of our most exciting discoveries. Selah and the Spades: an overture was the product of restless days at what Poe describes as a dead-end job at a digital tech firm. The anger she felt at the stultifying work transmuted into the story of a teenage girl — and classic anti-heroine — running a crew at her private school. Four years later, Selah has leapt from the web page to the screen in Poe’s feature debut, premiering today in the NEXT section of Sundance. As Poe […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 27, 2019 -
“We Viewed Simply Telling a Young Black Love Story as a Radical Act”: Five Questions for Premature Director Rashaad Ernesto Green
“Possessor of a sneaky sort of charm that hides his utter tenaciousness, Rashaad Ernesto Green, a promising directorial talent from the Bronx, makes movies that get under your skin with what, upon reflection, seems like relative ease.” That’s Brandon Harris from Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces of 2010 writing about writer/director Green in the months before the premiere of his debut feature, Gun Hill Road. That Sundance 2011 pic — a tough and empathetic drama about an ex-con grappling with his son’s transition — more than attested to all the promise we spotted in Green’s early shorts, one of which, 2008’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 26, 2019
