Authors — Scott Macaulay
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IFP Announces 2019 Documentary Lab Fellows and Projects
IFP, Filmmaker‘s parent organization, has announced the 10 feature documentaries in post-production that will take part in its 2019 Documentary Lab, which begins today at the IFP’s Made in New York Media Center. They include films about Central American mothers searching for sons and daughters who vanished en route to the U.S., a man struggling to recover his life after being wrongfully imprisoned, and a group taking part in a year-long experiment simulating life on Mars. Commented IFP Executive Director Jeffrey Sharp, “The IFP Filmmaker Labs have a history of singling out unique voices and diverse approaches to storytelling from […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 20, 2019 -
Six Screenwriters Selected for the 2019 Film Independent Screenwriter Lab
Film Independent announced today the six screenwriters selected for its 21st annual Screenwriting Lab. Mikki Crisostomo, Billy Luther, Haitham Dabbour, Anya Meksin, Sontenish Myers and Andrew Huang will all received story and career development from the non-profit organization’s annual program for their first fiction screenplays. Notes FIND in a press release, “One hundred percent of this year’s participants are from communities underrepresented in film and half the participants are women. This year’s projects, selected from 550 submissions, explore a range of compelling fictional topics from ancient magic to widespread pandemics and tiger spirits.” More from the press release: “Being a […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 14, 2019 -
Watch: “Thirst,” Gaspar Noe’s Sebastian Music Video
A Travis Bickle wannabe is shitkicked at a neon-streaked Parisian club — it’s the new video from Gaspar Noe, which brings a near-Irreversible level of violence and the director’s trademark twisting overhead camera to a club track by the French producer. Check it out above.
by Scott Macaulay on May 14, 2019 -
Sundance Institute Announces its 2019 Directors and Screenwriters Labs
One of the more hotly-awaited lists of the year has just dropped: the annual Sundance Institute Directors and Screenwriters Labs. Providing support and mentorship to filmmakers since 1981, the Labs boast alumni ranging from Boots Riley to Chloe Zhao, Quentin Tarantino to Ritesh Batra. This year’s labs take place from May 27 – June 18 (Directors) and June 20 – 24 (Screenwriters). Advisors for the month include Robert Redford, Gyula Gazdag (Artistic Director for the Directors Lab), Sandra Adair, Scott Z. Burns, Charlotte Bruus Christensen, Sebastian Cordero, Joan Darling, Suzy Elmiger, Rick Famuyiwa, Stephen Goldblatt, Keith Gordon, Randa Haines, Ed […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 10, 2019 -
Amy Dotson Announced as New Northwest Film Center Director and Portland Art Museum Curator of Film and New Media
Amy Dotson, Deputy Director and Head of Programming at IFP, Filmmaker‘s publisher, will be leaving the organization to become the Director of Portland’s Northwest Film Center. She’ll begin this new position in September, when she will also become Film and New Media Curator at the Portland Art Museum, a connected entity and where the Film Center stages its annual Portland International Film Festival. From the press release issued by the Museum and Film Center: In her new role, which she begins in September 2019, Dotson will be responsible for the overall vision of the Film Center, including strategic planning, fundraising, […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 7, 2019 -
Burning Cane Wins Three at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival; Scheme Birds Wins Best Documentary
Burning Cane, the Louisiana-set debut feature from freshman NYU film student Phillip Youmans, won three top prizes at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival. At a ceremony last night at the Stella Artois Theatre at BMCC TPAC, Burning Cane scored the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature, the Best Cinematography in a U.S. Narrative Feature Award (to Youmans as well), and the Best Actor in a U.S. Narrative Feature Award, to the film’s Wendell Pierce. Haley Bennett, star of another well received film at the festival, Swallow, won Best Actress in a U.S. Narrative Feature, while Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 3, 2019 -
Five Questions for Director Kevin McMullin About His Tribeca-Premiering Teen Crime Drama, Low Tide
New Jersey-born Kevin McMullin, a shorts and commercial director who runs the NYC production outfit Boy and Star, makes his feature debut in the Tribeca Film Festival’s Narrative Competition with the location-rich teen crime drama Low Tide. Alan (Keean Johnson), Red (Alex Neustaedter), and Smitty (Daniel Zolghadri) spend their summer breaking into houses along the Jersey Shore, an enterprise that escalates from youthful petty crime into something much darker when one particularly valuable score — a bag of gold coins — is discovered. The gang is fractured apart, a division exacerbated by the presence of the local beauty, Mary (Kristine […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 29, 2019 -
Five Questions for Director Marshall Curry About His Tribeca Short, The Neighbor’s Window (and Cory Booker)
Oscar-nominated documentary director Marshall Curry — and a 2005 Filmmaker 25 New Face — makes his dramatic fiction debut at Tribeca with the short film, The Neighbor’s Window. Starring Maria Dizzia, Juliana Canfield and Greg Keller it employs the urban Rear Window concept in order to tell a delicate tale in which envy bleeds into empathy. Dizzia and Keller are a married couple suffering through the relationship doldrums of early parenthood when a young, sexually adventurous couple move in directly across the way. Drawing the blinds isn’t something the younger couple even deigns to do, and the voyeuristic thrills they […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 29, 2019 -
“I Saw the Film as a Mystery — To Try and Understand Someone Who Didn’t Want to be Understood”: Matt Wolf on His Doc, Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project
With Matt Wolf’s Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project opening today at the Metrograph in New York, we are reposting Scott Macaulay’s interview with Wolf prior to the film’s Tribeca premiere. Wolf will be doing a number of Q&As opening weekend with various moderators, including, tonight Lynn Tillman, as well as, this weekend, Charlotte Cook, Melissa Lyde, Sierra Pettengill, Collier Meyerson, Stuart Comer and Macaulay (the latter at the Saturday, 1:15 PM screening). From 1979, just before the launch of CNN, to 2012, when she passed away, Marion Stokes — an African-American Philadelphia woman, communist, public access television host, collector of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 27, 2019 -
29 Features, Shorts, VR Pieces, Talks and Immersive Theater Works to Check Out at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival
Tonight’s opening night is Roger Ross Williams’s HBO doc, The Apollo (held at The Apollo Theater, no less!), the centerpiece is a “final cut” screening of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (in glistening new visual and audio tech) and the closing night is a new Beatles-themed, alternate universe pic by Danny Boyle — the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival is here. As evidenced by the above selections, Tribeca brings a lot of firepower to its annual event, programming prowess that includes not just the big names but support for a range of work and creators, from immersive theater pioneers to emerging […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 24, 2019
