Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Camden International Film Festival Announces 2017 Slate and Expanded VR Section
The Camden International Film Festival, which takes place September 14 – 17 throughout Camden, Rockport and Portland, Maine, announced its 2017 lineup today. Opening the festival is a world premiere, Dustin Nakao Haider’s basketball doc, Shot in the Dark, and the lineup also contains eight films, including The Reagan Show, All That Passes By Through A Window That Doesn’t Open and Whose Streets?, that received support from parent organization Points North Institute’s Artist Programs. “Screening at CIFF this year feels like a homecoming,” said Sabaah Folayan, Director of Whose Streets?, in a press release. “This community believed in our project […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 22, 2017 -
“He’s More a Painter, Maybe, Than a Director”: Jean-Luc Godard on Jerry Lewis
Amongst the many tributes pouring out today to the late, great Jerry Lewis, slot this interview clip of Jean-Luc Godard from The Dick Cavett Show in 1980. Seeing him as continuing the great physical comedy tradition of Harry Langdon and Buster Keaton, Godard goes on to extoll Lewis’s precise framing and sense of geometry. “But do you find him funny,” Cavett asks, and the answer is worth rolling this clip.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 21, 2017 -
Al Gore, Jason Blum To Receive Tribute Awards at the 2017 IFP Gotham Awards
IFP announced today that former Vice President Al Gore, whose work on the issue of climate change has been featured in two feature documentaries, will receive a newly created Humanitarian Tribute at this year’s IFP Gotham Awards. Blumhouse topper Jason Blum, the producer behind low-cost, high-profit, zeitgeist-zinging horror hits like this year’s Get Out, will receive the Industry Tribute. “We are thrilled to be presenting Vice President Al Gore with the Humanitarian Tribute and Jason Blum with the Industry Tribute” said Joana Vicente, Executive Director of IFP and the Made in NY Media Center, in a press release. “Mr. Gore’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 21, 2017 -
IFP Week Programs Announced, Including Filmmaker-Hosted Opening Day with Barry Jenkins, Safdie Bros, Dee Rees and More
IFP, Filmmaker‘s parent organization, announced today programs to be included in its annual signature event, IFP Week. They include, I’m excited to say, an opening day hosted by Filmmaker timed to the celebration of this magazine’s 25th Anniversary and 100th issue. On Sunday, September 17, I and other Filmmaker editors and writers will be moderating a day of presentations and discussions at BRIC with speakers who’ve been important our collective history, including Oscar-winning filmmakers Barry Jenkins and Adele Romanski of Moonlight; Josh and Benny Safdie of Good Time; and Emmy-nominated director Dee Rees of the forthcoming Netflix release Mudbound. The running […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 15, 2017 -
Watch: David Lynch’s Bonkers MacDowell Colony Medal Acceptance Speech
David Lynch is an alumni of MacDowell, the storied New Hampshire artists colony. He was awarded this weekend their MacDowell Medal in a ceremony hosted by author and MacDowell Colony chairman Michael Chabon but, due to a prior engagement, was unable to attend. He did send, however, a personalized, appropriately Lynchian video thank-you. Watch it above.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 14, 2017 -
Cinematographer Lucas Alvarado-Farrar on Shooting Whose Streets?
Opening today in theaters is Sabaah Folayan’s Whose Streets?, co-directed by Damon Davis. Both visceral and thoughtful, it looks back at the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO in September, 2014, capturing all the turbulence and outcry of the moment before moving forward and following the activist energies ignited by the event. There’s archival and citizen-shot material, most only on cell phones, in the movie, but also expertly-captured footage of the original protests and following actions shot by the film’s DP, Lucas Alvarado-Farrar. Here, in an interview conducted just prior to the film’s premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 11, 2017 -
Watch: Robert Bresson, Less is More
For the uninitiated, Robert Bresson can seem like one of the more forbidding of the all-time great directors. But his work has a visual precision, narrative economy and compelling worldview that remain absolutely transfixing today. In his latest video essay, which itself clocks in at an economical seven minutes, Julian Palmer (aka The Discarded Image) isolates and comments upon several of the most important elements of the Bressonian style, making it a great intro for beginners. If you’d like to learn more about The Discarded Image, and to possibly support further videos, check out the Patreon page.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 7, 2017 -
SFFILM Picks Two New Filmmaking Teams to Receive Sloan Science in Cinema Fellowships
A multi-layered biography of Alexander Graham Bell that explores not only the invention of the telephone but Bell’s work with eugenics and a thriller about industrial hacking are the two projects receiving Sloan Science in Cinema Fellowships from SFFFILM. SFFILM, the parent organization of the San Francisco International Film Festival, awards these grants — funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation — biannually and will provide each filmmaking team with script development support, a $35,000 cash grant and a two-month residency at FilmHouse, SFFILM’s suite of production offices for local and visiting independent filmmakers. Filmmakers will be connected with scientific […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 7, 2017 -
How Viral Video Contests Led to Will Blank’s Beautiful Fantasy Short, Limbo
Recently receiving its online premiere after months of plaudits on the genre festival circuit, Will Blank’s Limbo is a beautifully executed fantasy short concluding with an unexpected philosophical gut punch. Adapted from Marian Churchland’s graphic short story, the set up is simple — a man coping with the detritus of a failing relationship heads to the desert, where he comes across a dying dog able to grant him one wish. The starkness of the environment and the pathos of the situation — nobly conveyed by Sam Elliott, who voices the (skillfully animatronic) dog — elevates this simple story into something […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 19, 2017 -
IFP Announces Series Lineup to be Presented at 2017 IFP Week
IFP, Filmmaker‘a parent organization, announced today the more than 35 television, digital and app-based series that will be included in the 39th annual IFP Week, taking place September 17-21, 2017 in Brooklyn. For the last several years, IFP has been broadening its mandate to include both script and non-fiction series of all formats and genres. This year’s IFP Project Forum, writes IFP in a press release, includes “series from veteran and new creators, with 70% of works at the scripted/early development stage and 30% with independently shot pilots. Of the series featured, 51% are made by women and overall, 74% […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 19, 2017
