Authors — Scott Macaulay
-
Recommended on a Friday: Little Sister, Christine, Tower, Certain Women and More
If you look at the long list of movies opening every weekend, not just in theaters but on digital platforms too, you probably feel like you can’t keep up. We feel the same way here at Filmmaker, with usually more films entering the marketplace then we’re able to devote meaningful editorial to. Invariably, some films slip through the cracks, while others may have been covered by us at their festival premieres months ago, with our coverage now buried in the depths of our CMS. So, we’re starting this “Recommended on a Friday” series of picks designed to help you navigate […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 14, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: Pablo Larraín’s Jackie
Revealing enough but not too much is this first teaser trailer for Pablo Larraín’s Jackie, for me, one of the best films of the year. Natalie Portman stars as the widowed First Lady, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, in the days following her husband’s assassination. In addition to being a bold psychological portrait, it’s also a clear-eyed dissection of the Camelot myth, referenced here, ironically, through Richard Harris’ singing.
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 5, 2016 -
Five Questions for Closet Monster Writer/Director Stephen Dunn
A surreal and entirely original coming-of-age tale, Closet Monster tells the story of Oscar, a gay, cinephilic high school senior who has been grappling with the implications of his parents’ divorce — and a witnessed act of gay bashing — by, among other things, conversing with his “spirit animal”: Buffy, a pet hamster voiced by Isabella Rossellini. The feature debut of Canadian writer/director Stephen Dunn, the film has drawn comparisons to the work of countrymen David Cronenberg and Xavier Dolan, but it pulses to its own unexpectedly sincere wavelength. Below, we asked Dunn about that Cronenberg connection, star Connor Jessup […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 23, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: Shrihari Sathe’s 1000 Rupee Note
Producer Shrihari Sathe makes his directorial debut with 1000 Rupee Note, premiering this weekend in New York at the Village East. Sathe, whose credits include Dukhtar, Buffalo Juggalos, It Felt Like Love (and, full disclosure, A Woman a Part, in partnership with me), developed this story based on a short by Shrikant Bojewar, the resident editor of Maharashtra Times, one of India’s major newspapers. Here’s a description: Budhi, a widow, lives in a small village in Maharashtra, India — and her only son has committed suicide. Though poor and left alone in the world, she leads a cheerful life and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 22, 2016 -
Twelve Programs and Events To Anticipate at IFP Film Week and Screen Forward Conference
In writing last year about IFP’s Film Week and Screen Forward Conference, I dubbed it the long-running event’s “most refined articulation yet,” a streamlined affair that, with “deceptive modesty,” did all the things IFP Film Week has historically done to support filmmakers and their projects with programming specific to today’s multi-platform world. Realizing that I sound like Apple designer Jony Ive in the sentence above, I guess I should then liken last year’s edition of IFP Film Week to the “most singular, most evolved” (per Ive) new iPhone 7, an event where the chassis remained the same but new tech […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 16, 2016 -
No Sleep Till Brooklyn: the IFP Talks Its New DUMBO-Based IFP Film Week
In 1979, in a rented Manhattan screening room, there was the IFFM — the Independent Feature Film Market, five days of film screenings that connected new emerging American feature film markets with a burgeoning array of distributors and overseas buyers. A year later, the IFP — first the Independent Feature Project and now the Independent Filmmaker Project — was officially born, and for much of its early existence it was defined by the IFFM. The Market moved to the Angelika Theater, screenings went from 1979’s 20 to the dozens, and the chaos of rabid filmmakers targeting anyone with an industry […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 16, 2016 -
Makeup Artist Makes Herself into Actor Steve Buscemi
We’ve shown you how lighting can change a face, and now we’ll show you how a makeup artist can turn a woman into… Steve Buscemi? Over at the Huffington Post, makeup artist Katelyn Galloway impressively transforms herself into the well known independent actor in just under four sped-up minutes. Watch the transformation below and then learn more about makeup artists in our article, “Secrets of Glam Squad: Inside the World of Film Hair and Makeup Artists.”
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 14, 2016 -
TIFF 2016: Five Questions for Prevenge Director/Actor Alice Lowe
Joining Ms. 45‘s blind, black-frocked avenger and Kill Bill‘s sword-wielding, catsuited femme fatale in the pantheon of female killer films is the seven-and-a-half months pregnant Ruth in Alice Lowe’s microbudget pitch-black thriller comedy, Prevenge, receiving its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Ruth is just six weeks from delivering her first child, but she’s still grieving the death of her husband several months earlier. And she’s receiving messages from her fetus, who seems to be speaking to her… and urging her to kill. Giving Prevenge an extratextual yet inside-the-frame kick is the fact that its first-time feature […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 14, 2016 -
TIFF 2016: Five Questions for The Headhunter’s Calling Director Mark Williams
Making his feature directing debut at the Toronto International Film Festival with The Headhunter’s Calling is producer Mark Williams. Gerard Butler plays Dane Jensen, a hard-nosed corporate headhunter whose ambition to take over his job placement company is put in conflict by a sudden family tragedy. The world of corporate headhunters is a world well known by screenwriter Bill Dubuque (The Judge), and life balance difficulties posed by a demanding profession — headhunting but, one could also say, the entertainment business — are understood by Williams too. That’s because he’s a founder and partner of Zero Gravity Management, an L.A.-based […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 12, 2016 -
TIFF 2016: Five Questions for Strange Weather Writer/Director Katherine Dieckmann
Receiving its world premiere as a Gala Presentation at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, Katherine Dieckmann’s fourth feature, Strange Weather, a Southern road trip movie in which the landscape is both physical and psychological. Holly Hunter stars as a fifty-something academic administrator whose job is suddenly in peril due to university budget cuts. Her son committed suicide seven years ago, and when she learns that his best friend is now profiting from a restaurant concept he stole from him, she decides to hit the road and possibly settle an old score. Before the festival we asked Dieckmann to tell […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 12, 2016
