Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Editor’s Letter
A year ago in this space I introduced my story on the STARZ show The Girlfriend Experience. It was our first-ever TV cover, and it kicked off a year in which the cultural conversation flowed from Moonlight to Atlanta, from Cameraperson to OJ: Made in America. I guess the Winter is our future issue, then, because, a year later, illustrated by artist Kim Dong-kyu’s witty update of Caspar David Friedrich’s 1818 painting, “Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog,” here is our first virtual reality, or VR, cover. This time the writer is Google’s principal filmmaker for VR, Jessica Brillhart, and her […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 18, 2017 -
The Terror of the Text: Olivier Assayas and Kristen Stewart on Personal Shopper
Personal Shopper, Olivier Assayas’s latest feature, begins with a classic horror movie trope: an evening spent in a haunted house. Kristen Stewart plays expat Maureen — not a paranormalist or twentysomething thrill-seeker but a personal clothes buyer and stylist to Kyra, a celebrity socialite and member of the Davos set. Something of a savant, Maureen does this job with an instinctual certainty but little evident pleasure. Whether that’s due to her preternatural cool or an overlay of mourning is unclear. But several months earlier, her brother, with whom she shares a congenital heart condition, died in a drafty mansion somewhere […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 18, 2017 -
Watch: An New Clip from Celia Rowlson-Hall’s MA
A woman, a man, a car and the desert. Widescreen. That’s the gist of this clip for Celia Rowlson-Hall’s highly-recommended MA, which opens tomorrow at the IFC Center via Factory 25. Check out the clip, read the synopsis below and see the movie! In this modern-day vision of Mother Mary’s pilgrimage, a woman crosses the scorched landscape of the American Southwest. Reinvented and told entirely through movement, the film playfully deconstructs the role of this woman, who encounters a world full of bold characters that are alternately terrifying and sublime. MA is a journey into the visceral and the surreal, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 12, 2017 -
Listen: Brian McOmber’s Haunting Score for Celia Rowlson-Hall’s MA
Celia Rowlson-Hall made our 25 New Faces list in 2015 on the basis of her entirely original, stunningly assured and nearly indescribable feature debut, MA. A year later, we picked for the list her film’s composer, former Dirty Projectors drummer Brian McComber, who not only composed her amazing score but did similarly outre work for Trey Shults’s Krisha. As he relates in our profile, the experimentalism of Rowlson-Hall’s film let him go slightly wild with the score; hence, the evocative gongs and cymbals. Now, over at the Soundcloud page of the film’s production company, MEMORY (yet another 25 New Face […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 12, 2017 -
Cameraperson and O.J.: Made in America Top the 2017 Cinema Eye Honors
The Cinema Eye Honors, which has been celebrating exceptional documentary filmmaking since 2007, wrapped its first decade tonight with its annual awards ceremony, hosted by documentary director Steve James, at the Museum of the Moving Image. Kirsten Johnson’s memoiristic meditation on documentary image-making, Cameraperson was the big winner, taking home three awards, including Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Filmmaking, Outstanding Achievement in Editing and Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography, while Ezra Edelman’s sprawling O.J.: Made in America won two: Outstanding Achievement in Directing and Outstanding Achievement in Production. Other winners included Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos’s Netflix series Making a Murderer (Outstanding […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 11, 2017 -
Sundance Trailer Watch: The Female-Directed Horror Anthology XX
Four female directors helm the various short works comprising XX, a new horror anthology from Magnet Releasing. Directors include musician Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) and Karyn Kusama, whose Girlfight graced our Summer 2000 issue and whose The Invitation is one of the best films — horror or otherwise — of ’16. From the press release: XX is a new all-female helmed horror anthology featuring four dark tales written and directed by fiercely talented women: Annie Clark (St. Vincent) rocks her directorial debut with The Birthday Party; Karyn Kusama (The Invitation, Girlfight) exorcises Her Only Living Son; Roxanne Benjamin (Southbound) […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 11, 2017 -
Rotterdam Announces its 2017 Hivos Tiger Competition Films
The International Film Festival Rotterdam announced today the eight films that will comprise its 2017 Hivos Tiger Competition. Among the titles are films from the Chile, India, Bulgaria and the United States, the latter represented by the first narrative feature of kogonada, one of Filmmaker‘s 2014 25 New Faces. Commented Festival Director Bero Beyer, “This years line-up of the Hivos Tiger Competition features bold and daring filmmakers that don’t shun the use of other media, alternative narrative structures and provocative and relevant themes. The nominees and their works deserve international recognition for their artistry. We are proud to present each […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 3, 2017 -
What Would You Like to See at Filmmaker in 2017?
One of the challenges facing sites covering film and media these days is one of content overload and focus. As boundaries between fields start to blur, as television, gaming and virtual reality start grabbing cultural mindshare, there’s a question, for us, of where to devote the resources of our small staff and band of freelancers. Additionally, Filmmaker prides itself on being accessible to its readers, and that poses challenges too, with a large number of questions and comments arriving across multiple social platforms. So, to start off 2017, we’re asking for your anonymous feedback. Simply, what would you like to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 1, 2017 -
Is Section 181, Film Federal Tax Incentive, “Dead” in a New Trump Administration?
Section 181, the Federal tax incentive spurring the production of film and television in the United States is about to suffer, reports David Robb at Deadline, “a quiet death” — at least for the time being. Filmmaker has covered Section 181 extensively, with Daniel J. Coplan’s article from last summer explaining in detail how the incentive benefits independent film producers and investors. In brief, it allows investors to deduct 100% of their investment against their Federal taxes in the year of the investment. That’s opposed to depreciating that investment over multiple years. For a high net work individual, that could […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 30, 2016 -
The 20 Most Popular Posts of 2016
Again in 2016, when compiling this list of our 20 most popular posts on the site, I was gratified to see our customarily high substance-to-clickbait ratio holding steady. As always, our “top posts of the year” list is broken in two. There is a list of the top ten new pieces published in 2016, and then a list of the top ten previously published, or archival, posts. Befitting the magazine’s mission, there’s a strong current of practical filmmaking advice and DIY tutorials here, ranging from casting, finding a producer, developing a script and more. In terms of the newly published […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 29, 2016
