Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Exclusive Clip: Scott Cummings’s Sundance-Bound Realm of Satan
Never have the words “in collaboration with” carried such a potent charge as they do in Scott Cummings’s Sundance-bound documentary, Realm of Satan. Working with members of the Church of Satan, Cummings hypnotizes viewers into the landscapes, physical spaces and ultimately mindsets of this misunderstood group as they, in the words of the Sundance programmers, “fight to preserve their lifestyle: magic, mystery, and misanthropy.” Writing about his previous film, Buffalo Juggalos, Cummings, a Filmmaker 25 New Face, said, “The Juggalos were not my subjects, they were participants, and every choice I made honored that participation.” There’s a similar ethos at […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 16, 2024 -
Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash Named Favorite All-Time Sundance Film
Over 500 members of Sundance’s filmmaking community took part in a poll that named Damien Chazelle’s jazz drummer drama Whiplash as their favorite film of the festival’s 40 years. World premiering at the 2014 festival, the film won Sundance’s Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic and Grand Jury Prize; U.S. Dramatic. Of note is that the film was based on a proof-of-concept short that itself won the top prize at Sundance only the year before. The other nine selections are similarly well-known pictures by directors who have gone on to stellar careers. It’s a list that includes the first features by the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 16, 2024 -
“I Think of My Work as Functioning Like a Virus in the Sense That It Gets Inside Your System”: Michelle Handelman on Her New Installation, DELIRIUM PART ONE: DEATH (The Breakdown)
“Make space to think about that which has died,” begins Lydia Lunch at the start of DELIRIUM PART ONE: DEATH (The Breakdown), a new multi-media installation by filmmaker and artist Michelle Handelman up through January 20 at New York’s signs and symbols gallery. On three projections spanning the viewer’s peripheral vision are performances by Lunch as well as the choreographic duo FlucT and dancers; the score, by Jack Dangers and Pharmakon, blends electronic drones, pulses and rhythmic stabs with breath and guttural sounds — “the cacophony of grief,” says Lunch. Together, the work is both a departure for Handelman and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 11, 2024 -
Watch: David Ehrlich’s 25 Best Films of 2023 Video Countdown
Indiewire critic David Ehrlich returns at the top of the year with his characteristically excellent supercut of the past year’s best films. This 2023 edition clocks in at over 18 minutes and includes such films as Past Lives, The Taste of Things, Oppenheimer, The Zone of Interest and, well, 21 others. Music includes cuts from Pet Shop Boys, Radiohead and Bonnie Tyler. If you haven’t seen any of these titles, the overall exuberance of Ehrlich’s presentation will send you to the theaters or their streaming platforms. Every year Ehrlich pairs the supercut with a charity. This year’s, he writes, “is […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 8, 2024 -
Filmmaker‘s 20 Most Read Articles of 2023
My annual exercise in what our audience — as well as our “audiences,” the latter term used to refer to the concoction of first and possibly last-time readers driven to our site by algorithmic determinism and SEO “best practices” — is always a mixture of the predictable and the unexpected. Regular features like our 25 New Faces series and Vadim Rizov’s survey of 35mm production always show up, as do articles by our excellent columnist Matt Mulcahey and podcaster Peter Rinaldi. I was particularly happy to see this year on the list two pieces that were especially deeply researched and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 28, 2023 -
Watch: DP Gregory Oke’s Hand-Scratched Animated Music Video for Will Epstein’s Golden
Cinematographer Gregory Oke, whose credits include Charlotte Wells’s astonishing debut Aftersun, recently made his first foray into music video. His clip for Will Epstein’s “Golden” is unexpected, a pulsing, sinuous work of animation in which he hand-scratched film negative as well as shot the singer and then treated the resulting footage in similarly analogue ways. Watch the video above, and read below statements from both Epstein and Oke. “When I met Greg, I could tell right away he was a kindred spirit even though all the points of our shared aesthetic sensibility weren’t immediately known to us. Naturally, I was […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 21, 2023 -
Editor’s Letter
Welcome to the winter 2024 issue of Filmmaker. If my editor’s letter last issue felt tentative in places, that was because, as I noted, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes were underway, and I, like many, had given up predicting when they would end. Happily, as we now go to press, both strikes have been resolved, although the SAG-AFTRA membership vote, 78% in favor, evidenced some opposition to the contract’s AI provisions, which grapple with issues around artificial intelligence and “synthetic performers”—concepts that might have seemed like science fiction just a few years ago and are now very real issues in […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 15, 2023 -
Filmmaker and Metrograph Partner on “25 New Faces: Highlights, Favorites and Deep Cuts”
Filmmaker and New York’s Metrograph Theater have partnered on a screening series as well as online streaming selection, “25 New Faces: Highlights, Favorites and Deep Cuts.” As the title suggests, it spotlights filmmakers chosen for our popular annual survey of new talent. Three programs run this weekend (Friday, December 15 and Saturday, December 16): one program of short films curated from our 2023 selection and then two drawn from prior years. In addition, a number of the shorts will stream online for Metrograph members. I’ll be there this weekend hosting the screenings along with some of the filmmakers and hope […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 12, 2023 -
Sundance Announces the Feature Film, Episodic and New Frontier Lineup of its 2024 40th Edition
The Sundance Institute today announced the 91 feature films, episodic and New Frontier works that comprise the 2024 40th edition of the Sundance Film Festival. Premieres by Steven Soderbergh, Lana Wilson, Nathan Silver and the Zellner Bros. join debuting filmmakers such as Jazmin Renée Jones, Haley Elizabeth Anderson and River Gallo at the festival, which runs January 18 – 28, 2024 in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah. A selection of the film’s programming will also be available online from January 25 – 28. Sundance received a record 17,435 submissions this year from 153 countries, with 4,410 being feature […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 6, 2023 -
Today’s Metrograph Book Fair Includes Collection of Late Critic and Author Tony Pipolo
It’s the year of book fairs featuring the collections of voracious cinephiles. Summer’s end saw the Tom Verlaine Book Sale, where several friends and colleagues picked up movie-related editions. And this weekend sees another collection hit the market, this time at New York’s Metrograph Theater. As part of their Holiday Book Fair, Metrograph today and December 16 will be selling the personal collection of books, magazines and journals collected by critic Tony Pipolo, who passed away this past Spring. From the announcement: A passionate moviegoer, intellectual polymath, writer of great acclaim, and Professor Emeritus of film and literature at CUNY, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 2, 2023
