Authors — Scott Macaulay
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The 2016 Tribeca Film Festival Announces Selections for New U.S. And International Narrative Competitions, Plus World Documentary Competition and Viewpoints
The Tribeca Film Festival announced today its first wave of selections, including its newly created U.S. and International Narrative Competitions. Encompassing 18 films between them, the sections feature works by several Filmmaker 25 New Faces (Sophia Takal, Ian Olds, Ingrid Jungermann, Cecilia Aldarondo, and Alma Har’el) as well as new work by Demitri Martin and Tracy Droz Dragos, director (with Andrew Droz Tragos) of the Sundance winner Rich Hill. Each section will have an Opening Night film. The U.S. Narrative Competition unspools with Justin Tipping’s San Francisco-set youth crime drama, Kicks. The International Narrative Competition opens with Madly, an anthology […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 2, 2016 -
Watch: :kogonada on the Way of Ozu
Filmmaker and video essayist :kogonada — one of Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces of 2014 — has a new piece up that revisits one of his continuing inspirations: Yasujiro Ozu. As has been the case in previous pieces, Kogonada employs split screen to identify formal patterns and correspondences across Ozu’s work as well as to create a new work softly pulsing with allied rhythms and gentle background audio. By the way, Kogonada has a Tiny Letter — “Notes, inquiries, conversations, and projects in pursuit of Ozu, the aftertaste of time, the cinema of mu, and the somethingness of nothingness in this […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 2, 2016 -
Watch: Unmappable, by Diane Hodson and Jasmine Luoma
Premiering online on Vimeo is Unmappable, a short documentary by Diane Hodson and Jasmine Luoma that presents a complicated portrait of an artist and sex offender. Here’s Whitney Mallett writing about the film previously for Filmmaker at the Atlanta Film Festival. The short documentary Unmappable is a portrait of Denis Wood, whose poetic mapmaking challenges the distinction between art and cartography. He also had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old boy — a friend of his son’s who began living with the family — for which he spent 26 months in prison. Both the story and tone directors Diane Hodson […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 1, 2016 -
Alongside Spotlight, Mya Taylor, Krisha, The Look of Silence Nab 2016 Spirit Awards
Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight, about a team of Boston journalists investigating Catholic Church pedophilia scandals in the 1980s, swept the Film Independent Spirit Awards yesterday, scoring Best Feature, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Editing awards, in addition to the Robert Altman Award for Best Ensemble. As if often the case at the Spirits, the Open Roads released film was by far the highest-grossing film in all of its winning categories, sometimes to a surprising degree. On the awards circuit this year, Spotlight has been that rare frontrunner without a galvanizing lead, or even supporting, performance. (Perhaps acknowledging that fact, the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 28, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: K8 Hardy’s Outfitumentary
K8 Hardy does not want you to watch her debut feature, Outfitumentary. Or, at least, that’s her position expressed in the trailer above. If you choose to ignore her advice, the film has one more screening as part of MoMA’s Doc Fortnight series this Sunday. Also, check out Taylor Hess’s interview with Hardy here at Filmmaker.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 25, 2016 -
Anohni, Academy’s Only Transgender Nominee Ever, Explains Decision to Skip the Oscars
As a viewer it’s easy and arguably admirable to skip the Oscars. As a film writer, a disinterest in the Academy Awards can provide thoughtful commentary on the artistic and commercial priorities of our film business. But for those with more vested interest, not attending the Awards is a powerful statement. In the year of the Oscar boycott, this essay by Anohi (aka Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons), the first transgender performer ever to be nominated, is particularly bracing. Anohni, who was nominated for Best Original Song (“Manta Ray,” her collaboration with J. Ralph from the movie Racing […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 25, 2016 -
Deadline Approaching for the IFP Narrative and Documentary Labs
The IFP Labs, which offer intensive, year-long mentorship to first-time filmmakers with features in post-production and budgeted less than $1 million, has a March 1 deadline coming up. Still the only Labs focused on post-production, festival strategy, marketing, distribution and DIY strategies, the program is, I think, an invaluable resource and one of the IFP’s best activities. (Full disclosure: IFP publishes Filmmaker, and I was a creator of the IFP Narrative Labs.) In addition to the guidance and advice from Lab Leaders and professional mentors, the Labs also create a tight-knit community of filmmakers who wind up being their own […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 24, 2016 -
Watch: Roger Deakins and Matthew Heineman Talk Shooting the Drug War
One fiction, one documentary, Sicario and Cartel Land were the year’s two most vivid cinematic vocations of violence surrounding the Mexican drug wars. Here, courtesy of VICE, is a great conversation between Sicario D.P. Roger Deakins and Cartel Land director and cinematographer Matthew Heineman. They get deep into their visual ideas for the film as well as the narrative and moral issues those ideas are designed to represent.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 20, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: Stephen Elliott’s After Adderall
“What’s the difference between a memoir and life?” “I’m an agent, not a philosopher.” That’s writer/director/actor Stephen Elliott quizzing his agent, played by James Urbaniak, in After Adderall, the director’s feature-length, rapid-response to the strange experience of having his memoir turned into a movie starring James Franco. Elliott has assembled a great cast, including Michael C. Hall and Lili Taylor alongside numerous authors playing themselves (Jerry Stahl, Susan Orlean, Michael Cunningham). The film is currently being submitted to film festivals.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 19, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: The Marijuana Journalism Documentary, Rolling Papers
The SXSW-premiering Rolling Papers, which opens in theaters today from Alchemy, finds a sharp angle to cover the rise of legal weed in the state of Colorado. Even before recreational marijuana use was legalized in Colorado, The Denver Post launched a department devoted to covering the pot beat, “The Cannabist.” It’s by focusing on editor Ricardo Baca and his team of journalists that producer/director Mitch Dickman tells a story that’s about changing cultural mores, the struggles of print journalism, and getting high in the Mile High State.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 19, 2016
