Authors — Scott Macaulay
-
Five Questions for 195 Lewis Director Chanelle Aponte Pearson
Winner of the euphoria Calvin Klein-sponsored “Live the Dream” grant at the 2015 IFP Gotham Awards, filmmaker Chanelle Aponte Pearson is the director of the upcoming web series, 195 Lewis, as well as the head of operations at the Brooklyn-based production company MVMT. In other words, she’s a consummate juggler, working on the business side of film while evolving her own film and web practice. With an excerpt of 195 Lewis, Pearson’s Brooklyn-set, queer polyamorous love story, having screened at this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam, we decided to check in with Pearson for a status update on the larger […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 26, 2016 -
Dean, Junction and Do Not Resist Top 15th Annual Tribeca Film Festival Awards
Dean, Demetri Martin’s gently comic picture about a Brooklyn illustrator unable to move on with his life following the death of his mother, won the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature today at the 15th Annual Tribeca Film Festival. Udi Aloni’s Junction 48 — a drama about a Palestinian rapper in the mixed-city of Lyd that won the Audience Prize at this year’s Berlin Festival — took home the Best International Narrative Feature Award, while Craig Atkinson’s Do Not Resist, about the increasing militarization of United States’ police forces, won the Best Feature in the World Documentary Competition. About Martin’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 21, 2016 -
Editor’s Letter
Many years ago I was invited to be the co-editor of The Off-Hollywood Report, the precursor magazine to Filmmaker, by its new editor, James Schamus. To start me off, James handed me a long-form assignment. He told me about several UCLA film school students who were skipping their thesis shorts and going straight ahead to making no-budget features while in school. I talked to a number of them, including Caveh Zahedi, whose first feature (directed with Greg Watkins), was just one of these films — A Little Stiff — and that feature appeared in our first issue. So, I’m finding […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 21, 2016 -
Parting Shot: Thomas Bidegain
In the ’90s, French screenwriter and now director Thomas Bidegain was a familiar face in the L.A. and New York film communities. He worked in distribution in L.A. for Connoisseur Films, produced independent films out of New York, and worked in Paris for distributor MK2 and production company Why Not during the years when both were eagerly scouting the latest American independent auteurs. But after writing a series of short films, Bidegain made his biggest career shift yet, moving into screenwriting as he wrote, with Jacques Audiard, the tough prison drama A Prophet. Since then he’s co-written all of Audiard’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 21, 2016 -
Precision Moves: Anna Rose Holmer, Lisa Kjerulff and Saela Davis on The Fits
“Stop thinking as an individual and start thinking as a team,” says Legs (Makyla Burnam), one of the Lionesses — a dynamic Cincinnati high-school drill team — to a group of young recruits, who include the shy, diminutive, but quietly purposeful 11-year-old boxer Toni. Played in writer/director/producer Anna Rose Holmer’s terrific, formally assured dramatic feature debut, The Fits, by the self-possessed and emotionally transparent Royalty Hightower, Toni has been drawn away from the comforting routine of her boxing practice by the sounds, music and movement of the Lionesses and, by extension, the more adult world they represent. But soon after […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 21, 2016 -
Worlds Within
Oculus Rift Just reaching stores is the long-awaited Oculus Rift ($599), the highest-end VR headset presently on the consumer market. Launched in 2012 with $2.5 million in Kickstarter funding and purchased two years later by Facebook for $2 billion, Oculus Rift in this early iteration is focusing on gaming, with EVE: Valkyrie bundled with the kit. The company is developing film applications too. There’s Oculus Video, an app allowing viewers to watch movies in either 2-D or 3-D from within a virtual cinema space. (You can even select your seat and angle of view.) And there are already dramatic VR […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 21, 2016 -
Watch: Living Los Sures‘ Short, Eric, Winter to Spring
The third and final short from UnionDocs’ Living Los Sures project premiering here at Filmmaker is Danya Abt’s Eric, Winter to Spring. UnionDocs describes the project like this: After losing his brother two years ago, cab driver Eric Martine quit using drugs and began a new chapter in his life. Although he still visits some of the same punk-rock haunts and friends, Eric is re-mapping his life onto the city he knows by turning his experiences into prose poems and trying to draw meaning from an extreme past. (2014) The short won Best Short Documentary at the 2015 Brooklyn Film […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 20, 2016 -
IFP Announces Slate for Second Annual Screen Forward Labs
Commencing today at the IFP’s DUMBO-based Made in NY Media Center is the IFP Screen Forward Labs, an intensive program dedicated to the work of creators making story-driven, serialized projects for all formats, including television, web, VR or apps. This year’s selections include an animated and VR piece about the mind of Oliver Sacks; a 35mm-shot horror-thriller set in the world of infomercials; an iPhone-shot horror serial; and a suburban-set comedy about motherhood from indie director Susan Skoog (Whatever). According to IFP, 80% of the creators/writers/directors are women and/or diverse voices. 30% feature predominantly African-American and Latino casts. “We are […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 18, 2016 -
Tribeca 2016: Five Questions for Women who Kill Writer/Director Ingrid Jungermann
After creating, directing and starring in two acclaimed web series — The Slope, a collaboration with Desiree Akhavan, and From F to 7th — Ingrid Jungermann makes her feature debut with the Tribeca Film Festival selection Women Who Kill. It’s a zeitgeist-y murder mystery set in the world of true-crime podcasts, but, like all of Jungermann’s work, it’s also a relationship story drawing inspiration from her own life. Below, Jungermann, one of Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces, talks about her favorite ’80s serial killer books and movies, why working in genre allows her to be more personal, and now “Serial” inspired the film. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 17, 2016 -
Tribeca 2016: Five Questions for For The Love of Spock Director Adam Nimoy
Along with Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and James Bond but few others, Star Trek is that rare pop-culture franchise that spans generations. And while Zachary Quinto may have taken over the role of Mr. Spock, the half-human character’s DNA originates from Leonard Nimoy, who played the character in the original TV series as well as early movies. Having its premiere last night at the Tribeca Film Festival, For The Love of Spock is son Adam Nimoy’s tribute to the character of Spock, Star Trek fandom and his dad. The film also happens to be one of the most successful […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 17, 2016
