Audiences respond to movies at the Munich International Film Festival much like the way popcorn is served — sweet or salty. It’s a relatively peaceful festival, with neither chaotic ticket lines nor crowded after-parties. But pouring out from small dark cinemas into the summer sun, attendees quickly share ruthless but straightforward critiques, a la Roger Ebert thumbs-up or down. This definitive sweet or salty response to a film feels standard among the German crowds. It’s certainly an effective method for rating movies. But when I need some time to marinate after watching Uisenma Borchu’s world premiere of Don’t Look At […]

Filmmaker‘s Taylor Hess recently attended and reported on the U.S. in Progress series at the Champs-Élysées Film Festival. While there, she spoke to a number of female directors, producers, actresses and, below, an editor. Here is her conversation with Sofia Subercaseaux, who edited Sebastian Silva’s Nasty Baby. Filmmaker: How did you start working in film? Subercaseaux: I went to film school in Chile. It was a random decision because I had no idea what I wanted to do, but the course description just seemed right. Afterwards, I worked in production. It was really fun and I learned a lot, but […]

Filmmaker‘s Taylor Hess recently attended and reported on the U.S. in Progress series at the Champs-Élysées Film Festival. While there, she spoke to a number of female directors, producers and actresses. Below, her conversation with Hannah Gross and Deragh Campbell, who both appear in Nathan Silver’s Stinking Heaven. Filmmaker: I Used To be Darker was your first film together, and Deragh, your first time acting? Campbell: Right, I’m not trained. My college degree is in writing and my background is publishing and writing. In a lot of ways I look at acting as another way of interacting with material and […]

Filmmaker‘s Taylor Hess recently attended and reported on the U.S. in Progress series at the Champs-Élysées Film Festival. While there, she spoke to a number of female directors and producers. Below, her conversation with Applesauce producer Melodie Sisk. Filmmaker: What was your timeline on Applesauce? Sisk: Applesauce moved so fast! We essentially had no real pre-production and had to jump right in. This made our schedule erratic, we’d shoot a few days at a time, jumping around between holidays, and then, just like that, we premiered at Tribeca exactly five months to the date of our first day of shooting. It […]

Bonjouring my way down the Champs-Élysées, I arrive at Ladurée, a Parisian bakery nearly as iconic as the Arc de Triomphe. I sit among film distributors and we are presented with food almost too pretty to eat. We are in Paris for U.S. in Progress, a joint program between Black Rabbit Film and the Champs-Élysées Film Festival. The purpose is to expose U.S. indie films in post-production to European buyers and distributors and introduce the American filmmakers to the European market. The three-day event is organized bi-annually, first during the Champs-Élysées Film Festival and again during the American Film Festival […]

When Miles Davis moved to the Upper West Side in 1958, backyard jams with visiting musicians transformed the small block. His residency lasted about 25 years, so he was long gone by the time I moved in to the building next door. But I was there for the block party last year when the street was renamed in his honor. In spite of the loudspeaker recordings, I got to hear the street on jazz. And immersed in the throngs of his friends and relatives, I felt transported. The next day, walking past a new 24hr CVS on the nearby corner, […]

I’d heard the rumors about Cannes. About the heels of shoes that are measured if they appear suspiciously low. About some authorized shoe detective (random festival volunteer) who is qualified to deem a heel unfit for a premiere and deny entry. About how this unwelcomed fashion consultation excludes nobody — except men. When I first heard of this supposed Cannes custom — since confirmed by recent celebrity outbursts and Facebook posts from friends in attendance — I lost interest in attending myself. It’s not about whether or not I like getting dolled up, or if I like to wear heels […]

I spent months complaining about the drug dealers on my doorstep. I didn’t like dodging their transactions or how they’d hover or call after me. But when one of them offered to help adjust my bike seat, witness to my prolonged and embarrassing struggle, an alliance was formed, and over the course of a few weeks, a friendship. Despite the language barrier — I speak poor German, and he, worse — I learned how he fled Senegal on a crowded boat of sick and dying refugees, and how he arrived in Italy without knowing a soul, the language, or an […]

I can’t say I’ve had many positive experiences with publicists. I once met one who texted throughout our entire first meeting, another who pretended not to have a spare ticket for a screening, and another who set up an interview and then told me afterward it couldn’t be published. But a series of lousy experiences by no means speaks to the universal personalities that PR attracts. It’s just that I’ve found publicity in general to be more on the unpleasant side of film industry unpleasantry, so it’s somehow been easier to judge. When I think of PR, I have a […]

In her 1929 essay A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf imagines a woman named “Judith.” She writes of an ordinary early 17th century woman, but supposes one unordinary detail. Supposing Judith had been the sister of Shakespeare with the same talent and ambition for writing, Woolf presents the realistic story, and it doesn’t end well for phantom Judith Shakespeare. Artistic ambitions for Elizabethan women were not just impractical; they were impossible. A few centuries and a bit of social progress later, the obstacles for Woolf and her contemporaries improved, but were far from perfect. Another century brings us to […]