BendFilm, the Oregon-based independent cinema organization which organizes the Bend Film Festival in addition to its year-round activities, has announced a new immersive retreat. From the press release: BendFilm, the nonprofit independent cinema organization, has announced BendFilm: Basecamp, a three-day immersive retreat for emerging creatives and their industry counterparts to connect, learn and collaborate. BendFilm: Basecamp will take place at Caldera Arts outside Sisters, Oregon, from October 7-10, 2024, and flow directly into the 21st annual Bend Film Festival (which takes place October 10-13, 2024, across venues throughout Bend and beyond). BendFilm: Basecamp’s inaugural year is made possible, in part, […]

UFO (Untitled Filmmaker Org) announced today the three filmmakers who have been selected for the latest edition of its Short Film Lab. At the Lab, which begins this month, Emily May Jampel, Arielle Knight, and Samuel Wright Smith will develop new scripted, documentary, and animated nonfiction projects, respectively. As announced in a press release, filmmakers Tahiel Jimenez Medina, Brydie O’Connor, Bren Wyona, and Kevin Xian Ming Yu from the inaugural cohort will continue in the program through December to develop new projects across nonfiction and scripted approaches, as part of the Lab’s staggered enrollment model.  From the press release: The […]

The Tribeca Festival gets underway today through June 16 with its customary mixture of high-profile panel discussions, starry celebrity docs (tonight’s opening night is Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Trish Dalton’s Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge), new media work and American and international acquisition titles hoping to attract the eye of buyers. About the new media work, Tribeca Immersive has shied away entirely from the sort of VR/AR pieces that dominated recent Tribeca festivals, opting instead to present eight immersive art pieces at Mercer Labs. Additionally, there’s a (somewhat) controversial partnership with Open AI that will screen shorts made using the […]

Baby Reindeer, Colin from Accounts and Mr. and Mrs. Smith were among the big winners tonight at the inaugural Gotham TV Awards, held in New York City at Cipriani 25. A new awards event mounted by The Gotham Film & Media Institute, Filmmaker‘s publisher, The Gotham TV Awards were announced just this past April and honor creators of episodic TV, limited series, and non-theatrical streaming movies. Going forward, the Gotham TV awards will continue in this early June slot, before the Emmy voting window, while the organization’s long-standing Gotham Awards will remain the first Monday after Thanksgiving. This year’s Gotham […]

Read Part One of producer Stephanie Roush’s Cannes 2024 Producer Diary here. I think I have finally recovered from my week at Cannes. I have chosen water over rosé, and no longer feel the need to arbitrarily dress up to take a meeting, as if geographical proximity to a black-tie event somehow necessitates “proper attire,” or tenue correcte, as the French call it. And while I’m glad to have a reliable sleep schedule again, I miss micro-dosing espresso in-between meetings, seeing a movie at a moment’s notice, and running into New York friends more than I do when I’m actually […]

Through a partnership with The Gotham, Filmmaker‘s publisher, students from Qunnipiac University attended the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where they participated in breakfast workshops, interned for sales companies, watched movies and soaked up knowledge on how the international film business operates. Three of the students — Willona Amoakoh, Chris Bavaro and Julia Schnarr — recount their experiences below. — Editor Willona Amoakoh I believe the most helpful things for young film workers going to Cannes to know or do are completing a few film business courses ahead of time, establishing an internship placement or assignment, factoring in some excursion time […]