The 30th anniversary edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival (running June 13-20, and co-presented by Film at Lincoln Center and the IFC Center) has much more to boast than its smartly slimmed-down lineup of 13 feature-length films (11 docs and two narrative works). In addition to the requisite post-screening panel discussions with filmmakers, subjects and special guests, there’s this year’s added bonus of actual behind-the-lens parity. With half the films directed or co-directed by women, the majority directed by filmmakers of color and, perhaps most importantly, half helmed by filmmakers with actual roots in the places they’re documenting, […]

A stranger in a foreign land, with a camera and a penchant for cheap beer: Andrew Hevia’s hyperdigital documentary Leave the Bus Through the Broken Window follows the Miami-bred filmmaker as he visits Hong Kong for the Chinese edition of Art Basel. At first determined to make a traditional documentary accessible for public television audiences, Hevia’s plans are quickly thwarted once he discovers the elusive intricacies of the region. He’s a Cuban-American who can’t understand the language of his new surroundings. Rather than view that as a hindrance, he takes to meeting artists and art collectors, attending art shows, wooing […]

Before Jessie Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli began the bulk of production on her second feature So Pretty, she wrote an essay for this site outlining some of the goals and background behind the production: The film is an adaptation of a 1980s German gay novel [Ronald M. Schernikau’s So Schön] that I am transposing and translating to a cast of feminine people of many genders in 2018, New York City. […] Given the explicit gender-trouble and queer elements of So Pretty, as well as the fact that it takes seriously the novella’s paraphrased subtitle “a utopian film,” my film must create an image […]

Although it starts just days before Cannes, the Venice Arts Biennale is routinely ignored by film journalists. Perhaps it’s because of the (incorrect) presumption that the yearly film festival sweeps up the important material, or perhaps it’s the weird art/film world divide. But key film figures routinely make their presence known at the Biennale: when I first attended in 2007, José Luis Guerín represented Spain with an installation-based riff on In The City of Sylvia, while Tsai Ming-Liang screened It’s A Dream for Taiwan. Meanwhile, a figure then best-known in the art world, Steve McQueen, shared two filmed works in […]

The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), Filmmaker‘s parent organization, announced today the ten projects selected for the Episodic Lab, IFP’s yearlong fellowship for breakthrough content creators working on fiction and nonfiction series projects aimed for television and digital platforms. Commented IFP Executive Director Jeffrey Sharp, “The IFP Episodic Lab is the perfect place to incubate and workshop these great series projects: it offers the creators and their teams mentorship to pull off their vision in the TV and digital landscape. It is also the perfect place for the teams to strengthen their pitches before they go out to market—specifically, IFP Week […]

SFFILM, in partnership with the Westridge Foundation, announced today the five filmmaking teams receiving a total of $100,000 in screenwriting and development for their narrative features. One of the few grants open to early-stage narrative filmmakers, the SFFILM Westridge grants, awarded twice annually, “are designed for US-based filmmakers whose stories take place primarily in the United States and focus on the significant social issues and questions of our time.” In a statement, the jury said, “We are thrilled to be able to support these five filmmakers and their exceptional projects. Each has used their unique voice and experience to illuminate […]