Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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The Gotham Announces Public Programming for 2021 Virtual Gotham Week Conference
The Gotham Film & Media Institute, Filmmaker‘s publisher, announced today the public programming for its upcoming Gotham Week Conference, which will take place virtually from September 19 – September 24. Covering audio, doc and narrative feature filmmaking, and TV, the series of events will, according to the press release, “take a deep look at how the media and entertainment industry is reinventing itself in the wake of the pandemic as well as the increased attention on diversity, equity and inclusion.” Filmmaker is partnering with The Gotham for a keynote series, Conversations in Creativity. This issue’s cover filmmaker, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson […]
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Pain into Joy: BlackStar Film Festival 2021
Each day of the 10th edition of the BlackStar Film Festival begins this way: founder Maori Karmael Holmes and filmmaker-artist Rashid Zakat, along with rotating guest hosts, co-host the fest’s version of a morning talk show, “The Daily Jawn.” Like many others festivals, BlackStar was in a hybrid format this year, with in-person screenings at outdoor venues in Philadelphia; for virtual attendees like me, “The Daily Jawn” served as the closest connection to Philadelphia, the city BlackStar grounds itself in. While it has the structured feel of a broadcast show, Holmes’s vibrant and colorful outfits, the friendship between its hosts […]
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“Unfortunately, I’ve Always Been Seen as Very Earnest”: Hayley Garrigus on You Can’t Kill Meme
I first saw Hayley Garrigus’s feature nonfiction debut, You Can’t Kill Meme, in 2019 as a work-in-progress cut. As I wrote last year, Meme is bookended by the unnerving image of an CG-animated Pepe the Frog cradled like a baby in a man’s arms before slowly turning his head. Meme branches out from 4Chan’s infamous r/pol board to interview subjects who include online meme warriors on the left and right, a self-described “lightworker” who hosts workshops at her home and R. Kirk Packwood, whose 2004 book, Memetic Magic: Manipulation of the Root Social Matrix and the Fabric of Reality, codified how memes might […]
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The Gotham Adds Four New Board Members: Alina Cho, Franklin Leonard, Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar and Celia Winchester
The Gotham Film & Media Institute, Filmmaker‘s publisher, announced today four new additions to its Board of Directors. Alina Cho, Franklin Leonard, Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar and Cecilia Winchester are the new members who are joining, said Jeffrey Sharp, Executive Director of The Gotham, “at this very exciting inflection point in our 42-year history. All four have distinguished themselves in their respective fields and will play a vital role in supporting our ambitious plans for the future.” Co-chairs Anthony Bregman and Jim Janowitz added, “The Gotham Board of Directors welcomes our newest members in recognition of their support and commitment to this […]
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Film at Lincoln Center Announces 2021 NYFF Main Slate
Jane Campion, Joel Coen, Gaspar Noe, Joachim Trier, Mia Hansen-Love, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Todd Haynes and Pedro Almodovar are some of the heavy-hitting directors whose work will receive U.S. premieres at the 2021 New York Film Festival. Just announced is the main slate, which features many returning veterans as well as filmmakers appearing at the festival for the first time, including Rebecca Hall, Saul Williams and Alexandre Koberidze. Two filmmakers — Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Hong Sangsoo — are represented by two titles. The festival runs September 24 – October 10, and proof of vaccination will be required at all venues. Festival […]
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Leos Carax’s Green Period: DP Caroline Champetier on Annette and Her Work with Jacques Rivette, Claude Lanzmann and Philippe Garrel
For Leos Carax, stories of love—or really, most any story—mean finding a new language of filmmaking. For Caroline Champetier, Carax’s longtime director of photography, that means realizing dreams that might not at first seem possible. Annette is the story of a dream yearned for but not fully realized, the great love between opera superstar Ann (Marion Cotillard) and ornery comedian Henry (Adam Driver). They have a child who becomes a singing star herself, but their bond is undone in the dark crucible of Henry’s discontent, and Carax and Champetier craft a kind of handmade journey whose very nature expresses the […]
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Sundance Festival Director Tabitha Jackson Announces Details of 2022 Event; Vaccinations Required for In-Person Utah Events
Festival director Tabitha Jackson announced today details of the upcoming Sundance Film Festival, which will take place in Park City, Utah and across various Satellite Screen venues January 20 – 30, 2022. Most significantly, after 2021’s virtual edition, Sundance 2022 will be an in-person event. The festival will require attendees of events in Utah to be fully vaccinated, with further details about health precautions and mask-wearing to be issued in the coming months. The festival will also be larger than last year’s scaled-down edition but still smaller than the pre-pandemic 2020 festival. For further details, read the complete letter from […]
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The Gotham Announces the 135 Projects Comprising Its Upcoming Gotham Week Project Market
The Gotham Film & Media Institute (formerly IFP, and Filmmaker‘s publisher) today announced the 135 fiction and non-fiction projects, series and audio podcasts, that will comprise the upcoming Gotham Week Project Market. To be held virtually September 19-24, 2001, the Project Market connects projects in development and production with financiers, producers, distributors and other partners. “We are proud to announce the extraordinary line up of new projects at this year’s Project Market – all of which feature distinctive and original voices. Our virtual format will again provide an exciting opportunity for independent artists to engage with a broader set of […]
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“We Had to Combine Three Different Islands”: Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic on Cannes Caméra d’Or-Winner Murina
The winner of the Caméra d’Or for the best debut feature at Cannes this year was the maritime Murina, a coming-of-age drama of slow-motion escape from Croatian writer-director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic. Premiering in Directors’ Fortnight, the sun-baked film tracks teenaged Julija (Gracija Filipivoc) as she slowly but surely pushes for autonomy from her grumpy father, Ante (Leon Lucev), who runs their family like an impatient captain. A visit from a longtime friend, bekhaki’d and comfortable businessman Javier (Cliff Curtis), sets thoughts spinning for Julija and her youthful mother, Nela (Danica Curcic), as Ante frantically schemes to sell land. Kusijanovic brilliantly […]
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Cannes Film Festival 2021: Awards, Vortex, Train Again
I typically aim to use this last post as my awards clean-up, wherein I tackle the prize-winning films I didn’t address in my previous dispatches. This year will have to be different, since Spike Lee’s jury trophied many of the films I already found generative enough to have given them space here. Not atypically, though, the panel failed to hand any accolades to the two films that in my opinion were the most laudable among the competition slate—namely, Bruno Dumont’s rapturously off-kilter France, which could have justifiably taken any prize on the menu except Best Actor (although Macron’s unknowing cameo […]
