Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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“We Can Do Whatever We Want”: The Makers Of The Podcast Mission To Zyxx On Doing Indie Sci-Fi Comedy On The Cheap
Sound-only projects got an entire day at IFP Week 2018, which may irk sticklers wondering what podcasts are doing in a seminar once dedicated solely to film. Well, as more and more filmmakers consider themselves some-kind of cross-platform storyteller, podcasts are natural medium for their work. (See, for example, this Filmmaker article on filmmakers embracing that medium.) And, IFP itself added audio storytelling as one of its main areas of interest earlier in the year. To boot, independent aural projects and independent cinema share a lot of similar concerns, aesthetic as well as financial. Take Mission to Zyxx, an improvised […]
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2018 IFP Gotham Awards Announce Tributes for Actor Willem Dafoe and Director Paul Greengrass
The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), Filmmaker‘s parent organization, announced today that actor Willem Dafoe will receive the Actor Tribute and Paul Greengrass will receive the Director Tribute at the 2018 IFP Gotham Awards. From the press release: “Willem Dafoe is one of the most iconic actors of our generation. Throughout his legendary career, he has consistently brought versatility, boldness and daring complexity to his roles. Whether a Hollywood tentpole franchise or a small-scale independent film, Willem’s artistic curiosity has led him to film and theatre projects all over the world, making him one of the most internationally respected actors. The […]
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The Trees are Calling: The Films and Pitches of Camden International Film Festival 2018
Most film festivals can claim a thing or two: A dramatic location, a slate of coveted premieres, fancy fetes, unique guests, a platoon of industry heavies making the rounds, and, for better or worse, the media spotlight. I’ve never attended any film festival where I had the chance to wrap my arms around a tree–in a public park, no less, and in full view of pedestrians–and plant my ear firmly to its bark, as one of its official selections. And yet, there I was, in Camden, Maine, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, tree-hugging away. The four selected trees on the […]
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“Audio Is A Very Visual Medium”: The Makers Of ESPN’s 30 For 30 Podcast On Working Without Images
The team behind the ESPN podcast 30 for 30 hate the word “podcast.” They think “audio documentaries” is a better fit. “The word podcast is just so unhelpful,” said Jody Avirgan, the show’s host and executive producer. “A lot of people hear ‘podcast’ and think two people in a room talking. I like those podcasts. But we’re trying to do stuff that’s much more akin to a short film than to that kind of podcast.” Of course, the 30 for 30 audio documentary series only exists because of film. They’re a spin-off of the 30 for 30 films, which began […]
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“There’s Nothing in the Story That Predetermines That the Creature Becomes a Monster”: The Makers Of Frankenstein A.I. On Being Optimistic At IFP Week 2018
What is Frankenstein A.I.? The name itself is something of a Janus symbol, looking back to classic literature—an early work of horror and, lest we forget, of science-fiction—while looking forward to our potentially human-less future. And like Mary Shelley’s creature itself, it’s something of a patchwork, stitched together from different mediums. It’s part installation, part theater, part audience participation, part improv, even part dance. It’s not quite film, though there is a screen with moving images. Whatever it is, it premiered—under the full name Frankenstein A.I.: A Monster Made By Many—at Sundance last winter, earning raves and awe. Perhaps most […]
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“We Just Have To Go One Gentle Step After Another”: Members of England’s The Space Arts Council On Embracing New Digital Platforms at IFP Week 2018
To be in the arts right now is to be excited and scared, often at the same time. The old ways are dying, but no one actually knows what the new ways even are. There’s so much potential in the digital landscape, but it’s unclear how it can be used—to find audiences, to fix old (and new) problems, to maybe even make money. These are issues that consume those involved with The Space, an English arts council set up at the BBC not only to fund art but to find new ways to get them out into the world. “There […]
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‘Nobody Wanted This Story’: Paula Eiselt And Heidi Reinberg On Making 93Queen At IFP Week 2018
Here’s a typical story about a documentary (or an indie, or occasionally even an experimental film): It cruises the festival circuit, likely at Sundance. It builds up buzz. Perhaps it collects some awards. It scores a distributor. Several months — or even a year, now and then even years — later it opens in theaters, riding on hazily recalled accolades and hopefully at least polite reviews. It is or isn’t a success, and there’s a chance it spends eternity lost in the vast bowels of iTunes. Some people (and a few reviewers) assume this is the tale of 93Queen, Paula […]
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‘We Know You, But You Guys Don’t Know Us’: Female Filmmakers Talk Diversity And Inclusivity At IFP Week
Gender and inclusivity are two key buzzwords floating about the film world these days, but how are these ideas being implemented? Are they being implemented? And are these issues always binary, black and white? Talking to filmmakers who aren’t Caucasian, male and/or cis, you don’t get clear-cut answers. You don’t always get encouraging answers, though you sometimes do. One gets the impression that this is an industry struggling with ideas that may change it radically, and that some people — even well-meaning allies — are still glomming onto old traditions. These issues were confronted directly during IFP Week, particularly at the […]
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TIFF 2018 Critic’s Notebook 8: In My Room, Wavelengths
Here’s what I did not expect to see last Monday: Béla Tarr, hunched by a door before the fourth and final screening of the experimental Wavelengths shorts programs so crucial to my annual TIFF experience. I’d missed a trick–news that he’d be with us had been tweeted out that morning, but I’m glad I didn’t know. Dropping in one of the crucial film figures of the last 30 years was a shock to the system; the red-carpet clutter unavoidably inseparable from nearly any festival faded away, and for a few minutes there was just Tarr, as stringent as expected, talking about the young […]
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“Hype First”: Maxi Cohen on the Genesis of the IFP
On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the IFP and its Film Week, filmmaker Maxi Cohen contributes the following guest essay on that moment of inception. — Editor Sandra Schulberg and I were in the train station after the 1978 Rotterdam Film Festival. I had presented Joe and Maxi, a film about my relationship with my father1, and Sandra had presented two movies produced for the PBS Visions series, The Gardener’s Son by Richard Pearce and Over-Under-Sideways-Down by the Cine Manifest collective. Marc Weiss had helped to arrange U.S. Indie Films in Rotterdam which they dubbed “Hollywood without Make-Up.” […]
