It’s been nearly two weeks since my participation in IFP’s Emerging Visions Program and now that the dust has settled, I can see clearly how valuable this experience was, not only in a practical sense, i.e., the nuts and bolts of filmmaking, but also in more intangible ways. I was lucky to have the opportunity to participate in the Emerging Narratives and the Emerging Visions Program, back to back, with my feature film script The Whispering Giant. Both IFP programs offer filmmakers a chance to pitch their projects in a “safe” environment, where they can be critiqued by an industry […]
This morning, the Gotham Awards nominations were announced (indeed tweeted), and in a very competitive field, Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, Richard Linklater’s Bernie, Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere and Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom lead the way, each earning two nominations. Commenting on the nominations, IFP’s executive director Joana Vicente said, “From master film artists to richly talented newcomers, this year’s nominees comprise a diverse group of filmmakers and actors that defines the spectrum of independent film today. In addition to celebrating the work and the community, we also hope that the Gotham Award attention will encourage more […]
The Dragons & Tigers section has been the richest part of VIFF’s legacy, dating back to 1994. Each year, the Award for Young Cinema has highlighted an as yet unrecognized talent of East Asian cinema. This year the Dragons & Tigers jury was made up of Shinozaki Makoto, Joao Pedro Rodrigues and Chuck Stephens. I was able to see a few films from the competition, including the winner Emperor Visits the Hell, directed by Li Luo. An often perplexing, but always interesting film, Li’s movie transports a story (three chapters) from the Ming Dynast novel Journey to the West to […]
While other A-List actresses have chased the kind of star vehicles that kill on opening weekend, Nicole Kidman has been quietly becoming Hollywood’s most unlikely rebel—a statuesque leading lady with a snowballing penchant for bold auteur partnerships. It’s hard to pinpoint when, exactly, the gal from Days of Thunder began her metamorphosis into the daring muse currently drawing viewers to The Paperboy (above), but many would likely cite Gus Van Sant’s To Die For as the pivotal work in Kidman’s filmography. The sheer unlikeability of the delusional, cradle-robbing viper Suzanne Stone screams of Tinseltown-bombshell repellant, but Kidman executed the role […]
It was not until the very close of Michael Haneke’s laurel-laden Amour that I came to a pleasantly odd realization. Without any foresight, I had managed to stumble upon the perfect trans-generational triple feature—perhaps not just at the New York Film Festival, but in the grander scheme as well. At first blush, the Tokyo-set Like Someone in Love, New York-based Frances Ha, and the claustrophobic Parisian quarters of Amour have as much in common as, well, an Eastern social order, a misguided American woman, and a shackled octogenarian couple could. But a closer look reveals a glaringly common thread. […]
My fifth year in a row of attending the Vancouver International Film Festival in my hometown has been unique thus far—I’m at the precise halfway point of the 16-day event as I write this—in that it’s the only time that I’ve already caught many of the films playing thanks to my trip to Locarno in August. This has afforded me the freedom to venture beyond the “festival-of-festivals” programming of obligatory Cannes leftovers and such, to explore, among other things, the Dragons & Tigers section for which VIFF is renowned. For those that don’t know, Dragons & Tigers is a long-running […]
Grouping is an excellent organizing tool during a film festival — mapping the films and intimating their relationships. The only problem is that, for the reader, you run the risk of relinquishing the element of surprise. Take, for example, Our Children (pictured above), a New York Film Festival main slater by Belgian director Joahim Lafosse. (The original French title is A Perdre la Raison.) It was not invited to Toronto, which has at least ten times the number of films as the New York Film Festival. What differentiates Our Children from the other selections? The most obvious is fragmentation. Short […]
It often feels as though a solid 75% of film industry members that I meet in New York have filtered through the IFP at some point; as a long ago employee, intern, or volunteer, or as a patron of the film market, which has gone by various aliases over the years. These days it falls under the umbrella of Independent Film Week, which I had the opportunity to attend this year as my film Remote Area Medical—which my partner Jeff and I are deep in the process of editing—was accepted into the Spotlight on Documentaries section. As I proudly told […]
As a filmmaker, I find myself more and more impressed with the indie game-making community. They’re supportive of their own at a level I wish we filmmakers were and they’re constantly innovating new ways of distribution. Because of this, it’s become a little quest of mine to learn more about indie game-making and how it overlaps with indie filmmaking. How are they similar, how are they different, and what can each hopefully learn from the other? One place where the filmmaking and game-making ley lines intersect is Fantastic Fest. It’s one of the biggest genre film festivals in the US and […]
As the San Sebastian Film Festival drew to a close, there was — as there should be with festivals that want to thrive — a sense of honoring the past and looking to the future. The week had been studded with Hollywood star appearances, from Ewan McGregor becoming the youngest ever actor to win a Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award to 75-year-old Dustin Hoffman tearfully collecting his Donostia on Saturday. Thanking the festival for honoring the art form of cinema, he told the packed Kursaal auditorium: “The feeling that you gave me is as important as the award.” But there was […]