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 […]

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.” […]

As a longtime docuphile who prides myself on keeping up with the latest developments in cinematic nonfiction both at home and abroad, I’m embarrassed to admit I’d never heard of the Open City Documentary Festival before an invite to the eight-year-old London fest landed in my inbox. But between OCDF’s touted focus on documentary first and foremost as an art form, and my morbid curiosity about/solidarity with any film festival functioning amidst the chaos of Brexit, I was immediately sold. And, fortunately, this year’s OCDF did not disappoint when it came to showcasing a nonfiction lineup filled with under-the-radar artistry […]

IFP, Filmmaker‘s publisher, announced today that Rachel Weisz and Jon Kamen will receive, respectively, the Actress Tribute and Industry Tribute at the 2018 IFP Gotham Awards, to be held November 26 at Cipriani Wall Street, New York City. From the press release: “We are thrilled to be honoring Rachel with the Actress Tribute this year. Throughout her career she has carefully chosen projects ranging from thought-provoking independent films to thrilling studio blockbusters. Rachel consistently seeks out complex roles and delivers unforgettable portrayals of spirited and intelligent characters. We look forward to celebrating her lasting contributions to the art of film,” […]

With tomorrow’s kickoff, IFP, Filmmaker‘s publisher, celebrates the 40th anniversary of its IFP Week and its own 40th anniversary year. The Fall print edition of Filmmaker includes a commemorative supplement, produced by IFP, which contains, in addition to many fantastic archival photos, this article by Paula Bernstein on the event’s history. Tickets to some of the public events at IFP Week are still available and can be purchased here at the link. — Editor “Only one year out of film school, I soaked it all up like a sponge,” says Oscar-winning producer Adele Romanski, recalling her first time attending IFP […]

I was technical director of the Independent Feature Film Market from 1986 to 1993, and a member of the Independent Feature Film Market Committee from 1989 to 1993. I attended all prior IFP markets too, starting with the first one, a sidebar to the New York Film Festival. Those early IFFMs were a DIY affair, as scrappy, often broke indie filmmakers maneuvered to squeeze every advantage out of this novel new showcase, navigating its opportunities and inventing new ones. Nothing like it had existed before on the American indie scene. Two memories in particular are dear to me. The first […]

It gives me no pleasure to slag on Jeremy Saulnier’s Hold the Dark; his previous two films, Blue Ruin and Green Room, were good bleak fun, laconic in general, tersely amusing when dialogue emerged. But Hold the Dark has no interest in being fun; it’s much more interested in being taken Seriously, as a Serious Movie, and that’s a very bad trade. I have not read William Giraldi’s source novel, but I conferred with someone who has, who confirmed that many of this movie’s bad ideas — primarily, a heavy metaphorical and literal emphasis on the disastrous invasion of Afghanistan — are organic to […]

Commencing while the Toronto International Film Festival is underway and overlapping with the first weekend of IFP Week, the Camden International Film Festival is an intimate documentary festival that, this year, is building upon the strengths of its 2017 edition with a line-up that includes a number of North American premieres as well as gender-parity across all sections. The team at the festival also stresses synergy between CIFF’s various sections as well as the intermingling of public and industry programming. Comments Executive Director Ben Fowlie, “As Camden grows into a festival that has more and more major films making their […]

London-based director Jayisha Patel has amassed an impressive resume in a remarkably short period of time. Since 2014 Patel’s documentary shorts have screened LAFF, SXSW, NYFF, the Berlin International Film Festival and beyond, racking up numerous awards along the way. Her latest VR project — Notes to My Father, the world’s first live-action 360-degree documentary on sex trafficking, commissioned by Oculus — premiered at Sundance. Her most recent short, the Berlinale-premiering Circle, a sensitive portrait of an adolescent rape survivor caught in the endless loop of India’s gender-based violence, made its Toronto debut this week. Currently an artist in residence […]

The 40th anniversary edition of IFP Week is coming up, and we have 10 free tickets to give away to the opening day of Screen Forward Talks, which include luminaries like Boots Riley and Nina Yang Bongiovi (Sorry to Bother You), Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust), Terence Nance (Random Acts of Flyness), Cathy Yan (Dead Pigs, upcoming Birds of Prey), Lauren Wolkstein (The Strange Ones), Julie Cohen & Betsy West (RBG), Nicholas Ma (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?). (Oh, and I’ll be moderating a panel on producing that includes some luminaries as well: Josh Braun, Julie Goldman, Riva Marker, […]