“My life is not what one would term heroic.”  The narrator of Romina Paula’s second novel, August, returns to her home town in Patagonia to memorialize a childhood friend five years after his death. Emilia’s in her early 20s and has been living with her brother in Buenos Aires. She’s still in college; her boyfriend is in a band. Once back home, she reunites with the love of her youth, Julián, who is now a father, married, somewhat happily. Emilia’s a familiar character making familiar first steps into adulthood, but Paula heightens every sensation and plumbs every potential cliché for […]

Editor’s note: with The Plagiarists opening at Lincoln Center this Friday, we’re reposting Vadim Rizov’s interview with its creative team. Note that since the Berlinale premiere, it’s been confirmed that Peter Parlow is a fictitious person. On one level, The Plagiarists is a two-part comedy about a ceaselessly fighting couple, the first half of which takes place in winter. Anna (Lucy Kaminsky) is a novelist, at least aspirationally—completion of her first novel is a ways off, so she pays the bills as a copy writer. Tyler (Eamon Monaghan) is a filmmaker, but doesn’t think he can call himself that—he’s written a script, but that’s […]

With the epic nature of the #MeToo movement and the independent film community’s goals to program female voices (at Sundance 41% of features and episodic had a woman director, while 52% of shorts did) one would think there’d be progress within the larger film community. But Caryn Coleman, who runs the Future of Film is Female fund and MoMA screening series reminds us, there’s still a need for activism. The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s 4% Challenge shows that there hasn’t been any dramatic changes in the representation of women directors. From 2007-2018, just 4% of the directors of the 1,200 top […]

Let’s talk about empathy and documentary for a moment. A few years ago, during a slack midday period, a pair of young men made me an offer: $10 for 20 minutes of my time. This seemed fair, so I entered a small room and put on my very first VR helmet. For four and a half minutes, I watched a 360 short about the refugee crisis. There was a camp, and I could swivel around in my chair to see all of its dimensions while sad music played over onscreen statics; at the end, I think there was a URL […]

Getting off of a bus on Main Street early in the morning, I saw two men preparing a display car/advertisement for the day; one, melting ice off the hood with a giant blowdryer, the other buffing the surface for maximum shine. The minute production details of Sundance are a tacit thing that touches every piece of the experience. It’s as though each moment is a fully produced film set ready for action. After wandering through the desolate streets, I finally found the address I was looking for, High West Distillery, a space whose wooden interiors feel like the backdrop for […]

Clemency, Chinonye Chukwo’s somber and bracing examination of the corrosive effects of capital punishment — on a woman, a marriage, and a society — won the U.S. Dramatic Competition Grand Jury Prize tonight at the Sundance Film Festival’s Closing Night Ceremony in Park City Utah. One Child Nation, Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhangze’s disturbing 36-year chronicle of the effects of China’s “one-child policy,” took the top prize in the U.S. Documentary Competition. And then there was great diversity among the remainder of the awards, with many of the most well-received films at the festival scooping up recognition. These included Joe […]

Sundance’s second weekend—the awards ceremony is tonight—provides a first opportunity to reflect on the impact of the 2019 festival. On the question of a breakout film at this edition of Sundance, the consensus (based on many conversations) seems to be “meh.” Which is not to say that a success story won’t emerge, since at least four films sold for between $13-15 million, which is encouraging. Also encouraging are signs of the Sundance Institute’s investment in the festival’s future. Last year Sundance inaugurated a new 500-seat theater with Dolby Atmos sound, The Ray, which had been converted from a former Sports […]

I’ve been out at the Sundance Film Fest since Monday. The Sundance Institute (bless them) put on a new thing this year — The Talent Forum — to hook up some of their supported projects, artists, and festival filmmakers with potential collaborators, producers, funding and such.  And with each other.  I was invited out with my narrative feature Adelyne.  What did I find? Well. The meetings seem to have gone well for many folks. My meetings were quite wonderful. I have a lotta gratitude for those in the industry who take these meetings and give advice and support even when […]

“In a way, I see the festival as run like a punk rock label — a successful one!” says filmmaker and Slamdance “co-conspirator” Paul Rachman. With its award ceremony and final screenings, the Slamdance Film Festival concluded its 25th year last night (read the full list of winners here) — an astonishing fact of longevity that none of its founders could have predicted when they launched the outsider event in Park City back in 1995. “We were a wild bunch of filmmakers who got together to do something different,” says co-founder Peter Baxter. “And we’re realizing now how naive we […]

Dollhouse: The Eradication of Female Subjectivity in American Popular Culture, Nicole Brending’s puppet animation about the rise and fall of a female pop star, took home the Narrative Feature Grand Jury Prize and the George Sparks Spirit of Slamdance Award at the Slamdance Film Festival’s award ceremony at Treasure Mountain Inn in Park City Utah tonight. Kifaru, David Hambridge’s documentary about two young Kenyan men who join a rhino caretaking conservatory, won the Documentary Feature Grand Jury Prize as well as a documentary Audience Award. “Dollhouse wasn’t like any other film at the festival or any festival,” said the jury […]