Filmmaker Videos
-
“I Am a Ukrainian, and This Needs to Go Viral.”
“I am a Ukrainian, and this needs to go viral,” is the message in this video from a protestor in Ukraine, currently in the midst of violent government repression. As reported by Deborah Stambler in the Huffington Post, the video was “put together” by filmmaker Ben Moses, who is currently at work on a documentary, A Whisper to a Roar, about democracy activists around the world. The video, posted several days ago, has indeed gone viral, attracting almost one million views on YouTube. According to Stambler, there are some who dub it a hoax (one YouTube commenter accuses it of […]
-
Trailer Watch: Tom Hardy in Locke
The UK trailer for the Tom Hardy one man show Locke just dropped ahead of its April 25th U.S. release. Written and directed by Steven Knight (the screenwriter behind Eastern Promises and Dirty Pretty Things), the film plots the unravelling of Ivan Locke over the course of a singular drive home from Birmingham to London. Well-received upon its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, the constrained character study conveys dynamism despite its four door setting.
-
Watch Agnès Varda’s 1976 Short Film Plaisir d’Amour en Iran
Barely five minutes long, Agnès Varda’s 1976 short Plaisir d’Amour en Iran finds a breadth of emotion in its surroundings. Shot in Esfehan at the Shah Masjed, Varda conveys the blossoming relationship between a French tourist (Valérie Mairesse) and an Iranian (Ali Raffi) across narration, dialogue and, most effectively, architecture. It’s a transported exercise indigenous to its original time and place (France, Rive Gauche/Nouvelle Vague) that proves visuals and words can do their finest work as distinct properties. Read more at UbuWeb.
-
Trailer Watch: Lance Bangs’ Slint Doc, Breadcrumb Trail
Epochal post-rock pioneers Slint are the subjects of a new documentary, Breadcrumb Trail, by Lance Bangs. In 1991, the Louisville-based band made the now-classic Spiderland for Touch and Go and, just before its release, promptly disbanded. In the years since, the album has remained enormously influential, making its mark on math rock, post-hardcore and various other sub-genres with out-of-date critical sobriquets. As Ron Kretsch notes at Dangerous Minds, one thing pops out of this trailer: these guys were young when they laid down this thing! “So, how’d YOU change the world before you finished school?” he asks. Here’s director Bangs […]
-
The Act of Killing Wins Documentary BAFTA; Director Oppenheimer’s Speech Edited Online
The radical documentary, The Act of Killing, won yesterday the Best Documentary prize at the 2014 BAFTA Awards on Sunday night. In his speech, director Oppenheimer thanked his anonymous co-director, who is not able to publicly reveal his or her role in the film, and said the picture “is helping to catalyze a change in how Indonesia talks about its past…” But one section of Oppenheimer’s speech was omitted from the video, above, that BAFTA posted online. His acceptance speech also included this section: I urge us all to examine ourselves, and acknowledge that we are all closer to perpetrators […]
-
Video: Ellen Page Comes Out as Gay at Conference for LGBT Youth
Actress Ellen Page (Juno, X Men: Days of Future) came out as gay yesterday at the Human Rights Campaign’s inaugural Time to THRIVE conference in Las Vegas. “I’m here today because I am gay,” Page said in a moving speech at the conference dedicated to LGBT youth. “And because… maybe I can make a difference. To help others have an easier and more hopeful time. Regardless, for me, I feel a personal obligation and a social responsibility. I also do it selfishly, because I am tired of hiding and I am tired of lying by omission.” In the speech, in […]
-
Behind The Scenes At The Criterion Collection
You’d be hard pressed to find a modern movie lover who doesn’t own at least one DVD/Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection. With a catalogue of hundreds of auteur and contemporary titles, Criterion is just as much about preservation as it is curation. This video from Gizmodo takes you behind the scenes at Criterion’s Gramercy office and inside the process of restoring Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent. Beginning with a negative from the Library of Congress, the print is scanned, color corrected, retouched and sound edited before making its way into one of the company’s signature disc covers. I recently visited the office to interview […]
-
How Camera Movement Shapes A Narrative
Ryan Connolly of Film Riot is a rather perky fellow, but he’s also got some good insight into how camera techniques affect a film’s narrative. Connolly begins with a simple scene of two actors walking across a yard, examining how a dolly versus a tripod versus a handheld shot conveys tonality to the audience. A tripod pan, for instance, may insinuate that the actors are being watched. Connolly covers a number of mechanisms — including the implications of a jib — in the above video, which serves as a helpful reminder that the camera should always being doing more than […]
-
Short Film: Spark and Light, by So Yong Kim
Commissioned by the designer Miu Miu as part of a series of seven films, “Women’s Tales,” Spark and Light is a lovely and wonderfully executed short by Treeless Mountain director So Yong Kim. Riley Keough, in a sensitive, affecting performance, plays a motorist stranded in snowy Iceland as she’s on her way to visit her dying mother in the hospital. Dreams, memory and reality all merge as Keough’s character turns her moments alone into a hypnotic emotional journey. Special mention to Eric Lin’s subtly expressive cinematography.
-
Trailer Watch: Matt Wolf’s Teenage
Oscilloscope Laboratories has released the trailer for 25 New Face Matt Wolf’s inventive documentary Teenage, which uncovers the genesis of youth culture at the turn of the 20th century. Comprised of archival material, recreations and narration lifted from diary entries — courtesy of Jena Malone and Ben Whishaw’s dulcet tones — the film had its world premiere at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival and will be released in New York on March 14. According to a recent Vogue article, Wolf is currently at work on a documentary about Eloise illustrator Hilary Knight at Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner’s production company.
