Filmmaker Videos
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Trailer Watch: Christian Petzold’s Afire
Christian Petzold returns to the Berlinale this year with Afire, the second installment of his elemental trilogy following 2020’s water-inspired Undine and preceding a forthcoming film about earth. Afire will reunite Petzold with his frequent collaborator Paula Beer, who will star alongside Thomas Schubert, Langston Uibel, Enno Trebs and Matthias Brandt. The first trailer arrives today from Matchbox Films ahead of Afire‘s Berlin premiere. Per the film’s official synopsis: “Leon and Felix’s plan was to spend the summer together in a holiday home on the Baltic coast. They wanted to be there as friends but also to work—one on his […]
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Teaser Clip and Interview: Teddy Collatos on His Slamdance-Premiering Palookaville
Filmmaker Teddy Collatos ventures into episodic territory with Palookaville, a comedy series that follows a young New Yorker named JoJo (Howard Lester), who suddenly believes that he’s the famous (and long-deceased) boxer Joe Lewis. The 17-minute pilot episode, set to have its world premiere at Slamdance, explains how this case of mistaken self-identity came to be. Comedian Franqi French plays JoJo’s sister Squirrel, who unceremoniously kicks him out of her apartment after he trash talks Night of the Living Dead. In desperate need of cash, he cons an Alex Jones-listening Brooklynite and heads over to his friend Monica’s (Edy Modica, […]
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Trailer Watch: Hlynur Pálmason’s Godland
Watch the trailer for Godland, the third feature from Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason. The film takes place during the late 19th century and follows a young Danish priest as he embarks on a grueling journey through the harsh yet stunning landscape of Iceland to establish a church and photograph the inhabitants of the then-remote Danish territory. In his dispatch out of Cannes last year, Blake Williams expands on the film’s sumptuous visuals and the film’s (albeit fictitious) historical reference: “The film is shot on 35mm and lets you know it by adopting what appears to have been an extremely hands-off […]
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“I Wanted to Protect Randi While Also Staying True to Her Experience”: Rivkah Beth Medow and Jen Rainin on Holding Moses
The unexpected (and largely unspoken) challenges of parenthood are rawly probed in Holding Moses, a moving documentary short directed by Rivkah Beth Medow and Jen Rainin. The film follows Randi Rader (Medow is in an open marriage; Rader is her long-term partner), a queer, non-binary dancer and Broadway performer who undergoes a personal reckoning when her son Moses is born with a rare genetic disorder of the 22nd chromosome. Via pre-recorded monologue, Rader shares the difficult journey of digging herself out of a deep depression and learning to love her son unconditionally. The candidness of her emotional trajectory may at […]
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Trailer Watch: Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid
The trailer for Ari Aster’s highly-anticipated new film, Beau Is Afraid (formerly titled Disappointment Blvd), has arrived. The writer-director, whose previous films Hereditary and Midsommar have been widely lauded, appears to be continuing his work in the horror genre, though the trailer contains a distinct comedic streak. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as an emotionally stunted man who embarks on a strange, arduous journey to get home to his mother. Also starring are Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Hayley Squires, Denis Ménochet, Kylie Rogers, Armen Nahapetian, Zoe Lister-Jones, Parker Posey, and Patti LuPone. Beau Is Afraid will hit […]
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Watch: David Ehrlich’s 25 Best Films of 2022
Indiewire’s chief film critic David Ehrlich returns with his annual video countdown of the year’s best films, selecting 25 titles to highlight via clever editing choices and, most distinctly, various needle drops culled from a wide range of 2022 releases, from The Batman to Bones and All. In what’s also become a recent tradition, Ehrlich continues to have the director behind the top-ranked film choose a charity for viewers to donate to, as a way to “help justify the (truly humiliating) amount of time it takes me to make them.” This year, Filmmaker is proud to say that Charlotte Wells, […]
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Trailer Watch: Albert Serra’s Pacifiction
Watch the trailer for Pacifiction, the latest from Spanish filmmaker Albert Serra. It premiered at Cannes last year before screening at TIFF, NYFF, BFI London Film Festival and AFI Fest. The film stars Benoît Magimel, Marc Susini, Alexandre Melo, Pahoa Mahagafanau, Matahi Pambrun, Sergi López and Montse Triola. Pacifiction‘s official synopsis reads: “On the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, the High Commissioner of the Republic and French government official De Roller (Magimel) is a calculating man with flawless manners. His somewhat broad perception of his role brings him to navigate the high end ‘establishment’ as well as shady venues where […]
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Trailer Watch: Alex Harvey’s Space//Space
A hybrid collaboration between writer/director Alex Harvey (Walden Life in the Woods, The Last Ecstatic Days, I Am A Seagull) and the theater collective, Banana Bag & Bodice (aka Jason Craig and Jessica Jelliffe), Space//Space screens this weekend in New York City at Anthology Film Archives. Harvey has sent the teaser trailer, posted above, as well as the following notes about the film. It’s been ten years since Banana Bag & Bodice’s beloved experimental production, Space//Space made waves in the New York theater scene (“Waiting for Godot in space” raved the New York Times). Now the married performance artist duo who […]
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Short Film Premiere: Nat Gee, Lily Baldwin and Joshua Echevarria on Waves
The abstract yet oppressive sensation of an anxiety attack is captured through intense corporeal movement in Waves, the latest from Brooklyn-based filmmaker Nat Gee. The film stars Lily Baldwin as a woman in the throes of an anxious episode, her oft-idyllic surroundings transformed into hostile environments. A well-manicured flower garden becomes a frightening, frenzied feast (and viny prison); gentle waves crashing upon a sandy shore morph into a violent assailant; a stroll in a verdant, tranquil park turns into an uneasy exercise in losing bodily autonomy. Yet as fascinated as Gee is in conveying the unsettling feeling of being consumed […]
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Exclusive Clip: Mark Pellington’s Going All the Way: The Director’s Edit
Ahead of its opening weekend at NYC’s Quad Cinema, Filmmaker shares an exclusive clip of Mark Pellington‘s Going All the Way: The Director’s Edit. This re-edit and 4K restoration of Pellington’s feature debut includes a new title sequence created by Sergio Pinheiro as well as 50 additional minutes of previously unseen footage accompanied by new music from composer Pete Adams. Based on the 1970 novel by Dan Wakefield (who also penned the script), the film stars Jeremy Davies and an early-career Ben Affleck as Sonny and Gunner, two young men who return home to Indianapolis after serving in the Korean […]
