We are something of David Lynch completists here at Filmmaker, hence this posting of Ant Head, a music video (of sorts) combining two tracks — “Frank 2000” and “Woodcutters From Fiery Ships” — from Thought Gang, the just-released collaboration between Lynch and his longtime composer, Angelo Badalamenti. Lynch describes the work as “…a short video featuring my friends the ants along with cheese, etc.” As the press release notes, the material from this album hails from the early ’90s but has made its way into almost all of Lynch’s subsequent productions, including Twin Peaks: The Return. From the press release: […]

We’ve already been given a trailer for Roma, Alfonso Cuarón’s highly acclaimed and hotly anticipated personal epic, and this new one doesn’t feature too much footage that hasn’t already been seen. Still, it’s a beautiful package. Against the strains of Pink Floyd’s “The Great Gig in the Sky,” we get glimpses from a movie culled from its filmmaker’s own memories: running through the streets of Mexico City, a toy train, the home’s housekeeper in private moments of bliss, a tempestuous ocean, the mother grabbing tight on the father, afraid to let him go. It’s a rare case of truth in […]

A new contribution to the Texas midterm battle between Ted Cruz and aspirant challenger Beto O’Rourke, this campaign ad is directed by Richard Linklater. It stars Sonny Carl Davis, something of a legend in Texas film, going back to his roles in Eagle Pennell’s The Whole Shootin’ Match (1978) and Last Night at the Alamo (1983). The ad does not explicitly endorse O’Rourke; it’s 30 seconds of Davis fiercely trash-talking Cruz in a diner, a chopped-down monologue that plays like an outtake from Linklater’s Bernie. There’s a reason for that: it’s Davis who delivers that film’s monologue breaking down the “five different states” of Texas, and […]

Erin Sanger’s excellent SXSW-premiering short, Mutt, is online, and it’s this week’s Short of the Week. The site’s Jason Sondhi gets at what’s great about this film in his write-up, particularly citing its original way of exploring what can often seem like familiar territory — the family addiction drama: The more times I watch Mutt, the more I’m convinced that it is one of the best short film scripts I’ve ever encountered. Even as I first formulated this impression however I remember finding it odd—the dialogue in the film isn’t especially sparkling, nor is the plot overly intricate. There are […]

A few months ago we shared Anthony Simon’s Pure Flix and Chill, a found footage biography of the Christian movie company’s founder David A.R. White in his own unreliable words. Now we’re pleased to share Simon’s latest Christian found footage work, which is very funny and unsettlingly indelible. Writes Simon, this is “A re-edit of the straight-to-video Christian series The Perfect Stranger, written, directed by and starring Jefferson Moore. In each original episode, Moore seeks out a vulnerable stranger and proceeds to convince them he’s Jesus. Seduced by Jesus functions as a pick-up-artist parody, fueled by the creepy conceit of the […]

What a beautiful trailer! Filmmaker‘s #1 most anticipated movie of the year — Barry Jenkins’s follow-up to his his Oscar-winning Moonlight — has just dropped its first, a few weeks before the picture’s Venice premiere. The intimacy, the focus on faces, the dance of eyelines, the lovely burnished period mise en scene — I love this trailer’s whole style and vibe. Check out above the first images from Jenkins’s adaptation of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk.

We’re pleased to host the online launch of the trailer for Ricky D’Ambrose’s first feature film, Notes On An Appearance. D’Ambrose was one of our 25 New Faces of Film last year; writing about his film—a tersely evocative look at a young man’s sudden disappearance, and its effect (or lack thereof) on his friends—at this year’s New Directors/New Films, I noted that “consistently clipped editing keeps the tone fluid: humor is in the cuts, and the film is never needlessly dour, deliberately refusing to dutifully find its way to a neatly summarizable Statement About The Zeitgeist.” The film begins a theatrical […]

In the last few days, previously unbroadcast raw footage of a visit to the post-production facilities of The Shining has popped up online. It totals 84 minutes, although the YouTube uploader has helpfully provided a full chapter breakdown. For a tour of the studio sound stages, skip to 12:16; for a tour of Kubrick’s equipment room, skip to 27″20, and for a telephone interview with Kubrick (where he offers an interpretation of the ending of 2001!), skip to 45:24. Hat-tip to MUBI for the catch.

New York independent filmmaker Onur Tukel, whose work we have covered quite a bit at Filmmaker, has directed a music video of a song by the anti-folk singer Jamie Block. It’s a small-scale city symphony that speaks to our compulsion to distract ourselves when in the most public of spaces. Block’s new record comes out tomorrow, and, as a preview, the folks at sonaBLAST! Records have sent it along with this press statement: Jamie Block is a New York City based singer-songwriter who is known for his ramshackle, genre bending music. In the 1990’s, he busked, skylarked, and chain smoked […]

For once the words “visionary director” on a trailer are not a misnomer. From Panos Cosmatos, who made our 25 New Faces list back in 2011, comes the first trailer for his ’80s-set revenge drama Mandy, starring Nicolas Cage and Andrea Riseborough. I can’t overemphasize how much I love this film. There are scenes in it that are beautifully, meaningfully lodged in my memory. Just watch now.