Filmmaker Videos
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Short Film Premiere: The Nutcracked (NSFW), by Alexandra Nicole Hulme & Celia Rowlson-Hall
Just in time for the holidays is a new realization of the classic Nutcracker — a NSFW, burlesque-themed version full of seasonal cheer, pasties, stripper poles, classical portraiture and surprisingly high production values — choreographed, directed and performed by Alexandra Nicole Hulme and 25 New Face Celia Rowlson-Hall. Rowlson-Hall’s MA is one of our favorite independent features of the year, so this new short is truly an early present. Here are the filmmakers describing the piece: We have dreamed for years now of creating a two-person Nutcracker in which we perform all the roles. We wanted to take this traditional […]
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Trailer Watch: Tim Blake Nelson’s Anesthesia
Tim Blake Nelson’s last film, Leaves of Grass, was released five years ago. Since then, the award-winning actor, writer and director has been busy acting in indies such as James Franco’s take on As I Lay Dying, big-budget films such as Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and on Netflix with an ongoing role in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Anesthesia, Blake Nelson’s latest film as writer-director, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year and was later picked up by IFC Films. The drama, starring Kristen Stewart and Sam Waterston, alongside Blake Nelson, Glenn Close, Gretchen Mol, Corey Stoll and Michael K. Williams, will hit theaters and on demand on January […]
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Short Film Premiere: Leah Shore’s Transgressive Cookie-Themed Animated Holiday Film
Who doesn’t love cookies? And who hasn’t eaten too many in one sitting — perhaps even recently? Filmmaker Leah Shore, who landed on our 25 New Faces list in 2013, set out to make a confectionary-themed holiday card when scatological impulses got in the way. Her typically outrageous and beautifully animated 40-second animation, she says, “morphed into a tiny film, a gross pooptastic one.” (Indeed, Shore’s animation features the most novel appearance of a Christmas tree I think I’ve ever seen.) So perhaps be careful who you send this to, and if you have a sensitive stomach, watch before eating, […]
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Watch the New Trailer for Michael Moore’s Where to Invade Next
The new trailer for Michael Moore’s latest documentary Where to Invade Next (above) positions the guerrilla filmmaker as “America’s secret weapon” and “the only one who can save us.” The film tracks Moore as he travels around the globe and explores social programs and policies that work well in other countries (while criticizing school lunch and highlighting other problems in the U.S.A.). Luckily, these days, Moore is feeling like a “crazy optimist.” As Moore explains in the trailer, “Three years ago, gay marriage in the United States was outlawed. Now it’s the law of the land. It really proves anything can happen.” […]
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Watch: “The 25 Best Films of 2015: A Video Countdown”
Every year David Ehrlich does a bang-up job editing his personal top 25 into a finely-assembled supercut. This year is no different, regardless of how you feel about his commendably-wide-ranging picks. As he notes: this may contain Phoenix spoilers.
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Trailer Watch: Todd Haynes’ Carol, Final Trailer
What an exquisite final trailer for Todd Haynes’ Patricia Highsmith adaption, Carol! Haynes’s film, a story of forbidden love set in a 1950s’ New York, is pure cinema, every moment carefully calibrated and achingly expressed. Carol is Filmmaker‘s Fall, 2015 cover story — an interview of Haynes conducted by Kim Morgan — and the Weinstein Company has just released this last trailer, posted above.
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Trailer Watch: Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special, Once Again Starring Michael Shannon
Michael Shannon has been in each Jeff Nichols feature so far, and with Midnight Special the director/star duo of Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter and Mud graduate to (seemingly) big-time studio money. (The actual number, per this interesting article, is a relatively modest $18 million.) It’s a sci-fi chase movie — the trailer gives off the general vibe. The film drops March 18.
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Short Film Premiere: Francesca Coppola’s Jonny Come Lately
“What can be said of a connection that seems to border on captivity? Where does the line between violence & intimacy exist?” That’s how Francesca Coppola introduces her sophomore short film, Jonny Come Lately, further described as focusing on “a fragile, complicated, volatile union between two lovers.” The film features Deragh Campbell, Kentucker Audley and Evan Louison, it was shot on 16mm, and it premieres online today via Filmmaker and courtesy of 1985. Last year, Coppola wrote about her film on the occasion of its Kickstarter launch. Here, she describes what the film means to her and, hopefully, for you: […]
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Watch: Charlie Lyne’s Copycat, A Short Film About the Proto-Scream
This short film by Charlie Lyne (whose zippy, highly enjoyable essay/compilation film about teen movies, Beyond Clueless, is still available on Netflix Instant) tells the story of Rolfe Kanofsky, a pioneer who maybe got scalped. Barely out of high school, Kanofsky made a meta-reflexive horror film, There’s Nothing Out There, that bears a suspicious relationship to Scream. Did Wes Craven’s son having seen it have anything to do with it? Whatever the case, Copycat is a fun watch; bonus points for making the whole thing plausibly seem as if it were being watched on a beaten-up VHS.
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Watch: Martin Scorsese Talks Film’s Fragility for his 73rd Birthday
It’s Martin Scorsese’s 73rd birthday, and the BFI has cannily leveraged the date to boost attention for a brief video of the preservation-minded director making a pitch for donations. As usual, Scorsese stays on message, talking loss and the importance of archival practices. Should you feel moved to make a donation or read up more on the BFI, you can do so here.
