Filmmaking
Filmmaking
-
Thread Again: SCAD Lacoste Film Festival Honors Lesley Manville (Sponsored Post)
“To get a good script is a thrilling thing,” said Oscar®-nominated actor Lesley Manville during this month’s SCAD Lacoste Film Festival. “It was a privilege when a good script would plop through the letterbox—it now pings through your email.” Manville’s good humor and insights infused the event, which took place July 1-2 in France’s Luberon Valley at the international location of the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). Fittingly, the festival paid homage to tradition as it looked to the future—while having a great time in the here-and-now. “La Maison Basse, with walls dating back from the 12th century, […]
-
Dos Estaciones, Charm Circle, a New Joel Potrykus Short and More to Debut on the Criterion Channel in August
Alongside programming celebrating hip-hop, actress Kay Frances, Roger Corman’s Poe adaptations and “eurothrillers,” this August’s streaming selections on the Criterion Channel heavily feature filmmakers who’ve appeared in this publication, including in our recent Summer 2023 print issue. First up, Juan Pablo González’s highly-recommended Dos Estaciones will have its exclusive streaming premiere on the platform. González made our 25 New Faces of Film list back in 2015, and Dos Estaciones is the director’s sophomore feature. Described by Criterion as blending a “fictional character study and documentary-like observation,” the film follows tequila ranch owner María (Teresa Sánchez, winner of a Special Jury […]
-
25 Great Independent Films You Can Stream Free on Tubi Now
With many viewers struggling with subscription-itis — a costly overload of SVOD memberships that inflate credit card bills at the end of each month — it’s no wonder that the so-called FAST (free ad-supported streaming television) channels are taking off in popularity. For filmmakers, these channels offer a new revenue stream, and for viewers not only no-cost entertainment but the chance to discover many titles that for whatever market-based reasons aren’t streamable on Netflix, Amazon Prime or Criterion. Filmmaker‘s Web Editor, Natalia Keogan, and I took a look through the current offerings of the most well-recognized FAST channel, Tubi, to […]
-
Steven Soderbergh Announces Sci-Fi Series Command Z Dropping on His Website July 17
Although his new miniseries Full Circle just premiered on Max, Steven Soderbergh has announced today that another episodic project—which he allegedly made between Magic Mike’s Last Dance and Full Circle—will be ready to watch by next week. Command Z, an eight episode sci-fi project that’s roughly 90 minutes overall, will launch on Soderbergh’s website, Extension 765, this Monday, July 17. As of right now, a trailer for Command Z is available to watch on the site. Command Z takes place sometime in the distant future and revolves around a mission that a lead scientist (Michael Cera, appearing only via screen) […]
-
SAG-AFTRA Votes to Strike, Shutting Down Film and Television Production
SAG-AFTRA is joining WGA on the Hollywood picket lines. Following the collapse Wednesday of its negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the union voted to strike, effective tonight at 12:01 AM. It’s the union’s first motion picture and television strike since 1980 and the first time since 1960 that both the actors’s and writers’ unions have concurrently struck. “We had no choice,” said SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher at a live-streamed news conference this afternoon. “We are the victims here. We are being victimized by a very greedy entity.” She continued, “I cannot believe it, quite […]
-
Girlblogging: Jennifer’s Body
As a girl—I mean, when I was younger—I would watch films about beautiful girls in the hope that I could somehow learn beauty, the fairytale story; that, by proximity, beauty would rub off on me; that I could contour myself in its image, or put it on. I was irrevocably convinced that beauty would save my life. Beautiful girls live life on easy mode. People give you whatever you want when you’re a beautiful girl. This is sort of true, but nothing in life is free. In return, what they demand is you. Jennifer’s Body is a film about best […]
-
HieronyVision Announces “30×30” Film Independent Partnership Winners
HieronyVision, an online platform that aims to “establish a new creative ecosystem across independent and alternative movies, music and art,” has announced the 30 filmmakers selected as part of a Film Independent partnership. The filmmakers, chosen from five film schools as well as an application process, will “get a chance to develop, fund and distribute their projects with HieronyVision and learn the HV ORIGINALS model.” Explains HieronyVision in a statement, “For film projects, our team describes it as ‘Y Combinator meets The French New Wave.’Creatively the projects have to provoke, inspire or entertain. On the business side HieronyVision follows a […]
-
Kickstarter Watch: Charlotte Glynn’s The Gymnast
Pittsburg-based director Charlotte Glynn, who made Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces in 2014, is now running a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for her debut narrative feature, The Gymnast. The film, which was actually discussed at the end of Brandon Harris’s profile, is set in a former mill town and is about “a 14-year-old aspiring Olympic gymnast and her die-hard ‘gym dad’ [who] must reinvent themselves after a potentially career-ending injury.” Elaborates Glynn on the Kickstarter page: The Gymnast is a film about loss and perseverance in the face of extreme odds, and the making of the film has mirrored that […]
-
Full Sail University’s Film Programs: Preparing the Next Generation of Filmmakers (Sponsored Post)
Full Sail University’s accelerated film degree programs provide student filmmakers with the classes, technology, and educators they need to make their way in the industry. Film students learn to balance creative storytelling with technical skills for a comprehensive filmmaking education. Full Sail’s Film Degree Programs Full Sail’s film degrees are hands-on programs that are focused on providing students a wide range of experience in their industry. In the Film bachelor’s program, students tackle every step of the filmmaking process, from scriptwriting and set-building to camera setup and post-production. Each student takes on a key role or a crew role during dedicated film days, where they work together on set and experience a […]
-
“I’m Not a Fly on the Wall, I’m Not Invisible”: Jeanie Finlay on Your Fat Friend
Over the past 15 years, British filmmaker Jeanie Finlay has earned a reputation for nuanced, sensitive and compelling documentary portraits. Her films have told many unlikely stories: the rise and fall of a reluctant Elvis lookalike in Orion: The Man Who Would Be King, two Scottish hip hop fraudsters in The Great Hip Hop Hoax, a pregnant transgender man in Seahorse. Her third feature film, Sound it Out, told the story of the last record shop in the Northeast of England and its owner, Tom Butchart, a school friend of Finlay’s. The morning after the world premiere of Finlay’s latest […]
