Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Kelly Reichardt on Shooting Certain Women on 16mm, the Ugliness of the Day, and Making the Space Tell the Story
In the more than two decades since her stunning debut film River of Grass premiered at Sundance in 1994, Kelly Reichardt has managed to carve out a unique niche for herself in the independent film world. Her distinctive and uncompromising body of work includes Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff, Night Moves, and her latest, Certain Women, which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Written and directed by Reichardt and based on the short stories of Maile Meloy, Certain Women stars Laura Dern, Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams, James Le Gros, Jared Harris, Lily Gladstone and René Auberjonois. Shot by frequent collaborator, DP […]
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DOC NYC Announces Full Lineup for 2016 Festival
DOC NYC has announced the full lineup for its seventh edition, which runs from November 10-17 in Manhattan. The 2016 festival, held at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village and Chelsea’s SVA Theatre and Cinepolis Chelsea, includes 110 feature-length documentaries (44% directed/co-directed by women) and over 250 films and events overall. World premieres at the festival include City of Joy, about a women’s leadership community in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo; the new Netflix series Captive, about stories of hostage-taking; HBO’s Every Brilliant Thing, directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, capturing the poignant and funny one-man show by Jonny Donahoe; and Rikers, a searing indictment of the New York […]
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Alex Ross Perry on Joel Potrykus’ Buzzard
Editor’s note: with Joel Potrykus’ new film The Alchemist Cookbook now available for purchase, we’re unlocking writer/director Alex Ross Perry’s appreciation of his work from our Summer 2015 issue. Joel Potrykus’s Buzzard is either an extremely difficult or very simple movie to embrace. On the one hand, it contains enough juvenile/dumb/low humor to elicit honest guffaws alongside of-the-moment ’90s nostalgia to appeal to those of us raised on horror VHS tapes and Nintendo. Insults are clever and land with precision. The characterization of idiot manchild culture is somehow at once both obvious and insightful. More challenging to embrace, notice or even appreciate are the […]
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The Adventures of a Furie-ous Evangelist: Looking Back After a Toronto International Film Festival Premiere
My book editor on Sidney J. Furie: Life and Films — the venerable, celebrated Patrick McGilligan — once told me in an e-mail, “There is nothing like one’s first book. You forever feel a special connection to that first subject matter. I feel the same fondness about James Cagney, my first book’s subject, as you probably do for Sidney J. Furie, your first.” For certain, I find that to be true. But I feel an even stronger bond to Furie, by sheer virtue of the fact that I was the very first to write a book — or, for that matter, any kind of […]
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How I Shot My Feature Film, Tormenting the Hen, in Six Days
Filmmaker Theodore Collatos appeared recently on the site when he and Christopher Jason Bell interviewed each other about their latest pictures. He’s now at work on a new feature, Tormenting the Hen, produced with Matt Grady from Factory 25, Ben Umstead (Slamdance programmer, Screen Anarchy) and George Manatos (editor on Come Down Molly). He’s also in the midst of an Indiegogo campaign to support its co-production. Below, he reveals how — and why — he shot his new movie in six days (and how you might be able to do the same). Read on, and please consider supporting his campaign. […]
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Mechanical Dreams Uses VR to Amplify Diverse Voices
As Hollywood is rightfully called out on its underemployment of women, virtual reality companies like Mechanical Dreams Virtual Reality (MDVR) are actively courting underrepresented voices. The Seattle-based virtual reality content company housed by the University of Washington and the start-up incubator CoMotion is producing six innovative 360 films, five of them directed by women. The company’s first production, Tracy Rector’s Ch’aak’ S’aagi (Eagle Bone), one of the first VR pieces ever by a Native American filmmaker, was recently selected as one of five VR projects to screen at TIFF as part of its inaugural POP VR section at the festival. MDVR is currently raising money on […]
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Quick Takeaways from Sundance Artist Services Distribution Workshop in Seattle
Launched in 2011, the Sundance Institute’s Artist Services program was initially designed to help Sundance alumni filmmakers get their work in front of audiences in a shifting industry environment in which DIY distribution strategies were increasingly an option. While digital distribution opportunities continue to be offered to Institute alumni, Artist Services has expanded its educational initiatives and online resources to include all indie filmmakers, not just ones who have screened at Sundance. Through online resources, live workshops, and a network of allied organizations, the program provides support and insights on creative funding, marketing, and distribution. Artist Services also holds daylong events around the […]
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Chicken & Egg Pictures Announces Call for Accelerator Lab
Chicken & Egg Pictures will begin accepting submissions for the Accelerator Lab for first and second-time women nonfiction filmmakers on October 11. This program brings together ten projects helmed by first or second-time directors, with a special focus on underrepresented voices. “Completing and launching a documentary takes grit, nerve, and creativity; it also takes money, connections, and time. We offer women directors the tools to realize the full potential of their projects, both as works of art and as catalysts for change,” writes Chicken & Egg Pictures on its web site. Each participant will receive a two-part grant for the production […]
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“It’s Not So-Bad-It’s-Good”: Elijah Wood, Tim League and the Producing Team on Why They Made Jim Hosking’s Unhinged The Greasy Strangler
There are so many irritating things that go into making and distributing films. One detail that can become a nuisance is securing a website or Facebook URL that matches your film’s title, which sometimes, honestly, can tend toward the formulaic or typical. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that for the producers of The Greasy Strangler, this probably wasn’t an issue. The film’s plot starts out conventionally enough, for about a minute, before there’s a hard left turn during the perfectly timed execution of a stretched-almost-to-breaking-point argument about free water. You’ll probably know then and […]
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Making Blue Jay in Black and White
It’s been a momentous year for cinematographer Alex Lehmann, who successfully made the transition to director/DP with his first two features. His documentary feature Asperger’s Are Us, about the first comedy troupe consisting of openly autistic people, premiered earlier this year at SXSW, where it was bought by Netflix. Blue Jay, Lehmann’s narrative feature debut, recently premiered at TIFF and will hit select theaters on October 7 before heading to digital on October 11 and Netflix later this year. Mark Duplass and Jay Duplass executive produced both films. Starring Mark Duplass (based on his screenplay) and Sarah Paulson as two former high school sweethearts who reconnect […]
