Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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The 5 Minor Epiphanies of the 2015 IDFA Forum
The IDFA Forum is one of the oldest pitch roundtables in the world specifically for documentaries. It’s a yearly event that gathers some of the biggest broadcasters in Europe, Canada, and the US, as well as other financiers, foundations, and distributors to hear about some of the most compelling new documentaries that are being produced independently. The format that is used at the Central Pitch is a seven-minute pitch followed by a seven-minute response from many of the broadcasting Commissioning Editors. The vibe is very collegial and only occasionally contentious, as filmmakers justify their choices and explain their projects in […]
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Kickstarter Teaser: Nicole Riegel’s Holler
Currently up on Filmmaker‘s curated Kickstarter page is Nicole Riegel’s short film, Holler. Readers will remember Riegel from the ’14 25 New Faces list, where I wrote about the screenwriter-turned-director’s military background and its relationship to the tough, character-based scripts she’s made her mark with since. Riegel has assembled a great team, including It Follows DP Mike Gioulakis, and she’s currently just shy three grand or so of her goal. In this final fundraising stretch Riegel has released a toaster, which you can check out above. And consider supporting her film here at the link.
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What Pretty Guts: Five Takeaways from Molly Crabapple on She Does Podcast
Molly Crabapple is an artist and writer who combines illustration, art and journalism to document societal and political issues. Her work is influenced by her own personal experiences and radical encounters with injustice around the world, and aims to shed light on marginalized communities. She’s written and illustrated stories about Guantanamo Bay, issues sex workers face, the prison system, among many other topics, for Vice, Fusion, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Vanity Fair, The Guardian and Newsweek. Crapapple’s captivating paintings, and pen-and-ink illustrations can be seen on book covers, canvases, backdrops, and have accompanied articles written by both […]
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Shaking the Digital Money Tree for Awkward Celebrity Encounters: Caveh Zahedi at the Screen Forward Lab
I was stoned one night when I had the idea to do a podcast called Awkward Celebrity Encounters. My idea was to record myself telling 52 of my awkward celebrity encounter stories and then release one a week for a year. My friend Peter works at a sound recording studio dedicated to making audio books for the blind and was able to get me in after hours. That night, I recorded 52 stories, all true, most of which were between two and three minutes in length. As soon as I uploaded them to iTunes, a friend who heard one suggested […]
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Watch Live: The Gotham Independent Film Awards
Watch the Gothams live. Right Here. The 2015 Gotham Awards are streaming live, right here on Filmmaker Magazine. Engage on Twitter with #GothamAwards
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Apparition Brew
Recently I sat down with a filmmaker who had a good run in the ’70s and still has a bit of a cult following. He asked that I meet him at The Red Deer Diner, at night. The owner would keep it open after closing time. Kids in Halloween costumes trickled out as I came in. There was Pocahontas and GI Joe. Casper ran into me, apologized, kept going. The filmmaker was already there, sitting on a stool at the counter. I joined him. We both drank black coffee. He said: “I’ll tell you what the problem is. I’ll tell […]
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BRITDOC Launches the World’s First Documentary Cookbook on Kickstarter
With awards like the Cinema Eye Honors’ Unforgettables Award, documentary organizations are beginning to draw attention not just to the filmmakers behind documentary cameras but the subjects in front. Still, BRITDOC’s latest is utterly original: the world’s first documentary cookbook. Currently fundraising on Kickstarter, the project is a digital download illustrated by Ben Lamb containing savory recipes from documentary subjects all over the world, from Chicago’s Ameena Matthews (from Steve James’ The Interrupters) to Burma’s Joshua Min Htut (Burma VJ) to an as-yet-unrevealed “certain American living somewhere in Russia.” Six of the doc chefs have already been announced, with all […]
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Remembering Setsuko Hara, 1920 – 2015
I once lived with a woman for two years because her face and her energy reminded me of Setsuko Hara. There was the promise of beautiful dignity. The potential of sensual morality. And then of course the Setsuko illusion shattered when the woman threw a plate at my head. I’m not alone in falling for the great Japanese actress who passed recently at 95. There aren’t many movie stars that one wants for a wife and to grow old with. For instance, no one sees By The Sea, and says, “Geez, I gotta go find me an Angelina to propose […]
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Kickstarting Paper Chase with the Top Five Black Characters in Mainstream Teen Movies
We love teen movies. We’ve seen everything from Say Anything to Whatever It Takes, Pretty In Pink to Drive Me Crazy. Name a teen movie that was in theaters and chances are we’ve seen it twice. But while we love these films we were always taken aback by the lack of diversity. Though Kid and Play and films like House Party and Class Act shook things up by adding some brown faces to the teen movie mix, it is still bleak out there. This void inspired us to make our own teen movie Paper Chase. Paper Chase is a comedy […]
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Building a Christmas Tree Stand to Make a Movie: Charles Poekel on Christmas, Again
From day one there wasn’t much about the making of Christmas, Again that you could describe as “traditional.” So, when it came to releasing the film, it only felt natural to explore the less “traditional” routes. I use “traditional” in quotes because in 2015 I can safely say that non-“traditional” strategies are the new norm, if not the only viable option for any film, big or small (we’ve seen quite a few high-profile, big-budget “traditional” releases tank this year). So moving forward, I’ll refer to our strategy as “individualized,” which I think is a more accurate way of describing this norm. […]
