Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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“It Was an Easy Pitch Reference — Love, Actually Meets Melancholia“: Camille Griffin On Her Apocalyptic Christmas Movie, Silent Night
Just in time for the holidays, during which the question of what makes a Christmas movie appears across film social media feeds, arrives Camille Griffin’s Silent Night. From its title down to its Christmas setting, in which family and friends congregate for the kind of boozy reunion that segues from holiday cheer to emotional warfare, Griffin’s directorial debut sits squarely within the sub-genre and, due to one cross-genre addition, feels particularly of the moment. In Griffin’s film, the Yuletide gathering is to be a final one as a poisonous gas cloud is poised to envelope the earth, killing all living […]
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Exquisite Shorts Premieres First Filmmaker-Selected Short, Curated by Isabel Sandoval
We last covered Exquisite Shorts, the shorts film program launched by Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari, when the platform announced that submissions were now open. Now Exquisite Shorts has premiered its first short, as curated by filmmaker Isabel Sandoval (Lingua Franca). From the platform: After several months of research and feedback from other filmmakers, a website was built from scratch and submissions opened for just $5 per film on an independent platform (avoiding FilmFreeway). The first film in the program is Pablo Hernando’s Solar Noise. This selection was made by filmmaker Isabel Sandoval, who was asked to make the inaugural pick for the program. You can […]
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“There Are So Many Parallels Between What Went On Then and Trying To Pass Biden’s Spending and Energy Bills Today”: Chris Hegedus on the Restoration of The Energy War, Part Two: Filibuster at DOC NYC
Originally released in 1978 as a three-part, five-hour series, The Energy War follows the passage of a key piece of President Jimmy Carter’s energy bill. Directed by D.A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, and Pat Powell, the series provided an unprecedented look at the inner workings of government. One segment, Part 2: Filibuster, focuses on Part D of Statute 1469, which would end government regulation of natural gas prices. It passed by a vote of 52–48, thanks largely to votes from representatives of energy-producing states like Louisiana. Two Senators, Howard Metzenbaum and James Abourezk, announce a filibuster to overturn the results. Over the following […]
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Kathleen Collins to Receive Posthumous Icon Tribute at the 2021 Gotham Awards
The Gotham Film & Media Institute, Filmmaker’s parent organization, announced today that poet, playwright, writer, filmmaker, director, civil rights activist, and educator Kathleen Collins will receive the inaugural Icon Tribute posthumously during the 2021 Gotham Awards Ceremony. Her daughter, Nina Lorez Collins, will accept the inaugural Gotham Icon Tribute on behalf of her mother. The Gotham Icon Tribute was conceived by the Gotham Awards Advisory Committee this year on its thirty-first anniversary to serve as an elevated moment during the awards ceremony to call attention to the boldness, artistry, and impact of a filmmaker from a marginalized community whose work […]
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“This is Dangerous, Murky Water”: Nick Broomfield on Last Man Standing: Suge Knight and the Murders of Biggie & Tupac
Nearly two decades on from the release of his controversial 2002 opus Biggie & Tupac, British filmmaker Nick Broomfield is revisiting the story of the iconic, titular American rappers. In the BBC- and Abacus Media Rights-backed Last Man Standing: Suge Knight and the Murders of Biggie & Tupac, currently available through Gravitas Ventures on digital platforms, Broomfield delves into fresh testimony about the potential involvement of the LAPD and Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight in the murders of Smalls and Shakur. Rather than relying on a single smoking gun to propel the story forward, the documentary instead offers a panoramic […]
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“We Were Inspired by Haskell the Activist, the Person, and Not the Hollywood Legend and Cinematographer”: Cinematographer and DOC NYC Honoree Joan Churchill and Sound Recordist Alan Barker on Their Wexler Doc, Shoot from the Heart
Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler (Medium Cool, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf) is the subject of Shoot from the Heart, a new documentary short by Joan Churchill and Alan Barker. Shot over a ten-year period, it follows Wexler as he works on a music video, interacts with film students, and accompanies Jane Fonda to a festival screening of Coming Home. A highlight of Shoot from the Heart is a dinner Wexler shares with documentarian D.A. Pennebaker. The meal extends over hours, with additional footage supplied by Chris Hegedus. As the two reminisce about Sally Rand and […]
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How to Rethink the Budget Needs and Hierarchies of Traditional Film Production to Enable Creative Freedom: On the Making of This Is Not a War Story
I just completed my second feature film, This Is Not a War Story. It’s a narrative hybrid film, complete with combat veterans denouncing war and Tom Waits wailing on the end credits. The film went from a microbudget experiment in 2017 to a Warner Media/HBO release in 2021. The supporting cast is composed entirely of non-actor veterans. We shot for 41 spread-out days, (with no bone-crushing overtime) and with a crew of eight-to-12 dedicated crewmembers functioning as a collective, in the model of a worker co-op. Our schedule was designed around two-week shooting periods, strategically scheduled over a course of […]
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New Platform VidaFair May Have Just Changed Film Monetization (Sponsored Post)
Launching this month, VidaFair.com gives filmmakers control over their content’s monetization without needing the approval of elite gatekeepers or multinational conglomerates. The startup sees itself in lofty terms — democratizing revenue creation to ordinary people through tech — somewhat in the footsteps of Uber and Airbnb. VidaFair lets filmmakers set their own fee per 24-hour video rental, anything from $0.00 to $20.00 is allowed (yes, filmmakers can choose to make nothing per stream if they wish). VidaFair has its own fee per rental stream, of course, but it’s purely based on file size, i.e. the metric which most closely correlates […]
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“Let’s Look at the Color of Your Emotional Journey…” Director Frida Kempff on Her Immersive Psychological Thriller, Knocking
Swedish director Frida Kempff makes an astonishing and bold debut with Knocking, her Sundance-premiering psychological thriller now out in the U.S. on digital platforms. Molly (Cecilia Milocco) has been released from a mental hospital into everyday life, moving into a spartan apartment in an impersonal urban apartment building. But at night, as images of her past trauma flicker through her recovering brain, there’s a knocking sound. What begins as an irritant turns to destabilizing obsession as Molly begins to believe that the sounds originate from a woman help captive and in danger. In an incredible performance, Milocco keeps us both […]
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Twenty Nonfiction Film Projects Receive Grants from Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program
Twenty nonfiction feature projects have been awarded grants totaling $600,000 by the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program in its latest funding round. The grants target projects in all phases of filmmaking, from development to distribution and impact. Disability, feminist history, globalization, grief and loss, and housing inequality are among the subjects and, notes the press release, “… eight out of the ten U.S. films granted are helmed by at least one BIPOC director. This statistic reflects the fund’s commitment to emerging artists whose voices have been historically marginalized in hegemonic Western societies. Globally, half of the projects supported have international […]
