Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Tom DiCillo Remembers Howard Brookner and Burroughs
One of the projects currently up on our curated Kickstarter page is a restoration of Howard Brookner’s documentary, Burroughs, on the legendary Naked Lunch novelist. Brookner died of AIDS in the ’80s, with this and the feature Bloodhounds of Broadway (which costarred Madonna) to his credit. Brookner was a great director poised to have an exciting career, and now his nephew Aaron Brookner is raising funds on Kickstarter to restore the original Burroughs film as well as 300 hours of additional archival material discovered in Burroughs’ NYC home, The Bunker. The team behind this restoration submitted to Filmmaker the following […]
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50 States, 50 Gay Movies
The last half of my 20s and the first half of my 30s were spent in Los Angeles working in mainstream television (That 70s Show) and film (Jesus People). I never made much money, but I did get to live out my dreams of visiting Kathy Griffin’s house, serving crumpets to my favorite comedic actress, Lisa Kudrow, and brushing my leg up against my favorite dramatic actress, Holly Hunter. In the mid-90s, I took for granted the fact that gay characters were becoming well represented on television. After all, my favorite TV shows were thirtysomething and My So-Called Life and […]
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The Sopranos’ David Chase Makes Film Debut with Not Fade Away
David Chase loves the Stones. Anyone who watched his hit series, The Sopranos, and heard the soundtrack will know. Nor will they be be surprised that his feature film debut, Not Fade Away, is about a bunch of suburban kids from New Jersey who pick up guitars and grow their hair after they see The Rolling Stones on TV in 1964. “It’s not autobiographical,” Chase insisted at a recent preview in Toronto. “The events didn’t play out as they happened in this movie.” In fact, both Chase and his protagonist Douglas (John Magaro) came of age in suburban New Jersey […]
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Five Questions with Aquí y Allá Director Antonio Méndez Esparza
Aquí y Allá (“Here and There”) is a film about home and separation; of returning to where you left and trying to reintegrate with a life that has, for all intents and purposes, gone on without you. Dreams and opportunities; responsibility and consequence; hope and fear–these are all central not only to the film, but to the day-to-day life of every human being around the world. As such, Aquí y Allá exceeds the admittedly weighty (and very touching) premise of Mexican emigration to the U.S.–and all the tensions and the void that can come of it–to strike a relatable chord regardless of […]
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Top 10 Things Learned in the IFP PMD Lab
I have had the good fortune to be involved in IFP’s Independent Filmmaker Labs for the past several years now and, during that time, I have seen innumerable benefits to the films and filmmakers who participate. The Labs provide an opportunity for first-time filmmakers to not only receive feedback on their films from their peers and experienced filmmakers, but it is also the first lab to prepare filmmakers for the essential work of distribution and marketing. This year we launched the IFP PMD Lab (Producer of Marketing and Distribution), the first of its kind. The PMD Lab worked in conjunction with the Filmmaker Labs, […]
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IFP Distribution Lab Recap: The Final Frontier
It had been two days since the last day of the IFP Distribution Lab – ending the yearlong 2012 IFP Fellowship for 10 documentaries and 10 narrative films from first-time directors. With two days left in New York, I found myself sitting in a small theater in Brooklyn looking nervously at the backs of heads. A small handful of people had cruised over on this rainy Sunday for a test screening of my first feature documentary, Brave New Wild. Every time a punchline went unheeded, I swigged a Dixie cup full of cheap red wine. It’s very scary to show […]
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Ed Burns, New Era Distribution Pioneer
If you had asked me in the early days of Filmmaker which director would go on to be the one creating a micro-budget, self-sustaining business model, I’m not sure I would have answered “Ed Burns.” His The Brothers McMullen was realized for pennies and broke through the mainstream with Fox Searchlight at its back, and from that point on, Burns seemed to be set for the mainstream studio world. He acted in Saving Private Ryan, married supermodel Christy Turlington, and embarked on a follow-up feature starring Cameron Diaz. But here we are, nearly two decades later, and Burns is not […]
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Second-Time Director: Craig Johnson and The Skeleton Twins
This is the second in a series of articles about the path towards a director’s second film. Read part one, with Tze Chun, here. It was in the middle of prepping for The Skeleton Twins that Craig Johnson realized something was missing. “That sickening feeling in my stomach that I had the first time around in prep,” Johnson said with a laugh. “I’m so much more at peace this time. Craig Johnson, 36, is currently in production on his second movie. It’s a project that contains a dream comedic cast (Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Ty Burrell) It’s a project that […]
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Internet Alternatives
The major telecommunications companies, led by AT&T and Verizon, are consolidating their control over the Internet. These companies are working closely with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to further control the telecom market. Together, the giant telephone and cable companies are reducing the number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), privatizing the nation’s telecom infrastructure (i.e., the Public Switched Telephone Network or PSTN), pushing new “data caps” limitations to raise rates and moving aggressively to end net neutrality. And they are succeeding. In the face of this campaign to reduce industry competition and customer choice, efforts are underway throughout the […]
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Baltasar Kormákur on The Deep
Since making his transition from actor to writer/director in 2000 with the raucous comedy 101 Reykjavik, Baltasar Kormákur has rapidly established himself as one of the most gifted and versatile European filmmakers. The Icelandic multi-hyphenate has moved with seeming ease from grand family dramas (The Sea) to gritty police procedurals (Jar City) and poignant comedies (White Night Wedding), while also turning out English-language indie thrillers such as 2005’s A Little Trip to Heaven (starring Forest Whitaker, Julia Stiles and Jeremy Renner) and the 2010’s Inhale, with Diane Kruger, Dermot Mulroney and Sam Shepard. Though Kormákur had arguably the biggest film of his career this year with Contraband – the Mark […]
