Throughout the month of September, Filmmaker is partnering with the online short film competition Filminute, hosting five of its nominated titles and running interviews with the director’s of these one-minute movies. Tell us who you are (where you’re from, background, previous credits as a filmmaker) I have basically been making films all my life, starting with my parents’ VHS camera (unfortunately, I was a generation too late for Super 8). I studied German Literature, Media Studies and Psychology in Marburg and Bonn and also had the opportunity to study film at NYU for a year. Since my graduation, I have […]
The first rule of Film Week is that if you have time to blog during Film Week, you’re probably not doing it right. The second rule of Film Week is that if you attend, the best part is that you will meet all kinds of awesome people making awesome films. This may intimidate you. It’s okay. Be cool. I guess that’s the third rule of Film Week, bro: just be cool. When the good folks at Filmmaker Magazine asked me to blog about Film Week again this year, I knew I wanted to write about some of the awesome people […]
IFP’s Independent Film Week came to a close on Thursday, I took the train home on Friday, spent Saturday relaxing, and here we are…ready to take a more in-depth look at my time in New York City. I’ve already covered practicing my pitch in the days leading up to Film Week, delivering that pitch at the Emerging Narrative orientation, and experiencing unexpected moments during my one-on-one meetings. But I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface – on either the nuts-and-bolts level, or that philosophical plane that I’ve become so fond of. To begin with, let me explain a little bit more about what […]
When D.P. Sean Meehan went to college he was undecided about what he would study. But in his first semester he took an American Film studies class and it prompted him to call his parents two weeks into school and say, “I’m sorry, I’m going to be a film major.” He then spent all his time turning Boston College’s film department into “my own mini film production major.” He took as many classes as possible and also did side projects to learn about the filmmaking process. Only graduating in 2011, Sean’s already freelancing regularly for a variety of clients. I […]
Filmmaker Joe Swanberg clobbered Badass Digest critic Devin Faraci — in the ring, that is. I’ll leave it up to you to decide who scored more rhetorical points in their on-stage debate at Fantastic Fest. But after the verbal duel, the two climbed in the ring — literally — for a boxing match of which Swanberg emerged the victor. Indeed, Faraci’s haymakers were no match for Swanberg’s driving jabs. Matt Singer at Indiewire has the full transcript of the talk. An excerpt is below, as is a video of the fight. Devin Faraci: Joe, I want to thank you for […]
Filmmaker has a curated page on Kickstarter, where we point you towards projects that we think are worthy of your attention. Here are our recent additions, and to read more about them visit them via Filmmaker Magazine on Kickstarter. Love Spasm: New York underground film icon Nick Zedd has just launched a campaign for what sounds like an ambitious feature set to shoot in Berlin. “The themes of this movie are love, sexual freedom, loyalty, human insecurity and the strategies people employ to survive and maintain relationships within the unnatural constraints imposed upon them by the economic pressures of capitalism, […]
Stephen Chbosky has been influenced by a lot of angsty classics, like The Graduate and Catcher in the Rye. In 1999, he made his own contribution to the canon, releasing The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a young-adult novel whose tough themes helped make it a formidable word-of-mouth success, becoming the best-selling title from MTV Books by 2000. Within seven years, it sold nearly 800,000 copies, while also getting regularly challenged by the American Library Association for its exploration of drug use, homosexuality, and adolescent suicide. A film version seemed inevitable, but Chbosky wasn’t ready to hand over his polarizing […]
“In Production” is a regular column which focuses on notable independent films that are currently shooting. If you would like your film to be included in this space, please send an email to nick@filmmakermagazine.com Marking the third installment in his “blood and ice cream” trilogy following the insanely re-watchable Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, writer/director Edgar Wright reteams with co-writer/star Simon Pegg for The World’s End. The film, which follows a group of friends who decide to go on an epic pub-crawl during humanity’s final hours, stars Pegg alongside regular sidekick Nick Frost. The cast also includes Paddy […]
In the late spring of 2000, I found myself across a desk from one Milton Tabbot (currently IFP’s Senior Director of Programming, for the unfamiliar) in an office plastered with movie posters in the West Twenties. I was a few months away from finishing college and, unsure of what exactly to do with myself, had applied on a whim to a position at an organization called the IFP. I wasn’t sure exactly what this shadowy group did, but I knew I’d heard of it; the job was a marketing gig, and involved a big upcoming event called the Independent Feature […]
Throughout the month of September, Filmmaker is partnering with the online short film competition Filminute, hosting five of its nominated titles and running interviews with the director’s of these one-minute movies. Tell us who you are (where you’re from, background, previous credits as a filmmaker) We are sisters, raised in Paris into a family of filmmakers. We grew up in editing rooms where we were lulled by the images of famous directors such as Manoel de Oliveira, Maurice Pialat, Garrel, etc … While one of us is studying film and philosophy, the other has already made several films between documentary […]