Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Five Questions with When I Saw You Director Annemarie Jacir
A Bethlehem-born, Saudi Arabia-raised writer/director who earned her MFA in film at Columbia University in New York City, Annemarie Jacir was named as one of Filmmaker‘s “25 New Faces” in 2004 on the strength of her short film Like Twenty Impossibles. Her first feature, the romantic drama Salt of This Sea, premiered at Cannes in 2008, where it won the FIPRESCI International Critics’ Prize, and was later selected as Palestine’s official submission to the Academy Awards. Following her mentorship by the Chinese directing great Zhang Yimou in the Rolex Arts Initiative, Jacir completed her second film, When I Saw You […]
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“WEST OF MEMPHIS” WITH DEPP IN TORONTO
West of Memphis is a testament to the power of documentary–and celebrity–to effect social change. If that sounds grandiose then consider that Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s Paradise Lost documentaries inspired Johnny Depp (pictured at the Toronto International Film Festival press conference) to campaign for the release of three convicted child murderers. Rock stars Eddie Vedder and Henry Rollins performed benefit concerts and produced a CD to raise awareness and funds for them. Peter Jackson, known for directing fantasy blockbusters like Lord of The Rings and King Kong, financed a new investigation. In 1993, three teenage boys were sentenced to death for […]
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Five Questions with Inch’Allah Director Anais Barbeau-Lavalette
Quebecois filmmaker Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette started off as a documentary director, making such features as Les Petits princes des bidonvilles (2000), focusing on young Hondurans growing up in Montreal, and Si j’avais un chapeau (2005), which is about children in Quebec, India, Tanzania and Palestine. In 2007, she progressed to fiction features with The Ring, a coming of age story centering on a 12-year-old in the Montreal neighborhood of Hochelaga. At TIFF 2012, she now premieres her second narrative effort, Inch’Allah, about Chloé (Evelyne Brochu), a 20-something doctor from Quebec, who works at a women’s clinic in Palestine, and gets drawn into the West […]
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JORGE HINOJOSA ON “ICEBERG SLIM: PORTRAIT OF A PIMP”
Premiering in Toronto this year is Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp, director Jorge Hinojosa’s portrait of the legendary black author and pimp, whose work influenced generations of rap artists as well as urban fiction — or Street Lit — writers. Making his directorial debut, Hinojosa has been Ice-T’s manager for the past 28 years and previously executive produced the features Urban Menace, The Wrecking Crew and Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap. In the below video, offered by Hinojosa to Filmmaker, he discusses the origins of the film, his interest in Slim and how he and his collaborators […]
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Director Leslye Headland on Bachelorette
Tall and part blonde/part brunette, Leslye Headland darted into our interview and gave me a warm greeting and an intense gaze. She explained that she had just run across town in Manhattan to walk her dog in between interviews while promoting her debut film, Bachelorette. The film is based on her stage play of the same name, about a gang of attractive girls (Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Kaplan and Isla Fisher) behaving badly before their friend’s wedding. I ask what her dog’s name is. “His name is Ramius. Which is Sean Connery’s name in The Hunt For Red October,” she says, […]
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Golden State Granddaughters Discuss California State of Mind: The Legacy of Pat Brown
While Ethel, Rory Kennedy’s portrait of her mom, widow of dad Bobby, might have made a splash at Sundance, it’s not the only descendant-directed doc about a member of political royalty to have played the fest circuit this year. With California State of Mind: The Legacy of Pat Brown, director Sascha Rice and her sister, executive producer Hilary Armstrong – both of them daughters of former California State Treasurer Kathleen Brown – have chosen to bring to the screen the story of their grandpa, the late Governor Pat Brown. Nicknamed the “Architect of the Golden State,” the two-term governor had a slew […]
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Five Questions with The Inbetweeners Writer Iain Morris
After working as a producer for British stand ups Ricky Gervais and Jimmy Carr and as a script editor for the envelope-pushing Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show, Iain Morris teamed up with fellow Carr collaborator Damon Beesley to create The Inbetweeners, a small-screen comedy series about a quartet of high-school boys who occupy the awkward middle territory between in-crowders and nerds. Starting in 2008, the show ran three seasons and gained not only a fanatical following but also a string of awards, including the Audience Award at the BAFTAs and Best Sitcom at the British Comedy Awards, both in 2010. […]
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The Week in Cameras: The Software Edition
After the excitement of the last two weeks of camera announcements, here are some software announcements and updates that you might have missed. Prelude is unbundled One of the new apps to appear in Adobe Creative Suite 6 is Prelude, an ingestion and logging tool that is a separate application but works closely with Premiere. Prelude lets a user scan through the clips on a camera or memory card and select the ones they want to transfer or transcode. Metadata can be added, and it’s also possible to create very simple rough cuts within Prelude. The rough cuts and the […]
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Trailer Watch: Cloud Atlas
Four years after their disappointing big-screen take on the anime series Speed Racer, the Wachowski siblings return this fall—alongside Run Lola Run filmmaker Tom Tykwer—with their adaptation of Cloud Atlas. The film, based upon David Mitchell’s 2004 novel of the same name, has been dubbed by the media as Germany’s first attempt at a studio blockbuster, and it certainly has the look for it. Starring America’s favorite would-be uncle Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Jim Sturgess, Hugo Weaving and Doona Bae (among many others), Cloud Atlas examines the course of lives across decades and dimensions, through various incarnations, which […]
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Five Questions with Beauty is Embarrassing Director Neil Berkeley
Wayne White is a fascinating figure whose work has permeated popular culture in multiple meaningful ways, without his name ever becoming well-known. Starting out as an underground comic book artist, White progressed to being a designer, puppeteer and performer on Pee-wee’s Playhouse, then to directing music videos for such acts as Peter Gabriel and the Smashing Pumpkins, while he’s also a talented an prolific painter, sculptor and musician. Graphic designer and commercial director Neil Berkeley, who first met White in the early 2000s, determined to make a film about this underappreciated figure and has created Beauty is Embarrassing, a unique and […]
