Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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IN PRODUCTION: “THE TWO FACES OF JANUARY,” “DARK SKIES,” “PLUSH” AND “50 TO 1”
“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 Late last week, Drive writer Hossein Amini’s directorial debut, The Two Faces of January, which stars Viggo Mortensen, commenced principal photography in Greece. Based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith (best known for the oft-adapted Ripley novels), it is described as a “stylish international thriller” about a Greek-speaking American (Oscar Isaac) who becomes infatuated with a beautiful, wealthy couple (Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst) only to be introduced to […]
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Five Questions with For Ellen Director So Yong Kim
Tomorrow Tribeca Film releases So Yong Kim’s latest feature, For Ellen. The following interview was originally published on the eve of the film’s Sundance Film Festival premiere. After winning over half a dozen festival prizes for her first two feature films, So Yong Kim has spent the last few years producing for her husband, Bradley Rust Gray (The Exploding Girl), and developing and writing her newest movie, For Ellen. Similar to her previous films, For Ellen’s narrative derives from Kim’s own experiences growing up. Brought together through the character of a young man traveling to see his daughter for the […]
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Damon Russell & Curtis Snow on Snow on Tha Bluff
After debuting at the Slamdance Film Festival in 2011, Damon Russell’s Snow on Tha Bluff had a small theatrical release earlier this year. Writing about it then, Filmmaker’s own Brandon Harris described the film as “An incredible combination of found footage, no-budget narrative ingenuity and pulled-from-the-streets doc immediacy, [which] discovers in its incredibly charismatic and troubled protagonist, Curtis Snow, an American life many of us would probably rather forget about.” Since becoming available through such platforms as iTunes and Netflix Watch Instantly, Snow on Tha Bluff has found a new and highly engaged audience which has discovered and been electrified […]
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Directors Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing on Detropia
In Detropia, the new documentary from directing partners Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, a gleaming sun rises over a handsome stretch of metal and glass, yet much of the landscape it kisses is neglected, overgrown, and decaying. This is the dichotomous portrait of Detroit delivered by the filmmakers, whose breakthrough film, Jesus Camp, likely rattled your core. With similar attention paid to stirring emotional heft, Grady and Ewing’s latest uncovers the splendor and squalor of a very American metropolis, whose all-time-low state of disrepair is punctuated by glimmers of its former — and, perhaps, future — glory. Painstakingly researching their […]
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PHOTOBLOGGING THE “25 NEW FACES” IN TACOMA
The funny thing about film festivals is that there never seems to be enough time to talk about the films you’ve just seen. Distribution strategies, yes, industry gossip, most definitely, but the actual creative decisions and approaches involved in making the films themselves – barely! So the Grand Cinema’s mini-festival celebrating Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces of Independent Film in Tacoma, WA, last month felt like a truly rare treat. Bringing together 14 of the actors and filmmakers or filmmaking teams on the list, including myself and Katherine Fairfax Wright, my directing partner on Call Me Kuchu, The Grand Cinema scheduled […]
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The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Doron Weber
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation was created in 1934 by the then head of General Motors to bestow grants related to science, technology, and economics, and to make these subjects more appealing to the general public. Part of a shift towards doing so via the arts can be attributed to Doron Weber, who runs the Public Understanding of Science and Technology program. Weber introduced the concept of providing sometimes sizable grants to narrative films, dealing with science or the science community, over a decade ago, when the idea was relatively novel and returns were a total question mark due the […]
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THE VIEW FROM ACROSS THE ATLANTIC
Have you ever sat talking to someone and half way through a sentence thought, “Have I said this to this person already? OMG, what was I talking about? I’m lost?” I’m waking up in the middle of the night sweating with this fear rattling my head because I am preparing for two weeks of solid pitching. I need to be ready for about 10 a day, each one focused exactly the same as all the others, do the greatest pitch of your life! And that is just what’s organized. I have a shadow agenda to seek out other people – […]
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Five Questions with My Sucky Teen Romance Director Emily Hagins
In films about the teenage social scene, there is an inevitable disconnect between the adult director, and the youthful experience that he or she wants to portray. My Sucky Teen Romance is a rare exception, since the writer/director Emily Hagins happens to be 19 years old and a peer to her characters. Hagins began her exceptional career at the age of 12, when she created her first feature-length film, Pathogen, and became the youngest recipient of the Texas Filmmakers Production Fund grant, not to mention the youngest feature film director in the United States. The zombie movie was a group […]
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DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE: A TORONTO 2012 PREVIEW
The optimist and the contrarian may find common ground in anticipation; to be a festivalgoer at the Toronto Film Festival is to be a bit of both. Particularly when preceded by negative reviews trickling out of earlier festivals in Cannes, Locarno, Venice and Berlin or less-than-enticing trailers, the debut of new work from filmmakers who have proven themselves capable of greatness can have cinephiles’ hearts in their throats. What if the hype is true, and your favorite living director is no longer creating essential work? Yet with reports of boos just might come a sneaking desire to go to that movie anyway. See […]
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Five Questions with Cinema is Everywhere Director Teal Greyhavens
After a summer dominated by big budget Hollywood blockbusters, we could all use a film that reminds us of the humanity and joy of the medium. Teal Greyhavens’ Cinema is Everywhere follows actors and directors from four disparate cultures, creating an interwoven narrative fabric that lovingly renders the importance of film across the globe. Greyhavens’ documentary makes effort to explore cinema in countries where social and political barriers limit or restrict free speech; often, movies are the best opportunities people have to express their thoughts, fears and hopes. With such an ambitious scope the film could easily spread itself too […]
