Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Five Questions with Girls Creator Lena Dunham
Is Lena Dunham about to change television? Recent years have seen big-screen critical darlings like Michael Mann, Martin Scorsese, and Diablo Cody make the pilgrimage over to the small screen. But last year’s announcement that the 25-year old Tiny Furniture director would be masterminding a new series for HBO seemed a more direct link between the indie film and TV industries than had been attempted previously. And as if cementing this link, Girls premieres today with a special sneak preview screening at SXSW – the festival that initially launched Dunham’s career. Audiences are in for a treat, as Dunham’s wit […]
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Five Questions with Gayby Director Jonathan Lisecki
Jonathan Lisecki’s award winning short Gayby screened at over one-hundred festivals world-wide, and it’s easy to see why. Lisecki takes a potentially divisive premise – a single woman looking to become a mother commissions her gay best friend to knock her up – and explores it in a style that’s so frank, honest, and completely hilarious that it’s impossible not to be charmed. Anchored by wonderful comic turns from Jenn Harris and Matthew Wilkas (who reprise their roles in the feature version), the Gayby short is available now on the new Wholphin No. 15. Lisecki meanwhile has been preppng the […]
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Five Questions with Booster Director Matt Ruskin
Too often contemporary crime dramas binge on the crime and skimp on the drama. This is not the case with Booster, director Matt Ruskin’s debut narrative feature, and his followup to Sundance Channel documentary The Hip Hop Project. The story of Simon, a Boston-based petty thief forced to turn to serious robbery after his brother is arrested, Booster features stellar performances from a handful of Boston natives, as well as veteran character actor Seymour Cassel. Ruskin’s film wrestles with provocative moral issues, taking care to imbue even its most externally-loathsome characters with life and heart. Premiering in Narrative Competition today, […]
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Five Questions with Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters Director Ben Shapiro
Photographer Gregory Crewdson is renowned for his elaborately-staged photographs, huge in scope, size, and ambition. So filmmaker Benjamin Shapiro had his work cut out for him when he set out nearly a decade ago to follow Crewdson and demystify the artist’s process. But the biggest surprise of Shapiro’s long-awaited film is just how open, eloquent, and down-to-earth Crewdson is when discussing his art. Crewdson allows the audience unrestricted access to his shoots (not to mention his personal life), even taking us along as he searches for locations, subjects, and inspiration. Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters is a refreshingly frank look at […]
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Five Questions with The Sheik and I Director Caveh Zahedi
Caveh Zahedi is no stranger to boundary pushing. His filmography, a blend of narrative and documentary, has covered everything from drug tripping to sex addiction, all from a decidedly first-person perspective. But Zahedi’s latest, the bitterly-titled The Sheik and I, is perhaps his most flagrantly subversive (not to mention personal) work yet. Banned by the very government body that commissioned it, The Sheik and I finds Zahedi let loose on the Middle East. As he pushes boundaries in his attempt to “make a film about trying to make a film,” the resulting work, premiering at SXSW, promises to call into […]
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Kony 2012, Viral Videos, and Documentary Ethics
In case you haven’t seen it, here’s Kony 2012, the half-hour documentary by the organization Invisible Children that’s swept the Internet this week. It’s about Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army, which has been terrorizing the region around northern Uganda for a quarter century; a particular emphasis is on Kony’s notorious practice of kidnapping children and forcing them into military service. The film was posted on YouTube last Monday, and as of this writing it’s chalked up 62,172,848 views. Those kinds of numbers are impressive, and the people at Invisible Children, including director Jason Russell and two other American filmmakers who […]
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Kate Lyn Sheil Discusses Acting at SXSW
With a focused, intense, and somewhat mysterious screen persona, actress Kate Lyn Sheil has stood out in a number of recent independent films, including Silver Bullets by Joe Swanberg and Sophia Takal’s Green. At SXSW this year she arrives with four titles, including Amy Seimetz’s Sun Don’t Shine and Bob Byington’s Somebody Up There Likes Me. Here I talk with Sheil about how she got into acting, being a movie fan, her influences and the particular pleasures of independent film.
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Five Questions with Frankie Go Boomi> Director Jordan Roberts
On paper, Jordan Roberts’ frankie go boom certainly stands out as one of SXSW’s boldest offerings. From the film’s profanity-laden ‘official’ premise (quoted below) to its star-studded cast and strange teasers disseminated across the internet, Roberts is building quite a mythology for the project. Starring Sons of Anarchy’s Charlie Hunnam and Bridesmaid’s Chris O’Dowd as warring brothers, and Lizzy Caplan as the girl caught in the middle, the film premieres tonight as part of SXSW’s Narrative Spotlight section. Filmmaker: Let’s start with the film’s official description – “a flik by bruce about his little brother frank who’s a crybaby fuck […]
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Five Questions with In Our Nature Director Brian Savelson
Brian Savelson’s feature debut In Our Nature focuses on a young couple whose weekend getaway takes a u-turn when the young man’s father and his girlfriend show up to their vacation home un-expectedly. Coming off the success of his animated short Counting Water, Savelson’s drama not only boasts an intriguing premise but also an impressive cast including Zach Gilford (Friday Night Lights), Jena Malone (Donnie Darko), Gabrielle Union (Bring It On) and John Slattery (Mad Men). Filmmaker: What inspired the story for this film? Savelson: Everyone on set was constantly making fun of me, calling me by the character’s name and teasing that […]
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Five Questions with La Camioneta — The Journey of One American Schoolbus Director Mark Kendall
Director Mark Kendall carries a spirit of adventurous, a keen eye for character, and a wellspring of ambition into his first documentary feature, La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus. Starting out at an auction in rural Pennsylvania for decommissioned school-buses, Kendall boards one of the buses sold and accompanies the driver on the perilous journey to the vehicle’s new home – Guatemala. The road to Guatemala is fraught with corruption and violence, with local gangs demanding bribes from drivers to ensure their safety. Since 2006, nearly 1,000 bus drivers have been killed along the route, and Kendall […]
