Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS ANNOUNCES 2012 LINEUP
The Film Society of Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art have announced the lineup for their annual New Directors/New Films festival, running March 21–April 1 in New York City. This year’s festival opens with Nadine Labaki’s Where Do We Go Now, which premiered last year at Cannes and is being distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. Also screening this year are several Sundance alums, including Gareth Huw Evans’s The Raid, Terence Nance’s An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, Joachim Trier’s Oslo, August 31st, David Hamel’s How to Survive a Plague, and Mads Brugger’s The Ambassador. The full lineup is below. For […]
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The Forgiveness of Blood — A Hammer to Nail Review
(The Forgiveness of Blood is being distributed by Sundance Selects and comes to theaters on February 24, 2012. It world premiered at the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival. NOTE: This review was first posted at Hammer to Nail in conjunction with its screening at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.) The future of American independent filmmaking may not lie in America at all. In recent years, a number of filmmakers have turned their eyes away from the complexities of 21st century American life and toward the world beyond our national borders. The decision to engage another culture through filmmaking, to […]
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SHORT WATCH: HAMMER TO NAIL WINNER “ONCE IT STARTED IT COULD NOT END OTHERWISE”
Over at Hammer to Nail, Michael Tully has announced the winner for the inaugural edition of his monthly Short Film Contest. This month’s winner, Kelly Sears’ Once It Started It Could Not End Otherwise, is available to watch online, and it’s unforgettable; a nightmare-ish collage of refracted high school memories, manipulated yearbook photos, and an escalating sense of dread. You can stream Once It Started It Could Not End Otherwise over at Vimeo. My advice – don’t watch it at work unless you want your coworkers to see your terrified face. Previously supported by Rooftop’s Filmmakers’ Fund, Sears’ short was […]
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IFP ANNOUNCES INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIP OPPORTUNITIES FOR PRODUCERS
The Independent Feature Project is now accepting applications for two of its international programs. The Cannes Producer’s Network, a week-long immersion program, runs concurrently with the Cannes International Film Festival in May. The program is specifically designed for experienced producers looking to build their international networks and share expertise on the international production, financing, and packaging marketplace. Recent participants have included Howard Gertler (Shortbus), Anita Onadine & Lance Weiler (Head Trauma, Pandemic), Mike Ryan (Choke), Susan Stover (Laurel Canyon), and Ron Simons (Gun Hill Road, Night Catches Us). To apply, please send a resume and one-page letter of interest to […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #82
Second #3854, 64:14 “I saw The Yellow Man come out and meet up with a well-dressed man carrying an alligator briefcase,” Jeffrey tells Sandy, as we see him snapping a picture with his rigged-up camera-in-a-shoebox, a strange, analog echo of the Lumière brothers’ early motion picture camera. The sequence is reminiscent of a similar one (also involving doubles) in Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill, when Kate’s (Angie Dickinson’s) son Peter (Keith Gordon) has suspicions about Dr. Elliott (Michael Caine) and concocts a camera set-up to photograph the entry to his office. The whole operation is so dead-on: the detective’s […]
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Director Marshall Curry on Racing Dreams
Ask a filmmaker how to go about making your first film, and 99% of them will impart the easier-said-than-done advice, “Just go and make it.” The technology is there, filming and editing equipment have never been more affordable, and the internet has broken down the barriers between filmmakers and distributors. Few of those filmmakers, however, can give that advice as genuinely as Marshall Curry, who did just that with remarkable results. While working at a New York multimedia design firm, Curry decided to pursue a latent desire to make documentary films. With no prior experience in filmmaking, he bought a […]
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FRANCINE AT THE BERLINALE
We made it to Berlin and back in one piece. Melanie and I were at the Berlinale for the world premiere of Francine, our first narrative feature starring Melissa Leo. We couldn’t have possibly predicted the response to the film, which has been overwhelmingly positive. Francine showed in the festival’s Forum section, and sold out all four of its screenings before we even premiered. Melissa made the trip out to Berlin, and we were fortunate enough to have had several lively and very engaged Q&A sessions. Seeing the film together for the first time with an audience, especially after a […]
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ETERNAL COPYRIGHT: A MODEST PROPOSAL
At the Daily Telegraph, Adrian Hon, Founder of the online games company Six to Start, writes a modest proposal providing an answer to the controversies over copyright, remixing, piracy, filesharing, etc: eternal copyright. In 1710, the Statue of Anne decreed that the term of copyright last from 14 – 28 years. In the 300 years since, that term has only increased to 70 years from the death of the author. Swift implementation of an eternal copyright law would not only spur creative innovation but redress societal wrongs. From the piece: Imagine you’re a new parent at 30 years old and […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #81
Second #3807, 63:27 1. “Today,” Jeffrey tells Sandy at Arlene’s, as we see a flashback of what he’s describing, “I staked out Frank’s place with a camera. Now, there’s another man involved in all this. I call him The Yellow Man.” These shots, in the bright of day, are some of the most quietly beautiful in the film with their burnt-orange 1940s-era Allied Vans, as if Walker Evans photographs had switched to color. 2. In Derek Raymond’s novel The Devil’s Home On Leave, the nameless Detective Sergeant recalls a terrible dream: But in the night I dreamed that two figures […]
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Director Jeff Kusama-Hinte on Charlotte
We are filmmakers. We are artisans. Or so we forget. With filmmaking so often abstracted from the actual work of making a film, so enmeshed in conversations about new models and plans and strategies, we sometimes lose touch with what should be the main reason we make movies in the first place: to take pride in works of art made beautifully and with love. It is precisely the love of artisanal creation that is celebrated in Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte’s Charlotte: A Wooden Boat Story, a verite doc chronicling the making of a 50-foot gaff rigged schooner, “Charlotte,” by a team of […]
