Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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“BREAKING OUT & BREAKING IN,” DISTRIBUTED FILM FESTIVAL LAUNCHES
“A “distributed film festival” is what BLDGBLOG’s Geoff Manaugh is calling “Breaking Out & Breaking In,” a series of screenings and discussions centering around cinematic prison breaks and bank heists. Or, more accurately, the festival is about space — the architectures of these films’ settings, and the varying space between you and other viewers as you watch at home, discuss online at BLDGBLOG, and then venture to Studio-X in New York City for a panel discussion on April 24. “Breaking Out & Breaking In” is sponsored by BLDGBLOG, Filmmaker and Studio-X NYC, and it begins tomorrow, Friday, January 27, with […]
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SUNDANCE 2012: DOCUMENTARY MISSION CRITICAL
There is a longstanding debate in the non-fiction filmmaking community about the nature of documentary films; is the mission of the documentary to tell the truth and nothing but or do the requirements of cinematic storytelling allow for flexibility in the service of story? As a passionate viewer of non-fiction filmmaking, I have always drawn a line between cinema and reportage; on the one hand, reality must provide the underlying structure of documentary film, but unlike news gathering and reporting, films should have the license to manipulate things like chronology and the way in which information is presented in order to create […]
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PHOTO STREAM: MORE SUNDANCE PHOTOS AND EVENTS
Producer Nekisa Cooper (Pariah) and the IFP’s deputy director Amy Dotson joined Chicken & Egg Pictures in Park City to honor WMM‘s Debra Zimmerman with the 2012 Good Egg Award. Director Josh Radnor spoke about his film Liberal Arts, his experiences at Kenyon College, and David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. Sarah Barnett, the EVP of the Sundance Channel, and Nancy Klasky Gribler, the EVP of Marketing for Sundance Cinemas, caught up at the Sundance Channel’s party. The cast of the new Sundance Channel television show, Push Girls. The director (Leslye Headland, far left) and cast of Bachelorette in one of the more raucous […]
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MUSICIANS AND FRIENDS IN THE SNOW: SUNDANCE SNAPS
Here outside Zoom following BMI’s annual seat-switching dinner are elusive rock icon Rodriguez and Malik Bendjelloul, the director of his doc, Searching for Sugar Man. At the dinner, I asked Bendjellaul whether he was a fan of Rodrgiuez’s before the film. No, he said. He was looking for a story and hear about the Rodriguez saga from a private detective. The film was acquired at Sundance by Sony Pictures Classics. Left behind after the Sundance premiere of Exit to the Gift Shop was this Banksy artwork, nicely framed by the good folks in Park City. Caught checking out the artwork […]
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SUNDANCE VIDEO: “ROBOT AND FRANK”‘S FRANK LANGELLA
One of the hits of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival has been Robot and Frank, Jake Schreier’s tale of a retired jewel thief and the caretaker robot his kids purchase to assist him in his final days. In addition to Frank Langella, the film costars James Marsden, Susan Sarandon and Liv Tyler, and it was jointly acquired at the festival by Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions and Samuel Goldwyn in a deal reported at over $2 million. In addition to being a great actor, Langella is a great sport. Here he is being interviewed by the National Film Society.
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ADAM BOWERS EXPLAINS “WHY FILMMAKERS DON’T NEED MONEY”
Over at IFP, filmmaker and comedian Adam Bowers has a hilarious new blog entry entitled “Why Filmmakers Don’t Need Money.” In the post, Bowers argues that poverty breeds creativity. As he writes: “Think about it: when do filmmakers make their best movies? When they’re at their most miserable and desperate. Raging Bull pulled Scorsese out of his biggest career slump, and Beethoven’s 4th saved David Mickey Evans after the disastrous Beethoven’s 3rd, which obviously suffered from too many studio notes (“Can we have him destroy FEWER dining rooms?” What idiots!). So, if you really want to help a filmmaker create […]
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SUNDANCE ANNOUNCES JURY PRIZES IN SHORT FILMMAKING
At a ceremony last night, Sundance announced this year’s short film prize winners. The 2012 shorts jury, which included Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge, Pariah director Dee Rees, and TIFF public program director Shane Smith, narrowed down the sixty-four shorts currently playing at the festival to six winners. The big winner was Cutter Hodierne’s fictional Somali pirate expose Fishing Without Nets, which took home the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking. Meanwhile, Ben and Josh Sadie’s (Daddy Longlegs) The Black Balloon was awarded the US Fiction Prize while Kosovo filmmaker Blerta Zeqiri’s The Return (Kthimi) won the International Fiction Prize. The […]
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PHOTO STREAM: SUNDANCE DIRECTORS, CAST, AND CREW
Celeste and Jesse Forever‘s Question & Answer Portion: Andy Samberg joked that it was finally nice to be acting in something where he “wasn’t rapping or wearing a bird suit.” Director Lee Toland Krieger. Elijah Wood’s co-stars cleared the stage, leaving him alone to answer a question regarding his influences for his gay character. Wood answered that most of the inspiration came from costume designer Julia Caston’s impeccable wardrobe choices. The End of Love‘s Question & Answer Portion: Director Mark Webber spoke about the process of making a film with his own son as the protagonist. The End of Love‘s […]
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Watch Ten Sundance Shorts Online, Including New Works By Jeremiah Zagar and Todd Sklar
Jeremiah Zagar, the prolific documentary filmmaker behind 2008’s In a Dream is back with Heart Stop Beating: A Body Without A Pulse, a new short screening before Escape Fire this week at Sundance. Heart Stop Beating is a brief, fascinating look at Billy Cohn & Bud Frazier, two doctors who successfully replaced a dying man’s heart with a mechanical device this past March, proving that human physiology can be supported without a pulse. Over its four minute run-time, the documentary features glimpses into the operating room, as well as interviews with Cohn and Frazer. Watch it above. Also available to […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #71
Second #3337, 55:37 1. Jeffrey, struggling. Working through over and over again the evil equation that is Frank. 2. The sound of sound has come apart. Everything that matters is between his ears. 3. His ear; the fact of his non-severed ear. 4. The haircut to reveal the ear. 5. An actor, preparing to say his next line, or has he forgotten the presence of the camera? 6. The fullness of night, and its comfort. 7. To be drowned in the blackness of introspection. 8. A terrible thought: is Frank supernatural, beyond human agency, beyond human Law? 9. “Look out […]
