Standing at just 5’6”, I often jokingly refer to myself as “Ronni Thomas. Short, filmmaker….” But in all honesty I am part of a very small demographic of film makers who prefer making short-form docs, most of my films being between four and 20 minutes. Nowadays, what could be a compelling 30 to 40-minute masterpiece is typically and unnecessarily stretched out into six one-hour long episodes across several seasons. So, a few years back when my friend and long-time collaborator, Mitch Horowitz, came to with me with a proposition to direct a feature-length adaptation of a 1908 occult manuscript, The […]

The making of Freda, the narrative feature debut of actor, singer and documentarian Gessica Généus, shot between lockdowns in the endlessly troubled streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, was “like a sprint,” says Généus, “I was rushing, I didn’t sleep.”  Freda is a family drama masterfully set against the backdrop of the chaos of life in Haiti. With a wry eye on societal issues, Freda offers a heartbreaking and complex female gaze on life in a machismo culture. Freda received a standing ovation at its Un Certain Regard screening at the 2021 Cannes festival and was only the second Haitian film to […]

A highly personal hodgepodge of interviews, essays, coverage and quotes that stayed with me throughout (despite) this information overloaded year. Crime and Punishment Jon Alpert’s HBO doc Life of Crime: 1984-2020 (DOC NYC curtain raiser for Hammer to Nail) Thirty-six years following three street criminals in Newark, NJ culminates in one powerful, tightly-edited, two-hour journey. Stanley Nelson and Traci A. Curry’s Showtime doc Attica (interview with Curry for Filmmaker magazine, interview with former inmate Al Victory for Documentary magazine) A clear-eyed revisitation of the five-day, real-life, made-for-TV event that resulted in “the deadliest violence Americans had inflicted on each other in a single day since […]

Since forever, I’ve gotten the question, “What camera should I buy?” This always comes from someone not in the market for an Alexa Mini or 8K RED, but instead something recent, capable, and cheap. Did I mention cheap? There’s no slam-dunk answer to this question, obviously, and never will be. No single camera is right for everybody or every situation. But among the wonderments of our 4K moment is the fact that virtually all 4K cameras make good pictures, taking into account their intended markets and price points. To wit, you only have to reach for that iPhone Pro in […]

There is a sign somewhere out in the desert (every designer knows where) like a motel sign, except that instead of “NO VACANCY” it says “SANS SERIF,” and the most important man in America is the man whose sole job is to pull the giant lever that turns “SANS” off or on, which he does once every ten years. The KonMari craze of the late 2010s, with its flat-pack packaging of deaccumulation into a lifestyle brand, represents the top of the decade-long pendulum arc that swings forever between minimalism and maximalism. When I still took the subway to work every […]

Compiling my annual list of the year’s ten best Blu-ray releases (or, to be more accurate, my ten personal favorites), I have come to the conclusion once again that reports of the death of physical media have been greatly exaggerated – there were easily another three or four dozen titles in 2021 worthy of placement on the list, and I can’t even begin to claim familiarity with more than a small percentage of everything that was released. But these are ten titles I can confidently recommend, not only for the fine transfers of superlative films but for the lovingly produced […]

For art-house movie theaters, already struggling during the pandemic, the wide expansion of Paul Thomas Anderson’s critically acclaimed Licorice Pizza on December 25 was seen as a godsend. When the film opened in late November in just four locations, it generated the year’s best per-screen average (at $83,852) and continued to show staying power in its subsequent weeks in limited release. But last Tuesday, just as theaters were starting to promote their Christmas opening of the film, United Artists Releasing pulled it from hundreds of locations, inciting at least one exhibitor to cry “bah, humbug!” Originally set to be released […]

Just in time for the holidays, during which the question of what makes a Christmas movie appears across film social media feeds, arrives Camille Griffin’s Silent Night. From its title down to its Christmas setting, in which family and friends congregate for the kind of boozy reunion that segues from holiday cheer to emotional warfare, Griffin’s directorial debut sits squarely within the sub-genre and, due to one cross-genre addition, feels particularly of the moment. In Griffin’s film, the Yuletide gathering is to be a final one as a poisonous gas cloud is poised to envelope the earth, killing all living […]

We last covered Exquisite Shorts, the shorts film program launched by Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari, when the platform announced that submissions were now open. Now Exquisite Shorts has premiered its first short, as curated by filmmaker Isabel Sandoval (Lingua Franca). From the platform: After several months of research and feedback from other filmmakers, a website was built from scratch and submissions opened for just $5 per film on an independent platform (avoiding FilmFreeway). The first film in the program is Pablo Hernando’s Solar Noise. This selection was made by filmmaker Isabel Sandoval, who was asked to make the inaugural pick for the program. You can […]

Originally released in 1978 as a three-part, five-hour series, The Energy War follows the passage of a key piece of President Jimmy Carter’s energy bill. Directed by D.A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, and Pat Powell, the series provided an unprecedented look at the inner workings of government. One segment, Part 2: Filibuster, focuses on Part D of Statute 1469, which would end government regulation of natural gas prices. It passed by a vote of 52–48, thanks largely to votes from representatives of energy-producing states like Louisiana. Two Senators, Howard Metzenbaum and James Abourezk, announce a filibuster to overturn the results. Over the following […]