Filmmaking
Filmmaking
-
TRAILER WATCH: “HOMECOMING”
Sean Hackett’s Homecoming chronicles, in his words, “a female medic who has served in the military since High School. As she returns home, she decides to tell her two best friends something that’s been on her mind….” The film is scored by Gingger Shankar, one of our “25 New Faces” this year, and is being released using the “Demand It” feature at Eventful.com. Check out the trailer and then, if you’re inclined, click on the link to invite the film to your home town. Homecoming Trailer from Homecoming by Sean Hackett on Vimeo.
-
MOMA’S ANNUAL FESTIVAL OF FILM PRESERVATION LINEUP ANNOUNCED
Looking for something to do in Manhattan over the next month? MoMA has announced the slate for its 9th annual International Festival of Film Preservation, in which the museum presents preserved and restored films from archives, studios and distributors around the world. This year’s festival runs from October 14 through November 19, and the lineup looks like a pretty stellar way to spend an evening (or twenty). One of the highlights is the focus on ’70s genre-enthusiast and frequent Spielberg collaborator Joe Dante (Gremlins, Piranha). The festival opens this Friday with a digital preservation of the original celluloid print of […]
-
TAXI RIDERS: ALRICK BROWN
If you’ve taken a ride in the back of a New York City taxi cab these last two weeks, you may have heard the stories of seven of New York’s most distinctive independent filmmakers of the moment. In partnership with Royal Bank of Canada and the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, the IFP has produced six spots that are playing not only in cabs but on NYC Life. Jamie Stuart directed, T. Griffin scored and I produced these pieces, and each one, in addition to profiling a person, highlights a different aspect of the independent filmmaker’s current creative, production […]
-
The Blue Velvet Project, #28
Second #1316, 21:56 A stairway exposed / A monastic image / Deep River Apartments / The silence of the film / The sound of sound / Has come apart / I’d like to think / In curved brick archways / The light / The 90 degree angles / Against that light / The Bug Man / Auden: “The bug whose view is balked by grass” / The steady climbing / Of the stairs / Then dark / Then Frank / What light will come of this? / The metal handrail across the door / A chance to stop the frame […]
-
MIRANDA JULY’S FIVE FINGER DISCOUNT
Miranda July’s short recollection of being a teenage shoplifter is online at the New Yorker. She begins: I don’t remember the first time I did it, but I remember the first time I got caught. I was a freshman at U.C. Santa Cruz, the store was called Zanotto’s, the item was Neosporin. I took it out of its packaging, bent down as if to scratch my ankle, and then wedged the tube of triple-antibiotic ointment into my white ankle sock. When the guard grabbed my arm, I was so scared I peed on the floor. As we waited for the […]
-
“BOMBAY BEACH” OPENS RUN AT IFC CENTER
If you are a reader of our “25 New Faces” series, then you know that I am a huge fan of Alma Har’el and her debut feature Bombay Beach. I think she’s one of this year’s real discoveries, and the film I find inspiring and beautiful. Bombay Beach arrives in New York for a week run at the IFC Center beginning Friday, and I’ll be doing a Q&A with Alma at the 8:20 show on opening night. Before that, you’ll be hearing a lot more about the film on the site. I’ll post an interview with Alma in the next […]
-
STEVE MCQUEEN UP CLOSE
Via Nowness, here’s a video by Alison Chernick of Steve McQueen discussing his latest, Shame, appropriately (if you’ve seen the film) from the vantage point of a hotel balcony. The Confessions of Steve McQueen on Nowness.com.
-
TAXI RIDERS: DEE REES
If you’ve taken a ride in the back of a New York City taxi cab these last two weeks, you may have heard the stories of seven of New York’s most distinctive independent filmmakers of the moment. In partnership with Royal Bank of Canada and the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, the IFP has produced six spots that are playing not only in cabs but on NYC Life. Jamie Stuart directed, T. Griffin scored and I produced these pieces, and each one, in addition to profiling a person, highlights a different aspect of the independent filmmaker’s current creative, production […]
-
FIRST-TIME DIRECTOR VS. SEASONED 1ST A.D.
There are tons of these Xtra Normal videos on YouTube detailing relationships between crew and various department heads. This one is pretty hilarious, and, like most of them, seems posted from the crew side. Where are the directors with theirs?
-
PLEASE COMMODIFY ME
In a Brooklyn Rail piece titled “We Are All Scabs: Some Contradictions in U.S. Independent Film Culture,” Donal Foreman visits the IFP’s Independent Film Week and questions the debates over sustainability, marketing and audience-building that are rampant in our community. As we pursue DIY strategies, are we just implicitly and uncritically accepting the logic of the marketplace instead of conceptualizing more empowering, liberating structures? The key grafs: Whereas in previous times films were offered up to the distribution circuit to be either rejected or accepted as viable commodities, their makers are now being asked to lead that process of commodification […]
