Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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INDEPENDENT FILM WEEK SNAPSHOTS
Yes, as Dan Schoenbrun notes below, there was a lot of paella at the Copacabana club last night for Independent Film Week’s closing party. Here are a few of the photo’s I snapped during the week. Pariah producer Nekisa Cooper (left) attended Independent Film Week with a No Borders project, Five Nights in Maine. It’s the debut feature of Bay area producer Maris Curran (right). Here they are at one of the evening cocktail parties at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. Zach Lieberman (left) and Koo (right) were two of our “25 New Faces,” selected after they premiered the […]
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ALL OVER BUT THE PAELLA: EVEN MORE IFW SNAPSHOTS
Independent Film Week wrapped up last night with a closing night party swankier than most of us in the non-profit indie film world are used to. There were lobster rolls. There was paella (seriously, more paella in one place than I’ve seen over my entire life.) And there were three-hundred underfed indie filmmakers. Not a bad deal This was my third time at Film Week, and easily the best. Over five days, we hosted 2,200 filmmaker/industry meetings, as well as a conference, a screening series and a boatload of other special events. Here are some final photographic highlights: Writer/Director […]
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2011 GOTHAM AWARDS TRIBUTES ANNOUNCED
The IFP has announced that Charlize Theron, David Cronenberg and Gary Oldman will receive career tributes along with earlier announced recipient Tom Rothman, CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment, at the 21st annual Gotham Independent Film Awards. Signaling the start of awards season, the Gotham Independent Film Awards honors the year’s top independent films and filmmakers with seven competitive awards: Best Feature, Best Documentary, Breakthrough Director, Breakthrough Actor, Best Ensemble Performance, Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You (selected by the editors of Filmmaker) and Audience Award as well as four tributes. This year’s tributes also happen to be involved […]
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IFW: A TRUE LOVE CONNECTION?
Day One of Film Week is complete! Wow, did we ever get better at talking about Our Nixon today. Ten back-to-back 30-minute meetings with brilliant people who are really interested in your film will do have that effect. Did Our Nixon make a true love connection? Who knows, but sparks were definitely flying. And it’s all about getting to the second date. We came into this week with a lot of meeting requests, and although I was fairly flabbergasted by the interest we elicited, I really shouldn’t have been. Because Our Nixon has a really fantastic premise: it’s a feature […]
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IFW: MY NAME IS KOO
My name is Koo, and I’m a blogoholic. Not really, but I do run a NoFilmSchool”>blog about independent filmmaking, and I’ve also contributed to this Filmmaker web site a number of times. So, what am I doing here (again)? I’ve got a feature script in the Emerging Narrative program this year. I also had a script in the similar-but-different No Borders program this same time last year; the main difference is EN scripts have no financing attached and NB do (theoretically, that is: we didn’t last year, but that’s another story). If you read my thoughts on the No Borders experience) you’ll see […]
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IFW: BELARUS COMES TO FILM WEEK
My name is Madeleine Sackler, and I’ll be blogging on my first time bringing a film to IFW’s Spotlight on Documentaries. I’m looking forward to seeing how the week goes! For now, a little on the film. Unstable Elements is my second feature, and it’s been an entirely different experience than any film I’ve worked on in the past. Of course, every documentary is different, which is one of the reasons I love what I do, but this has been a particularly challenging process. Unstable Elements tracks an underground resistance group called the Belarus Free Theater, which exposes problems with the […]
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IFW: THE BIG QUESTION
The following post was written on my way to IFP Film Week, which ends today. Are audiences ready to spend 85 minutes immersed in the lives of conservative Muslim women in Syria? That’s the big question this week. Many delays at LAX today. But there’s no comparing our airport to the one in Damascus. Here, people are shuffling on board the airplane with Starbucks in one hand, Burger King in the other, arguing the finer points of how to get an upgrade. In Damascus, people are stuffing every last inch of their luggage with dates, nuts, and Syrian chocolate, hugging relatives […]
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“WEEKEND” — A HAMMER TO NAIL PICK
(After world premiering at the 2011 South By Southwest Film Festival where it won an Audience Award, Weekend was picked up for distribution by Sundance Selects. It opens theatrically in New York City on Friday, September 23, 2011, before expanding to more cities in the coming weeks. It’s also available through cable VOD for three months beginning on September 30th. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.) It is Independent Film Week in New York City. As this is the first time that I’ve personally been involved in IFP’s annual program to the extent that I have (I’m pitching […]
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SEE YOU YESTERDAY: MORE IFW SNAPSHOTS
We’re halfway through Independent Film Week, and time has started to play tricks. Days seem to stretch on forever, but at the same time, hours go by like minutes. Today I accidentally said to someone, “I’ll see you yesterday.” Here are some more snapshots of Film Week in action: The creative forces behind IFP’s 2011 Narrative and Documentary Lab projects share the stage at the end of Tuesday night’s Lab Showcase at the Walter Reade Theater. Writer/Director Gillian Robespierre discusses her screenplay Obvious Child with the Sundance Institute’s Rachel Chanoff. Writer/Director Harrison Witt (Sister Sarah) helps actor […]
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An Interview with Shit Year‘s Cam Archer
This post was originally published when Shit Year premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010. The film opens today at the IFC Center. It is both accurate and reductive to call Cam Archer’s Shit Year, which premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in the Director’s Fortnight section, the story of a retiring actress grappling with the emotions produced by her move away from the Hollywood spotlight. Of course, on narrative terms, that is what it’s about. Ellen Barkin plays the actress, who has just given her final talk-show interview, moved to a cabin in the woods, and now […]
