Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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ELISABETH SUBRIN ON THE 9/11 DECADE
The New York Times series of videos with artists discussing the effects of 9/11 continues with artist and filmmaker Elisabeth Subrin, who discusses her video installation, Lost Tribes and Promised Lands.
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TORONTO 2011 PREVIEW: CANUCK ATTACK
Are you surprised that this year, some of the most anticipated films at the Toronto International Film Festival actually are by (gulp) Canadian filmmakers? Largely known to many for their solicitousness, their skills in the rink, and their charming way of saying the letter “o,” the Canadians often inspire jealousy in their film-loving neighbors to the south because of the wide-ranging institutional support that they provide for national filmmakers. The National Film Board of Canada, for instance, both produces films and distributes them to the far reaches of the country… and has been doing so for over 7o years, when […]
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Rebirth — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Rebirth is now available on DVD through Oscilloscope Pictures. Visit the official Project Rebirth website for theatrical screening dates and to learn more, and go here to watch a startling video detailing the time-lapse project.) On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, frankly, at the moment, I’m finding it hard not to feel more hopeless than hopeful about things. It’s bad enough that it’s still frighteningly easy to recall the visceral shock of that fateful morning, watching the twin towers crumble to the ground on television before rushing to my Washington Heights fire escape to confirm that they […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #14
Minute #658, 7:58 1. Jeffrey, entering the Williams’s home, crossing a threshold that is a doorway. This is Sandy’s castle, guarded by her father the detective, who wears his gun holstered, even at home. Or is Jeffrey the detective? Or—more radically—is Sandy? 2. “Leaving the burning theater behind one begins to ease into a new perspective. The stairway leads to a doorway, the doorway to an alleyway, the alleyway to another door, more stairs, another amber room where one can forget again” 3. “He hacks desperately at the brambles and, as the hedge closes round him like the grasping flesh-raking […]
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WEINSTEINS START VOD LABEL
A few weeks ago we learned about Focus Features’ new VOD arm, Focus World, well today Deadline broke the story that at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (which begins Thursday) The Weinstein Company will go full steam ahead on their own VOD label. The Weinstein Company has also confirmed that Magnolia Pictures’ SVP and Head of Acquisitions, Tom Quinn, will come over to head the label along with Magnolia’s head of legal and business affairs, Jason Janego. The two had been instrumental in Magnolia’s day-and-date platform. Quinn and Janego will be at TIFF scouting titles for the Weinsteins’ as […]
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LAURA POITRAS ON THE 9/11 DECADE
The New York Times is doing a series of videos on artists responding to the decade since 9/11. Here’s filmmaker Laura Poitras, whose documentaries My Country, My Country and The Oath are essential documents of this era.
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DAVID BYRNE LOOKS FORWARD TO THE MOVIES
I was describing this performance art piece by David Byrne to a friend the other day, but, of course and like everything, it’s on YouTube. It’s from The Kitchen Presents: Two Moon July, a television special produced by the New York performing arts and video center that was my first place of employment. Here, Byrne returns from Los Angeles with a copy of Variety and looks forward to all the upcomings. With Toronto starting this week and the fall festival season in gear, it felt like the right time to post this.
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When Should You Call Bulls@#t ?
I’ve been pondering Scott Macaulay‘s post WHEN SHOULD YOU GIVE UP? as it’s a question I’ve asked of myself on several occasions, quite recently even. It’s a question that hangs heavy on the psyche of anyone with a will to create and grow beyond the confines of their own feeble inheritance. I know this because I know that anyone who has ever made any attempt to do, or create, or make, anything, ever, has failed. Many times miserably and likely to the point where it feels as if hope has not just vanished from the horizon, but has finally revealed itself to […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #13
Second # 611, 10:11 This gliding shot, showing the underside of trees as Jeffrey walks the nighttime streets of his neighborhood, loomed large in my imagination after seeing the film for the first time in 1987. I wouldn’t see Blue Velvet again for many years, and in that time these few seconds of footage assumed meaning and feeling wildly disproportionate to their importance in the film. I can’t really account for this and, to be honest, when I set out to do this project I did it with the intention of not writing very much about my own personal stake […]
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“WE WERE HERE” DIRECTOR DAVID WEISSMAN
David Weissman moved to San Francisco in 1976 and has been a fixture of the filmmaking community there, working on films like Crumb and In the Shadow of the Stars before directing his own movie (with Bill Weber), The Cockettes, a documentary chronicle of the legendary Bay Area performance group. With his latest, We Were Here, Weissman again digs into the history of the city, this time capturing the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. The following short conversation was conducted at Sundance before the first screening of his film. We Were Here opens in New York at […]
