Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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SARAH PALIN DEFENDS FILM TAX INCENTIVES
In my review of 2010 in film, appearing in the Winter issue of Filmmaker soon to depart newsstands, I predicted controversy in 2011 over state film tax credit and incentive programs. That controversy has today landed on an unlikely target: Sarah Palin. First, here’s what I wrote: In December, Wall Street analyst Meredith Whitney made waves when she predicted a wave of municipal bond defaults, highlighting the perilous financial position of recession-strapped state and local governments. Indeed, independent filmmakers might find their beloved film incentive and rebate programs impacted in 2011. The seeds of this began in late 2010, with […]
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Blank City, Blank Generation
Here’s a brand new clip from Celine Danhier’s essential documentary on the wildly creative New York No Wave film scene of the early 1980s, Blank City. Appearing here are Steve Buscemi, Amos Poe, Vivienne Dick, and others, and clips feature the Talking Heads, Eric Mitchell’s The Way it Is, and more. The movie opens April 6; for more visit the website. And watch this space for an interview with Danhier. And here’s the trailer, which features shots from my favorite movie of this era, Underground USA Blank City Official Trailer from Celine Danhier on Vimeo. .
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TRIBECA ’11 CLOSING WITH EDWARD BURNS’ “NEWLYWEDS”
Edward Burns‘ latest film, Newlyweds, which he also wrote, produced and stars in, will be the closing night film for the 10th Tribeca Film Festival, according to a press release that was sent out today. From the release: The film, shot almost exclusively in New York City’s TriBeCa neighborhood, is a chronicle of modern marriage, pointing out an essential truth: When you get married, you’re not just getting a husband or wife—you’re getting the family, the friends, and even the exes. With crackling humor and sharp insights into contemporary relationships, Burns tracks a newly wedded couple whose honeymoon period is […]
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CONDITION ONE REINVENTS WAR JOURNALISM IN LIBYA
At the end of my profile of filmmaker Danfung Dennis in our 2010 “25 New Faces” feature, I touched on what was then his next project. After completing Hell and Back Again — winner of the World Cinema Jury Prize and World Cinema Cinematography Award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival — Dennis embarked on Condition One, which he told me “will use a network of journalists, filmmakers and servicemen to send a stream of high-quality video to millions of mobile devices.” Danfung’s new venture now has a website, a Facebook page and a proof-of-concept video that’s also 90 seconds […]
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Fanny, Annie & Danny — A Hammer to Nail Review
(After winning multiple awards during its festival run — including the Emerging Filmmaker Award at the 2010 Starz Denver Film Festival — Fanny, Annie & Danny screens for one night only, Tuesday, March 29, 2011 (for *free*, no less!) at the reRun Theater in New York City. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.) If there’s one universal truth about families, it’s that as cozy and loving and supportive as they can be, they can also be cruel and irritating and patronizing and infuriating and maddening and fisticuffs-inducing and… that will suffice for now. That truth is ratcheted up […]
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ELIZABETH TAYLOR, R.I.P.
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A DIY DATE WITH “MR. SADMAN”
A few years ago I took part in the IFP Narrative Labs with a feature I wrote and directed called Mr. Sadman, about a 1990 Saddam Hussein double who loses his job and moves to Los Angeles to start his life over — a satire about what it truly means to become American. We had a brief, almost nonexistent festival run and then regrouped and thought about next steps. Every now and then we’d get an inquiry from a distributor or sales agent, but in the end nothing really ever made sense for either us or them. “No stars” plus […]
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Second Life
For Miranda July’s second feature film, THE FUTURE, the performance artist and director mixes humor, fantasy and psychodrama to explore the anxieties of adulthood.
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A WALK THROUGH THE 2011 SXSW TRADE SHOW
Here’s another SXSW iPod Touch video, this one featuring some of the vendors attending the 2011 SXSW Trade Show. (This year, the Austin festival mashed film, interactive and music into a single trade event.) A Fed-bashing indie film; a new social network for creators; indie film and a new location-based app; and “fun” fake IDs (for some, a necessity in Austin). Watch. Featured in this clip: the Techsmith suite of products; the New York Film Academy; MyCube; Locaii; Acts of Sharing; The Imaginary University; Spotzen; Fedora; Evri; Designica; Silver Circle.
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SXSW BLOG: “SOUND IT OUT” DIRECTOR JEANIE FINLAY, PART 2
Sell out crowds, nifty accents and Ipiddles I’m waiting to board my flight home to the U.K. It’s been an amazing week at SXSW and I am delighted the way my film SOUND IT OUT has been received. I imagined that I would send regular blog updates to Filmmaker but it’s ust not the kind of festival where there is a spare five minutes in the day. Each day we vowed to get bed early and have some decent sleep and each night we’ve ended up at the 24 hour Cafe Magnolia for late night snacking and putting the world […]
