Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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MATT PYKE AND FRIENDS @GAITE LYRIQUE
Sheffield-based Matt Pyke makes digital art that’s rooted in the physical. In his show Super-Computer-Romantics, organic processes (growth, decay), nature, or simply natural actions (walking, running) shape computer-generated ones. A series of people — dancers, actually — struggle against a digital windstorm that blows them, literally, to bytes. A mesmerizing life-size wall-projected walking man, his footsteps providing the drumbeat for a slab of noisy electro, is a constant mutation as his body shapeshifts from diamonds to fur to rainbow-hued electric hair. In an alcove, a series of winter-y trees find their limbs illuminated with electronic leaves when you step into […]
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KANYE, GONDRY AND JONZE IN CANNES
We didn’t catch much of the glamour of Cannes this year, so here’s Nowness with parties, performance and some nice interviews with Michel Gondry and Joachim Trier. (Click on the headline if you don’t see the video.) Diary of Cannes on Nowness.com.
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The Tree of Life — A Hammer to Nail Review
(The Tree of Life is distributed by Fox Searchlight. It opens in NYC and LA on Friday, May 27, 2010, and expands to many more cities in the subsequent six weeks, before opening nationwide on Friday, July 8. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.) NOTE: While I’d venture to say this movie can’t be “spoiled” by a review, there is a lot of specific detail contained in this (perhaps too lengthy) reaction. For what it’s worth, I suggest that you experience the film having read as little as possible beforehand. It seems implausible to me that anyone would […]
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TAKING THE PULSE OF THE CANNES FILM MARKET
“The end of the recession in independent film has occurred,” agent-turned-producer Cassian Elwes proclaimed by Twitter during the Cannes awards ceremonies Sunday night. “Sundance signaled it and Cannes has confirmed it.” Indeed, most people I talked to at the Cannes Film Market this year confirmed that it was a good one. The German producing and sales company K5 (Get Low, The Visitor) came to Cannes with the fortuitously timed Vehicle 19, an action drama starring a car and Paul Walker, whose Fast 5 is burning up the box-office. “This was the best market of the past year,” Bauer told me. […]
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Cannes: The Producers Network And Short Film Corner
I tell people every year, but they don’t believe me: it’s actually pretty easy to attend the Cannes Film Festival. If you’ve got a business card and some reasonable connection to the film industry, you can usually register on site. Or, to be on the safe side (which is recommended), accredit yourself through Unifrance by their mid-March deadline. An industry badge gets you into all the movies, but, again, if you want to be on the safe side, you can buy a market badge for 350 euros (about $500). This gets you into all the regular screenings and the usually […]
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KICKSTARTER: IRA SACHS’ “KEEP THE LIGHTS ON”
Sundance Grand Prize-winning filmmaker Ira Sachs (40 Shades of Blue) is fundraising for his new feature, Keep the Lights On, through Kickstarter. Here, from his Kickstarter page: I began working on Keep the Lights On with my co-writer Mauricio Zacharias because we were both frustrated by how few films exist that reflect life as we have known it as gay men living in New York City. I also wanted to make a very personal film, in the vein of some of the filmmakers that I have most loved, artists like Jean Eustache, Jacques Nolot, Chantal Akerman, and that great film-memoirist […]
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TALKING NEW DISTRIBUTION THINKING AT CANNES
Attend most U.S. festivals these days, and you’ll notice a certain anxiety around the issue of new technologies. There are the transmedia sidebars and also the distribution initiatives that bring festival films into your own living room, sidestepping the red carpets that in many cases unfurl only blocks away. And then there are the fests that temptingly allow you to screen films on your iPad without leaving your hotel room. But still, despite such gestures, all these festivals spend most of their energies, rightly, on their core mission — projecting films for live audiences — even as their blogs, op-eds, […]
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KYLE HENRY ON ATTENDING CANNES… AND SKIPPING HIS FILM
I ran into filmmaker — and Filmmaker “25 New Face” — Kyle Henry at the American Pavilion in Cannes, and I was startled to learn that he was attending the festival… but skipping his screening. He offered to explain in a blog post. Your film gets into the Directors’ Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival, and you can’t stay for your screening… are you crazy? Well, that was my case this year. My film Fourplay: Tampa, a short that is part of the anthology-of-shorts feature Fourplay, got the magical golden ticket to one of the festival sections at Cannes this […]
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LIVE BLOGGING THE CANNES AWARDS CEREMONY
The Cannes Awards Ceremony has just begun, hosted by Melanie Laurent. I’ll be refreshing this page as the awards unfold. The Short Film Prize, announce by Michel Gondry, goes to Cross Country, by Ukraine’s Maryna Vroda. The Camera d’Or, given to best first film, goes to Argentinia’sLas Acacias, by Pablo Giorgelli. To the strains of Morricone’s score for Once Upon a Time in America, jury president Robert De Niro joins Laurent on stage to introduce his fellow jury members: Olivier Assayas, Uma Thurman, Johnnie To, Martina Gusman, Nansun Shi, Linn Ullman, and Mahamat Saleh Haroun. And they announce the Jury […]
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DONALD KRIM, 1945 – 2011
Sad news today: the passing of veteran independent distributor, Kino’s Donald Krim, who has been responsible for the U.S. release of many of the best films ever made. Throughout his long career, he handpicked excellent world cinema titles as well as the best of the American independents, creating one of the most enviable libraries around. Remarkably, Krim’s taste remained on the cutting edge even in his later years — witness last year’s release of the extraordinary Dogtooth. He will be missed. Below is the press release we received from Kino. May 20, 2011 – Donald B. Krim (b. October 5, […]
