Filmmaking

UNDERGROUND MODES OF DISTRIBUTION #1

1. make a extreme documentary that almost drives you insane 2. go to airport 3. accidentally film naked woman in wheelchair with cat 4. convince security that its not performance art, keep camera 5. put on youtube 6. wait til CNN calls you (less than 24 hrs later) to air the video 7. promote upcoming DVD release John Maringouin (Running Stumbled, Big River Man) captured this scene in Oklahoma City yesterday. TSA eventually covered her up and then questioned John as they thought he staged the whole thing. There’s something funny about John – he got arrested while filming Steve-O […]

By Mike Plante on Dec 1, 2010 Filmmaking
“SURVIVING HITLER” AT STRANGER THAN FICTION

Documentary fans have survived many things — Academy shortlists that ignore the year’s best films, the end of the Stranger Than Fiction fall season — but few can claim to have survived as much as the subjects of either Letters Home or Surviving Hitler: A Love Story, the final films of programmer Thom Power’s IFC series. A nine-minute montage created around letters and archival materials, Letters Home tells the story of director Melissa Hacker’s great aunt Freda, a woman who traveled through Germany and Austria in 1945 as a member of the American Army Women’s Army Corps. Hacker, a longtime Stranger […]

By Mary Anderson Casavant on Dec 1, 2010 Filmmaking
2010 SPIRIT AWARD NOMINEES ANNOUNCED

Film Independent announced the nominations for their 2010 Spirit Awards today. Winter’s Bone leads with seven nominations, including Best Feature, Director and Female Lead. Joel McHale will host the show Feb. 26 when it returns back to the beach in Santa Monica. Full list of nominees below. BEST FEATURE 127 Hours Black Swan Greenberg The Kids Are All Right Winter’s Bone BEST DIRECTOR Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan Danny Boyle, 127 Hours Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right Debra Granik, Winter’s Bone John Cameron Mitchell, Rabbit Hole BEST FIRST FEATURE Everything Strange and New Get Low The Last Exorcism Night […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Nov 30, 2010 Filmmaking
“WINTER’S BONE,” “THE OATH,” TAKE HOME TOP PRIZES AT 20th GOTHAM AWARDS

IFP’s 20th Gotham Independent Film Awards took place last night in Lower Manhattan with Debra Granik‘s Winter’s Bone winning Best Feature as well as Best Ensemble and Laura Poitras‘ The Oath taking Best Documentary. Other winners on the night include Waiting for “Superman” winning the first ever Festival Genius Audience Award and Littlerock took home the Best Film Not Playing At a Theater Near You Award (chosen by the editors of Filmmaker). The show, co-hosted by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson, was also filled with memories from Gothams past, including a beautiful montage to start the night. Tributes this year […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Nov 30, 2010 Filmmaking
JIM HELTON’S “LOVE KILLS DEMONS”

As you know from my support of the Sparrow Songs project, I’m interested in time-based online filmmaking. Filmmaker (and Blue Valentine editor) Jim Helton has just completed his own one-a-month project, Love Kills Demons. From the website: Over the span of one year filmmaker Jim Helton documented New York-based artist Chris Rubino while he searched for a new direction in his work. In the process we see screenprinting, drawing, painting, wandering as well as a peak inside the workings of a studio and an artist’s process. The final 12 part film that is Love Kills Demons takes a look behind […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 29, 2010 Filmmaking
HIGH SCHOOL SPIES ON YOUTUBE

Via Mashable comes notice of Agents of Secret Stuff, a slickly-shot, 35-minute high school spy comedy film by Wong Fu Productions. After only a week or so, the group’s latest film has been seen by 2.3 million people on YouTube. Here’s Wang talking about the picture: Written in a couple days, the 35-minute movie was shot in one intense week this past summer. Drawing from the talents of a few dedicated friends, the crew was no bigger than 10 and was usually just the three of us from Wong Fu Productions (WFP), plus the actors. There was no big budget, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 28, 2010 Filmmaking
TRAILER WATCH: ADAM PENDLETON’S “BAND”

Artist Adam Pendleton has created a new large-scale video installation at New York’s The Kitchen inspired by Jean-Luc Godard’s Rolling Stones’ deconstruction, Sympathy for the Devil. It features the band Deerhoof and runs through December 23. From the catalog copy: This solo exhibition presents the U.S. premiere of Adam Pendleton’s new large scale video installation. Pendleton’s BAND is a form and content refashioning of Jean-Luc Godard’s Sympathy for the Devil, which stands in open contrast to the earlier film. Modeling Godard’s belief that radical formal complexity can undermine the bourgeois logic implicit to narrative filmmaking, BAND tracks the indie-rock band […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 27, 2010 Filmmaking
TRAILER WATCH: “I LIKE YOU”

Coming in over the transom is this trailer for I Like You, a film by Jamie Heinrich. Heinrich hails from Reno, Nevada, and, based on this trailer, the self-described micro-budget film boasts some pretty striking cinematography and a good deal of heart. A few sites seem to have been given an early look. From Todd Brown at Twitch: The sort of naturalistic indie drama that Gus Van Sant and Larry Clark got their start with, I Like You is the feature debut not only of director / editor Heinrich and star Benna but also, seemingly, of just about everybody else […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 27, 2010 Filmmaking
LAUREL NAKADATE’S PORN STAR POETRY

Artist and filmmaker Laurel Nakadate, whose The Wolf Knife is one of this year’s nominees for our “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” Gotham Award, has a new short, Untitled, in which porn stars Kate Kastle, Stacey Dollar, Robbye Bentley, Lucky Starr, and Stacy Adams read the poetry of Dora Malech. From HTML Giant’s Jackie Wang: In the video Untitled, Laurel has porn actresses read poems by Dora Malech. The interplay between Dora’s poems and the premise of the video is brilliant. The poems grapple with the tension between corporeality and disembodied intellect—being pure body or pure […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 26, 2010 Filmmaking
A SHORT FILM FOR “REQUIEM FOR A DREAM”

The Requiem 102 project, in which various critics, writers, and filmmakers (mine is here) dissect individual frames of Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, is now in its third week, and the quality of submissions is both amazing and diverse. The latest is photographer Bruce Livingstone, who has made a short narrative commenting on the film’s early love scene. Reading the Love Scene in “Requiem for a Dream” from Bruce Livingston on Vimeo. Another good one: novelist and short-story writer Elizabeth Hand’s “potent blast to the nervous system.”

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 26, 2010 Filmmaking

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