Filmmaking

“MY PERESTROIKA” AT STRANGER THAN FICTION

Like history itself, historical documentaries tend to be written by the winners – experts whose “greatest hits” style approach is as comforting as the muzak that plays underneath their interviews. Last night’s Stranger Than Fiction featured director Robin Hessman’s My Perestroika, a documentary so good at breaking the rules of historical docs that it makes you question why anyone ever follows them. Hessman focuses on the Meyersons, an ordinary Moscow couple who teach history at the same school they attended as children. Struggling to articulate what it meant to grow up Soviet to a group of students that did not, […]

By Mary Anderson Casavant on May 19, 2010 Festivals & Events
“BIUTIFUL” SHINES AT CANNES

I ran into another New York film critic last night. I said that this doesn’t seem to be a very good Cannes. Her answer was, “No masterpieces so far.” The closest is, according to many journalists here, Mike Leigh’s Another Year. Not for me, however. It’s fine, filming a middle-class family (with working-class roots) against four distinct seasons. The problem is that Leigh’s renowned “rehearsal method,” in which actors develop their characters over time, before a script is written, backfired a bit. The usually dependable Leslie Manville channels Brenda Blethyn in Secrets & Lies, but overdoes the tics and drunken […]

By Howard Feinstein on May 17, 2010 Festivals & Events
JOSH AND BENNY SAFDIE EXIST!!!

Jamie Stuart and I visited Josh and Benny Safdie at their Red Bucket Films studio on Tuesday to talk about their new film Daddy Longlegs, guerrilla marketing, and other things. He shot and edited, I interviewed, and this is our conversation. Click here to download through Jamie’s site.

By Scott Macaulay on May 14, 2010 Filmmaker Videos
THIS MOVIE EXISTS!

Benny Safdie hits the streets to promote Daddy Longlegs, opening Friday at the IFC Center in New York and in homes on VOD.

By Scott Macaulay on May 12, 2010 Filmmaking
‘LIFE 2.0? AT STRANGER THAN FICTION

For enthusiasts of Second Life, a 3-D virtual world that enables users to interact with each other through avatars, all the hype surrounding Avatar must have seemed kind of overblown. After all, they’d been living their own science fiction fantasies for years, and their virtual world reflects the fantasies of millions of people, not just Mr. Cameron’s. Last night, Stranger Than Fiction featured a screening of Life 2.0, a dreamy documentary that explores what happens when people start living a Second Life. Director Jason Spingarn-Koff explores the phenomena from the inside – his filmmaker avatar straps on a digital camera and […]

By Mary Anderson Casavant on May 12, 2010 Festivals & Events
BOB BERNEY EXITS APPARITION

At Deadline New York, Mike Fleming is reporting that Apparition head Bob Berney, a popular figure in the indie community who previously headed distribution arms at IFC, Picturehouse and Newmarket, has resigned. From Fleming: In a pre-Cannes bombshell, Bob Berney tendered his resignation from the top post of indie distribution company Apparition to its owner, River Road’s Bill Pohlad. I hear Pohlad was blindsided by the move, especially since Berney and his staff were about to get on planes to travel to Cannes and look for pictures to acquire. Pohlad has abruptly cancelled those plans, and now Apparition won’t be […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 10, 2010 Filmmaking
THE SAFDIES WIN OUR CREATIVITY IN MARKETING AWARD

Who says there is no clever independent film marketing? As Eric Kohn observed, Daddy Longlegs‘ Benny Safdie this weekend wore a sandwich board in midtown that, underneath the come-on, “We Buy Gold,” proclaimed, “This movie exists!” Has there ever been a more honest cry for attention from any independent filmmaker? And now, directors Josh and Benny Safdie have created a charming animated trailer, posted below, that in a completely different filmmaking medium captures some of their movie’s madcap energy. If you haven’t guessed, I love this film and urge you all to see it at the IFC Center this weekend.

By Scott Macaulay on May 10, 2010 Filmmaking
TRAILER WATCH: CHRISTOPHER NOLAN’S “INCEPTION”

The summer film I’m most looking forward to.

By Scott Macaulay on May 10, 2010 Filmmaking
KEIRA KNIGHTLEY STARS IN PEARSON WRIGHT’S INSTALLATION ART

Via Nowness is this one-minute clip from Stuart Pearson Wright’s Maze, an art installation currently up at the Riflemakers Gallery in London. Another take on the phrase “bodice ripper,” the two-channel Maze sees a corset-clad Knightley stumbling through branch-jutting topiary maze searching for her lover, played by the artist, Pearson Wright. From Nowness: While in this one-minute clip the two protagonists appear side by side, in the installation at Pearson Wright’s current show at Riflemakers in London, the piece consists of two opposing projections following the characters’ individual journeys, forcing the viewer to choose between, as the artist puts it, […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 10, 2010 Filmmaking
FACEBOOK FATIGUE

I’ve blogged several times about Facebook’s increasingly insidious attitude towards the concept of user privacy so I’ve surprised myself that I haven’t weighed in so far on their latest efforts — their “Connections” program and attempt to build a so-called Open Graph. (For a quick, visual history of Facebook’s devolving valuation of privacy, see this graphic by Matt McKeon.) There are a few reasons for this: first, I’ve been busy. Second, it occurred to me that all of Facebook’s previous privacy transgressions, like their ham-fisted Beacon program, have served to, deliberately or not, wear us all down so this latest […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 10, 2010 Filmmaking

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