“I drifted into PRC and couldn’t get out.”  — Edgar G. Ulmer In the early 1930s, a wave of prominent directors fleeing Germany had found success at the major or second-tier studios; only rarely were they forced to make films at the low-budget studios found on the so-called Poverty Row. The next generation was too late—if Fritz Lang thought RKO was squalid, it was because he had little idea of the depredations suffered by, for instance, an István Székely (later Steve Sekely, emigrated to the US in 1938-39), a Franz Wysbar (later Frank Wisbar, emigrated in November 1938),  or, briefly, […]

In 2014 I shot a documentary in roughly three weeks. It took place exclusively in the small town of Government Camp, OR, the closest feeder village to the Mt. Hood ski resorts of Timberline, Mt Hood Meadows and Skibowl. I had cast 19-year old Sadie Ford as the lead character. She responded to a flyer I posted at the Govy Market searching for someone who ticked off my boxes: Sadie was a passionate snowboarder (not a pro), planning to live on the mountain full-time for the winter season, and was willing to let me follow her around with a camera. […]

In 2007, I wrote, produced and directed a microbudget feature film called Jackson Arms. The culmination of a lifelong dream, the film was made possible by the sale (after an extensive rehab) of my own home—a DIY endeavor dependent, for its success, on both hard work and good fortune.  Because I was a first-time everything and the film, a comedic romance, was shot in two weeks (with animal actors and characters speaking Chinese) there were hiccups—and more than a few warts. After the film wrapped, I believed (foolishly, it turns out) that I didn’t need to hire an editor because, […]

I was a paraprofessional (teacher’s assistant) at P256Q in Far Rockaway, Queens for 10 years working with at-risk youth. I loved my job! On Wednesdays, I would work half-days and go to Brooklyn College where I was studying film. Like clockwork every Wednesday as I was leaving, one of my eight-year-olds, Latina “Peanut” Bilbro, would ask me if I was “…going to make movies and be famous someday?” Reluctantly, I’d say yes, and she’d always reply with, “I believe you, Marryshow.” Years later, Latina was killed in a drive-by shooting. It was a week after her 18th birthday. She had […]

We were a week away from principal photography on my fourth feature film, Relaxer, and I wanted to run away. Production designer Mike Saunders and I had been building our apartment set inside his parents’ two-car garage, and things were taking too long. The entire shoot was to happen in that garage, so it had to be perfect. It didn’t look like it’d ever be ready, and I was stressing hard. My stomach burned. I couldn’t keep anything down. I’d been losing weight. I just wanted to sleep for three weeks and wake up with a finished film, but I […]

The debut feature from writer and director Hu Bo, An Elephant Sitting Still, caused a sensation when it screened at the 2018 Berlinale. Nearly four hours long, the movie unfolds over the course of a day in and around a blue-collar housing development in a third-tier Chinese town. Interlocking narratives follow a bullied high school student, an elderly parent pressured to move into a nursing home, a gangster who must avenge an attack on his brother and a girl’s illicit relationship with a married teacher. The movie’s running time, difficult subject matter and troubled production have left an air of […]

The notion of the camera-stylo, introduced by Alexandre Astruc in 1948, had a very circumscribed meaning: “the cinema will gradually break free from the tyranny of what is visual, from the image for its own sake, from the immediate and concrete demands of the narrative, to become a means of writing just as flexible and subtle as written language.” Quickly, though, the metaphor of camera as pen took on its own life: the French New Wave used it to propel auteur theory, while others used the metaphor in the opposite direction—filmmaking as a giant pen held by a crew, with the […]

Taylor Hess’s article “Disclosed: Producers and Therapists on Dealing with the Stress of a Demanding Profession” struck deep with me, so much so that I was compelled to write this response. I’m not a producer by choice. I’m a writer/director, and out of necessity, I produced my first feature film, The Purple Onion. I didn’t wait around for anyone or for the perfect conditions. I worked with trusted people around me and we did it, we made a movie and it got distribution. Now I’m in the process of packaging my second feature film through ICM. Again I’m my own […]

Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), Filmmaker‘s publisher, announced today Jeffrey Sharp as its new Executive Director. Sharp, as longtime Filmmaker readers will know, is a veteran producer whose credits include Boys Don’t Cry, You Can Count on Me, Evening and The Yellow Birds. He was also co-founder and President of Open Road Media, a pioneering digital publishing company that has an early innovator in the book space. Sharp’s non-profit experience comes from his role as co-founder and Chair of the Hamptons International Film Festival Advisory Board, and his most recent producing work with his Sharp Independent Productions has focused on productions […]

Since 1895 films have had at least two distinct advantages over live theater: the ability to be reproduced and watched at times and in places where the action did not actually take place, and the ability to direct the audience’s attention to precisely what the filmmakers desired. Conversely, after more than a century of cinema’s evolution, these have become precisely the reason that theater remains vibrant: it’s live and it’s present, and audiences can look wherever they want. Now virtual reality is mixing these experiences in a new way. While still prerecorded and edited (generally), it expands the audience’s range […]