Filmmaking

HOW TO BE DISCOVERED BY HOLLYWOOD, 2009 EDITION

In the wake of District 9 and the effectiveness of its viral campaign, studios are looking for budget-conscious, effects-skilled directing talent. Reports the Heat Vision blog, Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez, who has been making shorts since 2001, posted a no-budget (reportedly less than $500) short depicting a robot attack on the town of Montevideo. The short went up in early November, the industry took notice, and the director signed with CAA and Anonymous Content just before the Thanksgiving holiday. He now has a deal with Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures to develop an original project. The short is cool and […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 2, 2009 Filmmaking
PRECIOUS & THE LAST STATION LEAD SPIRIT NOMINATIONS

Film Independent announced the nominations for this year’s Spirit Awards. The award will be celebrating its 25th anniversary this year when the ceremony takes place on Friday, March 5. Precious and The Last Station lead in nominations with five each, including Best Feature and Best Director. Full list of nominations below. BEST FEATURE (500) Days Of SummerAmreekaPrecious Sin Nombre The Last Station BEST DIRECTOREthan Coen, Joel Coen, A Serious ManLee Daniels, PreciousCary Joji Fukunaga, Sin NombreJames Gray, Two LoversMichael Hoffman, The Last Station BEST FIRST FEATURE A Single Man Crazy Heart Easier With Practice Paranormal Activity The Messenger Awards Guide […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Dec 1, 2009 Filmmaking
THE HURT LOCKER TAKES HOME TOP PRIZE AT GOTHAMS

Kathryn Bigelow‘s The Hurt Locker won Best Ensemble Performance and Best Feature at IFP’s Gotham Independent Film Awards, which was held last night in downtown Manhattan at Cipriani Wall Street. Bigelow was also given one of the evening’s Tribute awards. Also receiving Tributes were Natalie Portman, Stanley Tucci and Working Title Films’ Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. Other winners include Ry Russo-Young‘s You Wont Miss Me, which received the Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You Award (which is chosen by Filmmaker Magazine); Robert Siegel, director of Big Fan, won Breakthrough Director and Robert Kenner‘s Food, Inc. won […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Dec 1, 2009 Filmmaking
FILMMAKER GETS A FACE LIFT

If you’ve reached the blog through our home page, you will have probably noticed that Filmmakermagazine.com has received a face lift. Gone is the checkerboard of boxes and in its place is a front-page carousel and three-column design that hopefully directs you to our content a lot better. On the home page you’ll now find “The Guide,” in which we point you to interesting things to read, stream or hyperlink to. There are also links to our most popular content of the month as well as regularly updated Editors’ Picks of content we don’t want you to overlook. And, of […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 29, 2009 Filmmaking
ARTHOUSE CINEMA AS A SPECTATOR SPORT

As we head into the quarter finals, it’s Italy, Russian, Germany, India, China, Iran, Africa and Japan… all competing in the Auteurs World Cup 2009. Combining two of the world’s favorite spectator sports — soccer and arthouse cinema — the good folks at The Auteurs have come up with a fun competition that focuses attention on regions as well as films. It doesn’t cost anything to participate, but you have to have seen the films. So, use this opportunity to see Chantal Akerman’s Toute une Nuit, Tarkovsky’s The Mirror, Bunuel’s Los Olvidados, or Moshen Makhmalbaf’s A Moment of Innocence.

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 28, 2009 Filmmaking
CALLING ALL SUNDANCE FILMMAKERS

The Sundance selection will be announced this week, and we’ll have it posted here on the blog as soon as it’s released. If you are a filmmaker lucky enough to get in, please keep us at Filmmaker informed of all of your publicity and distribution outreach efforts. Many if not most of you will have publicists, and they will be in direct touch with us. But for those of you doing other things in addition to or perhaps instead of conventional publicity, let us know. Particularly, links to Twitter feeds, blogs, RSS updates, etc. are appreciated. As in previous years […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 28, 2009 Filmmaking
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

From all of us at Filmmaker, Happy Thanksgiving to all of our readers. Hope everyone has a great holiday. The blog will be back over the weekend and next week with the Gotham Awards, the Sundance Selection, the beginnings of our Decade End surveys, and more…

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 26, 2009 Filmmaking
JOANA VICENTE NAMED INTERIM IFP HEAD

As the search for a new IFP executive director continues, indie film producer Joana Vicente (who with her husband Jason Kliot have made independent movies with their labels, Open City Films, Blow Up Pictures and HDNet Films) has been named the interim head of the non-profit organization according to a release sent out today. Vicente, who is a member of the committee looking for a new head of the IFP, will join IFP next week to work on the transition with Michelle Byrd, who has lead the organization for the last 12 years and announced her departure back in June. […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Nov 24, 2009 Filmmaking
GIVING AWAY NORTH BY NORTHWEST

Ask me my favorite Hitchcock film and I’ll shoot you back the obvious answer: Vertigo, the director’s cinematic and fetishistic embodiment of romantic obsession. Ask me the film I’d be most likely to pop into my DVD player and re-watch for fun and I’ve another obvious answer: North by Northwest, his smart and stylish paranoid thriller, which he made the following year. And while Vertigo inspired a whole rash of erotic thrillers in the ’90s — Basic Instinct and all its imitators — North by Northwest‘s sly take on the American security stake feels perfectly of the moment. The good […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 24, 2009 Filmmaking
4 SHORTS ARE FOURPLAY

Filmmaker Kyle Henry was one of our “25 New Faces” in 2006 on the basis of his excellent debut feature, Room, and now he’s blogging about his fascinating follow-up, Fourplay. Executive produced by Jim McKay and Michael Stipe, and produced by Jason Wehling, Fourplay is a series of short films highlighting sexual transgressions, and, as the blog makes clear, the final product may be compiled into a feature, released as a series of shorts, or may be part of some other, more fluid kind of format. From the description of the film on the blog: Four transgressions, four transmissions, four […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 22, 2009 Filmmaking

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