Filmmaking

BRONSTEIN AND SAFDIE, STATESIDE AND ABROAD

Earlier I posted about the screenings of Ronnie Bronstein’s Frownland and Josh Safdie’s The Pleasure of Being Robbed this weekend in Los Angeles. As Brandon Harris noted in a blog post below, Josh Safdie and his brother Benny are premiering their new title, Go Get Some Rosemary, at Director’s Fortnight in Cannes this year. That film stars Frownland‘s director, Bronstein. So, seeing their two films back to back this weekend is something of a stateside prep for their appearance along the Croissette. Filmmaker contributor Mike Plante has just interviewed Bronstein over at his CineMad blog. Below, he talks about working […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 24, 2009 Filmmaking
TRIBECA QUICK TAKE: GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH

Walk in a few minutes late and you’ll miss the set-up and most of the actual plot of Damien Chazelle’s lovely debut feature, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench. Guy’s a young, handsome, somewhat taciturn jazz musician who seems to move from one short-lived romantic encounter to another while saving his real passion for his trumpet. Madeline is a pretty, shy, somewhat directionless young woman who meets Guy, is affected by him and his music, and then is abruptly cut loose as Guy’s eye wanders. And yes, that’s all in the first few minutes and told mostly without dialogue. […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 23, 2009 Filmmaking
NATALIE PORTMAN CHAT @ APPLE STORE

As part of the Apple Store’s Meet The Filmmakers series during the Tribeca Film Festival, I’ll be sitting down with Natalie Portman and business partner Christine Alyward tomorrow @ 3:30 to talk about their website, MakingOf. They’ve been hush-hush about it, so all I can really say is what’s been posted by Apple, “a site that promises to transform the way people view, enjoy, and participate in entertainment.” Having seen the site I can tell you it’s certainly something aspiring filmmakers should take note of. So if you’re in SoHo (103 Prince St.) tomorrow come by and check it out.

By Jason Guerrasio on Apr 23, 2009 Filmmaking
CANNES ’09 LINE UP ANNOUNCED

The 2009 Cannes Film Festival lineup was announced in Paris today. Opening the fest will be Pixar’s latest, Up. Notable titles in competition for the Palme d’Or include Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, Gasper Noe’s Enter The Void, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds, Ken Loach’s Looking For Eric, Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock and Michael Heneke’s The White Ribbon. Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell and Lee Daniels’s Sundance winning film Precious (formerly titled Push) will screen out of competition. The full line up is below. Competition Line Up Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces), directed by Pedro […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Apr 23, 2009 Filmmaking
TRIBECA: ALLEN RETURNS TO NYC WITH WHATEVER WORKS

The Tribeca Film Festival opens its eight year with the world premiere of Woody Allen‘s Whatever Works, marking his return to NYC after a four film absence. Screening earlier this evening at the Ziegfeld in Manhattan (though Allen did show up, sadly he did not introduce the film or do a Q&A afterwards), Allen’s latest work can hardly match his earlier ones shot in his beloved city, so we won’t even go there, instead he constructs an entertaining, conventional (for Allen’s standards) comedy about an eccentric named Boris (Larry David) who describes himself as a “Nobel Prize-worthy thinker” with a […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Apr 22, 2009 Filmmaking
DO FILM FESTIVALS MAKE YOU HAPPY?

Over at The New Breed, which is a section of the Workbook Project, a number of filmmakers are engaging in an interesting virtual video panel that discusses the issue of managing expections while traversing the festival circuit. There’s been a lot of talk recently about how film festivals are the new theatrical for many filmmakers whose work will not otherwise see the darkened inside of a movie theater. But is just showing your film at a festival enough? What about a deal? Or about networking? And should one worry about all of these things or simply visit festivals with an […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 22, 2009 Filmmaking
JAMES FRANCO, CLEAN UP YOUR ROOM!!!

FilmInFocus has nabbed an exclusive excerpt of The Room Before and After, a Wholphin Original Short that appears in its entirety on the new Wholphin #8, which has just been released. The concept: the same room is trashed three times by three different actors, each of whom bring their own destructive style and inner backstory to the process. Part One, excerpted here, stars James Franco, recently seen in Milk and Pineapple Express. There’s also an interview between Dave Eggers and Franco, in which Franco discusses some of his performance’s art-world inspirations. An excerpt: Wholphin: No, that was great, that was […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 22, 2009 Filmmaking
WHAT ARE THE TRENDS OF 2009?

In the current issue of Filmmaker we feature an excerpt for Scott Kirsner’s new book, Fans, Friends and Followers. Now, HDFilmTools.com has produced a conversation with Scott in which he discusses some of the macro trends affecting production, distribution and audience consumption in our business right now. Part One is here, and you can follow the links for Part Two and Part Three.

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 21, 2009 Filmmaking
Spring Issue Online

Select stories for the Spring issue are now online. Check out our interview with Steven Soderbergh who talks about his latest low budget project, The Girlfriend Experience. Plus, a Q&A with the film’s star, Sasha Grey. Darius Marder talks about his hypnotic treasure hunting debut doc, Loot. And Olivier Assayas chats about his latest film, Summer Hours. Also, in Jon Reiss‘s latest instalment he looks at DIY Web marketing. We highlight the filmmakers using still cameras to make their movies. And Esther B. Robinson walks us through what’s needed to do to make that next credit card-financed film. And don’t […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Apr 20, 2009 Filmmaking
CATALOGUING THE WOES OF INDIES ABROAD

In addition to all of challenging economic factors, one adversary indie film has had in the last year is the press. Gone are the puff pieces about filmmakers “making it” by gambling their mortgage on their indie film and then scoring big. Those human interest-type stories have faded away in the last year as the financing of the indie sector itself became the story. There’s not a lot new in Lauren A.E. Schuker’s Wall Street Journal piece, “Indie Films Suffer Dropoff in Rights Sales,” but when it comes to independent film foreign sales, the piece impressively catalogues all the bad […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 19, 2009 Filmmaking

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