Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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JAMES LONGLEY BLOGS FROM IRAN ABOUT THE DISPUTED ELECTION
Filmmaker James Longley (the excellent Iraq in Fragments) is in Iran working on his new documentary film, which includes coverage of the current disputed election. He’s been blogging at Doug Block’s D-Word doc forum, and over the weekend posted an amazing series of bulletins about the election, which include his thoughts on what it means for Iranian politics and then a gripping description of his being detained while his translator was beaten. A.J. Schnack has collected these posts in a single blog entry here. From one of the earlier posts: If this outcome is allowed to stand, we now have […]
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PALLOTTA PUTS AMERICAN PRINCE ON BITTORRENT
When we last checked in with producer and director Tommy Pallotta, he was talking about distributing his latest documentary, American Prince, through BitTorrent for free download by filesharers… but he hadn’t done it yet. Now he has. You can download the torrent uploaded by the filmmaker himself here at Mininova. And here’s the description on the page: In 1978, director Martin Scorsese turned his camera on his friend and roommate, Steven Prince, with his lost documentary American Boy. Best known for his role as the gun salesman in Taxi Driver, Prince was a true-life raconteur, actor, ex-drug addict, and road […]
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A GLIMPSE AT CINEVEGAS ’09
Head over to Festival Ambassador to see Mike Jones‘s coverage of the festival (part 1, part 2 & part 3), which wrapped over the weekend with Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s Easier With Practice winning the Grand Prize of $10,000. Other winners include:Best Documentary: Douglas Tirola’s All In: The Poker MovieBest Short: Destin Daniel’s Short Term 12Special Grand Jury Prize for Directing: Justin Nowell’s Acting for the CameraSpecial Documentary Jury Prize for Artistic Vision: Jessica Oreck’s Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo Robert Saitzyk (director) and Cory Knauf and Joseph McKelheer (screenwriters) Exceptional Artistic Achievement Award for GodspeedFilmmaker to Watch Award: Jeff Mizushima’s Etienne!
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MOHSEN MAKHMALBAF SPEAKS OUT ON THE IRANIAN COUP
As news reports come in from the aftermath of Iran’s highly contested and most likely fraudulent election, film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, a supporter of challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi, is one of the voices speaking out. From a post by Abbas Djavadi on the blog Iran & Beyond: Mohsen Makhmalbaf, a prominent film producer supporting Mousavi, who stayed in his favored candidate’s headquarters, told Radio Farda that they were called by the Election Commission well before the first results were announced. “Don’t announce Mr. Mousavi’s victory yet,” they were told by authorities. “We will gradually prepare the public and then you […]
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NETFLIX FIND YOUR VOICE FINALISTS CHOSEN
The Netflix/Film Independent “Find Your Voice” competition has selected its ten semi-finalists, and now it’s time to vote for the winner, who will receive a total of $350,000 worth of production services and cash towards the making of his or her film. I’m going to go through the ten nominees right now and check them out but, not to play favorites, you might consider Dee Rees’s Pariah as we love her work: she was one of our “25 New Faces of 2008.” Her Netflix submission is below:
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MOORE TALK
Michael Moore‘s upcoming untitled film will look at the global financial crisis. Below is the teaser that began running in theaters this weekend. The film opens in early Oct.
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PULLING THE TRIGGER AT THE PRODUCED BY CONFERENCE
The 2009 Producer’s Guild “Produced By” Conference wrapped up on Sunday after two days of back-to-back panels discussing the past, present and future of the film business. Attendance was beyond capacity (begging the question, who was left to wait tables at Marix?) and while the information delivered wasn’t exactly groundbreaking, the conference did serve as a summation of the State of the Industry. In a nutshell, here’s where we are today: find alternate ways to squeeze money out of your product (not just ticket sales and ad dollars), and focus only on content with a pre-existing audience, i.e. sequels, adaptations, […]
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Interview : After Last Season’s Mark Region
At the end of March, an exceedingly odd trailer for a feature film showed up on Apple’s trailer page. For a film titled After Last Season, the trailer was a collection of almost random moments and conversation between students, researchers and a doctor seemingly involved in some kind of science experiment involving perception and telekinesis. The sheer mysteriousness of the whole endeavor — the fact that the trailer conveyed so little information about the film itself as well as its low production values (an MRI machine seemed clearly made from cardboard) — spawned an instant internet cult, with fans debating […]
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THE YOUNG PERSON’S GUIDE TO NASH EDGERTON
Below I posted Nash Edgerton’s new Bob Dylan video and a couple of people told me they didn’t know much about his work. So, here’s a primer: First, his bio from the The Directors Bureau: Nash Edgerton knows his craft from both sides of the camera from his work as an actor, stunt performer, editor, producer, writer, and director. Since his short DEADLINE, which took out the top prize at Tropfest in 1997, Nash has directed a number of award-winning short films, music videos and commercials. The action packed trailer for Tropfest called THE PITCH was followed by the horror […]
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A FIGHTING CHANCE
Pitchfork has launched a new column called “Director’s Cut,” in which video directors talk about their latest clips. Their most recent installment features the Australian director Nash Edgerton, whose short film Spider was one of my favorites at Sundance last year and whose music videos I’ve long been a fan of. His latest is for Bob Dylan’s “Beyond Here Lies Nothin,” and it’s characteristically intense and violent, riffing, perhaps, on the infamous motel room scene in True Romance. In the interview, Edgerton says he never met Dylan and got a call offering him the video but he could only listen […]
