Filmmaking

FILM IN FOCUS GETS A FACELIFT

The FilmInFocus site has just undergone what is in my opinion a very nice 2.0-ish facelift, with a much cleaner new design and better organization of articles. (I’m one of the editors of this site along with Peter Bowen and Nick Dawson.) Please check it out, and to give you a leg up, here’s some new stuff on the site that I recommend: Filmmaker‘s Jason Guerrasio explores the cult of The Big Lebowski in an interview with Will Russell and Scott Shuffitt, authors of I’m a Lebowski, You’re a Lebowski: Life, The Big Lebowski and What Have You. The “Five […]

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 10, 2008 Filmmaking
PAUL KRIK’S FAVORITE CONSPIRACY MOVIES, PART TWO

Paul Krik, whose Able Danger opens tomorrow in theaters in four cities, including New York’s Pioneer Theater, gave us a list of his favorite conspiracy films. Two days ago we ran his list of Hollywood conspiracy thrillers. Here is his list of independent 9/11 films. Mohammed Atta and the Venice Flying Circus – Reporter Daniel Hopsicker is on the ground in Venice, Florida, where the terrorists all trained – gumshoeing, knocking on doors, asking questions, turning over stones. His interview with Mohammed Atta’s girlfriend and the time he humped her feet while she slept is absolutely mind-blowing. To say nothing […]

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 10, 2008 Filmmaking
TORONTO: ROLLING SELL-OUTS AND VALENTINO

The best laid plans… despite arriving at what I thought was a suitably early time to catch the industry screening of Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, the line halted just 20 or so people ahead of me. Whether it was the Venice win, the Fox Searchlight buy, or just the anticipation of a comeback for both Mickey Rourke and Aronofsky, The Wrestler was this afternoon’s hot showing. And later in the day, another surprise sell-out. Following what I heard was a great public screening, press and buyers packed into this afternoon’s showing of Robert Kenner’s political food doc, Food, Inc. So, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 8, 2008 Filmmaking
MEDICINE OPENS INDEPENDENT FILM WEEK

IFP has announced it will be kicking off it’s 30th annual Independent Film Week with the New York premiere of Barry Jenkins‘s Medicine For Melancholy. A party will follow honoring Jenkins and the other talents included in this year’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film, which also marks Filmmaker‘s 10th year doing the list. Five of this year’s “25” will also be premiering short films at Independent Film Week created for an initiative with Nokia and IFP. The three-minute films, shot on a Nokia mobile device, include: Jessie Epstein‘s Rust, Ryan Bilsborrow Koo & Zachary Lieberman‘s Untitled, Matt Wolf‘s Boca, […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Sep 8, 2008 Filmmaking
FINNERAN JOINS SUNDANCE INSTITUTE

In a release sent out today, the Sundance Institute announced that Patricia Finneran, festival director at Silverdocs: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, will be coming on as a Senior Consultant of the their Documentary Film Program. According to the release, in addition to representing the Sundance Documentary Program internationally, Finneran will be responsible for recommending film projects, maintaining the Documentary Program’s New York base and working on the Program’s initiatives such as the Sundance Doc Fund and the Skoll Foundation’s Stories of Change: Social Entrepreneurship in Focus Through Documentary. The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program provides year-round support to nonfiction contemporary-issue […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Sep 8, 2008 Filmmaking
PAUL KRIK’S FAVORITE CONSPIRACY MOVIES, PART ONE

Paul Krik, writer/director of Able Danger, opens his independent conspiracy thriller in four cities on September 11. (In New York, you can see the film at the Pioneer Theater.) Krik was kind enough to give Filmmaker two lists of his favorite films. In this first part, he lists his favorite conspiracy movies. In the second, he’ll list his favorite films about 9/11. In general a conspiracy movie for me has to do with exposing. Chinatown – Greatest movie ever. Goebbel says, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The […]

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 8, 2008 Filmmaking
TORONTO QUICK TAKES: SAUNA

I always admire the blog writings of my colleagues who are able to jump from screening to keyboard, whipping out paragraphs of incisive critical prose. I tend to need more time to mull over the films I see as my opinions will shift from day to day. Take the first picture I saw in Toronto: Finish director Anti Jussi Annila’s Sauna, which was shamelessly hyped in the program book to cine-geeks like myself as recalling both the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and Eli Roth. And while, yes, there are clear connections to the work of these two (in its bleak […]

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 6, 2008 Filmmaking
PARTY HOPPING IN TORONTO

Yesterday walking from one theater to another at the Varsity multiplex that houses the Toronto International Film Festival’s Industry Screenings, I thought that things seemed a little quiet, missing the usual crowded hub-bub. No one seemed to agree with me, though. “This will be a rebound market,” predicted one sales agent friend, who thought that a nice flurry of sales would materialize from the screenings this week. Another shrugged at my observation. “Everybody is here,” he said. And later even I didn’t agree with myself after I wound up at two very crowded parties filled with industry players. The first […]

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 6, 2008 Filmmaking
NOTES ON A REVOLUTION

The blog post, below, titled “Breaking In,” in which filmmaker Marc Maurino discussed the tensions between jobs, job security and filmmaking, inspired several responses. You can find them in the comments section to the original post, but filmmaker David Munro just wrote with a longer reply so I’m posting it here as its own entry. It’s David Munro (New Faces ’98, Full Grown Men). I read Marc Maurino’s reply to your newsletter entry. It got me thinking, too. Unlike Marc, who is just now contemplating his next move as a talented aspiring director, I drank the full jigger of indie […]

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 5, 2008 Filmmaking
GETTING INTO THE SWING OF TORONTO

What’s with the media and indie film these days? I attend my first party in Toronto, eager to catch up with old film friends and see some new movies, but the toxic murk of today’s business environment keeps seeping in. I got a ride in from the airport with a sales agent friend who, while bemoaning the difficult market for auteur films worldwide, said to me, “You have it worse in America. It’s not that the films do any poorer there, but there’s so much focus internationally on the American release that when they do fail everybody around the world […]

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 5, 2008 Filmmaking

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