Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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“Happiness Has Become a Kind of Ideology”: Jessica Hausner on Motherhood, Genetic Engineering, Being a Female Filmmaker and Her Sci-Fi Drama, Little Joe
Jessica Hausner’s unsettling and weirdly beautiful sci-fi drama Little Joe is named for the infertile red bloom that Alice (Emily Beecham), a scientist on a genetic engineering team, has developed as a supposedly harmless form of heroin: savoring its scent makes people feel happy. She has named the flower for her son (Kit Connor), and illicitly brings one home for young Joe to tend and talk to in his bedroom. What Alice supposedly doesn’t reckon with is Little Joe’s capacity for influencing whom Joe wants to live with as he approaches adolescence, herself or his father, her former partner. Or […]
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Marriage Story Wins Four Awards, Including Best Picture, at the 2019 IFP Gotham Awards; American Factory Wins Best Documentary
Marriage Story writer/director Noah Baumbach seemed a bit flustered his second trip to the podium last night at the 2019 IFP Gotham Awards. Minutes earlier he had accepted the Best Screenplay Prize and, in prepared remarks, thanked his various collaborators as well as Ted Sarandos and Netflix — not just for financing his film but saving the Paris Theater too. But when Natasha Lyonne announced Marriage Story for the Audience Award, Baumbach perhaps began to realize that he hadn’t written enough speeches for the evening. “I hope you all remember what I said in the last speech because it’s still […]
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Sundance Institute Announces Documentary Fund Grantees Totaling $1.5 Million
The Sundance Institute announced today $1.5 million in grants to 47 nonfiction film projects hailing from 27 countries. The grants, which include specialized grants administered by The Kendeda Fund and the Stories of Change Fund, support films across development, production, post-production and audience engagement. From the press release: “These grantees comprise a snapshot of the boldest visions in nonfiction storytelling today,” said Hajnal Molnar-Szakacs, Director of the Documentary Film Program’s Film Fund. “From the intimate to the epic, their scopes and ambitions illuminate not only the world around us, but new ways of seeing, telling and showing.” Today’s slate of […]
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To Kid or Not To Kid: How Do You Make a Web Series from a Feature Film?
I read once that Marshall Curry always thinks of his audience when developing his next film. And then I also know that other directors say, “Make a good film and people will find it.” Or as my old comedy boss at the BBC once told me: the audience don’t know what they want until you give it to them. There is a sense of truth in all of these statements, but Curry’s has stayed with me. As soon as I started developing my film To Kid or Not To Kid — the first English-language film about the decision to […]
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Talking the Bigger-than-Ever Tenth Anniversary Edition of DOC NYC
Overwhelming by design — that’s the first impression offered by the 2019 edition of DOC NYC, the packed-to-the-rafters non-fiction film event currently underway in New York until November 15. Celebrating its tenth anniversary, the festival boasts over 300 events, including 28 world premieres, an expanded DOC NYC PRO seminar series, and 46 doc works in progress shown to industry attendees. Says director of programming Basil Tsiokos, “It’s our tenth anniversary, and we wanted to make it bigger and better. We just kept pushing [during the programming process] to include more and more films. “Every year we’ve tried to grow the […]
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A Film on the Arrogance of Man: Josh Murphy on His Environmental Doc, Artifishal
“We are on a path to where eventually there will be no fish, and we will have spent billions of dollars to get to that point.” This dire warning is from one of the many experts in Artifishal: The Road to Extinction is Paved with Good Intentions, a new documentary from director Josh Murphy and Patagonia that opened on multiple platforms this past week. It premiered last spring at Tribeca, followed by screenings at Mountainfilm Festival in Telluride and the Seattle International Film Festival, near the heart of the film’s action. From there it’s moved into a series of 550 festival […]
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Shatterbox Shorts-Makers Channing Godfrey Peoples, Veronica Rodriguez, and Tiffany Johnson Talk “Refinery29 + Level Forward Present Shatterbox” at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival
Moderated by Amy Emmerich, President & Chief Content Officer at Refinery29, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival’s “Refinery29 + Level Forward Present Shatterbox,” a program of seven quite diverse shorts followed by a post-screening discussion, was presented at the comfy SCAD Museum of Art theater on an industry-heavy Monday afternoon. The event featured Parisa Barani (Human Terrain), Tiffany J. Johnson and Adrienne Childress (Girl Callin), Kantú Lentz (Jack and Jo Don’t Want to Die), Channing Godfrey Peoples (Doretha’s Blues), and Lizzie Nastro (the Chloë Sevigny-directed White Echo) onstage to discuss their work – as well as working with Refinery29 and Level Forward’s […]
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“Amy Heckerling Should be Thought of as a John Hughes!”: Words of Wisdom from the SCAD Savannah Film Festival’s Wonder Women Directors Panel
Once again, this year’s not-to-be-missed event at the 22nd edition of the SCAD Savannah Film Festival (October 26-November 2), the nation’s largest university-run film fest, was the Wonder Women Panel Series. Now in its third year, these always informative discussions highlight female power in the cinematic arts, from directing, to producing, to writing, to the below-the-line crafts. And for me one of the standouts was Wonder Women: Directors, featuring seven ladies behind the lens currently upending every preconceived notion about chick flicks in impressively eclectic ways. Taking place on a laidback, late Tuesday morning at a packed Gutstein Gallery, and […]
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Clip Premiere: Luigi Campi’s My First Kiss and the People Involved
Premiering in New York this Thursday in a one-time event prior to its free streaming launch the next day is Luigi Campi’s coming-of-age thriller My First Kiss and the People Involved. Starring Bobbi Salvör Menuez, it’s the tale of a quiet, recessive young woman (Menuez) living in a group home who goes on the hunt for her missing caregiver. Said Campi in a Filmmaker interview, “The film’s tension arises when violent events that she can’t fully grasp force her to step out of her safe zone. My first connection was to the main character’s unique way of seeing the world, […]
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Strand Releasing’s “30/30 Vision”: Premiering New iPhone Shorts by Ira Sachs, James Schamus and Elisabeth Subrin
Strand Releasing, the inventive, carefully curated independent distributor known for its release of both American and international arthouse auteurs, turns 30 this year, and to celebrate it has invited its filmmaker friends to create short iPhone films that speak in various ways to Strand’s mission and film culture today. I’m happy to premiere here exclusively at Filmmaker shorts by Ira Sachs, whose Frankie opens this Friday, October 25th; Indignation director, screenwriter and producer James Schamus; and Shulie and A Woman, A Part director Elisabeth Subrin. Previously released have been shorts by Fatih Akin and Karim Ainouz. Comments Strand co-founder Marcus […]
