Filmmaker‘s Winter issue is now arriving in mailboxes, newsstands, and is online for subscribers. I’m very happy to have as our cover story my favorite film from Sundance ’14, the Zellner Bros’ beautifully surreal fable for the internet age, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter. It arrives in theaters in just a few weeks, and in my spoiler-free interview you’ll read about David and Nathan Zellner’s love of ’80s adventure films, their diligent approach to sound design, and stealing shots on the Tokyo subway. And don’t miss the companion article by the film’s d.p., Sean Porter, who impressively and personally talks about […]
Like the growing income gap in the United States, the indie film world has become increasingly divided between richer and poorer. While Sundance 2014 alumni such as Boyhood and A Most Wanted Man proved there’s still a spot for unique and well-crafted non-Hollywood crossovers in the popular culture (the films earned, respectively, more than $24 million and $17 million at the U.S. box office), the vast majority of last year’s festival titles had to scrappily pull together alternative distribution strategies in an ever-fragmenting entertainment universe, caught somewhere between the old and the new, ticket sales and downloads. As Roadside Attractions […]
My German teacher in Berlin has been hacked. In class, she violates her “no speaking English” rule to explain that for nearly a year, a hacker has tracked her digital life in order to stalk her in real life. I’ve never been personally hacked — or so I think — but, the inconvenience of it seems rather minor compared to the sense of intimate violation. The Sony leak, the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence, and my teacher’s less gossip-worthy admission all underscore this pervasive reality of digital fragility. This is a topical conversation, but it’s also a really abstract one. […]
A bit of synergy as two things crossed my screen this morning: a query from a prospective writer and this article from Paul Bradshaw and the Online Journalism blog. Taken together they got me thinking about pitching, new writers and Filmmaker. The query was from a perfectly polite, well-spoken individual who self-identifies as a “blogger” and a “geek” and who sincerely wants to write for us. Absent from the email were a) any link to any previously published work; b) any sort of biographical information denoting the person’s specific expertise or area of interest; c) any specific suggestions of work […]
After four print issues, hundreds of online articles and a few dozen weekly newsletters, Filmmaker wraps 2014. I’m proud of our content this year and look forward to, alongside our writers and other editors, making it even stronger in the next year. Below you’ll find an issue-by-issue breakdown of the year, with links to highlights from each print edition. Following that are two Top Tens — the first is our list of most-read online pieces published in ’14, and the second our top reads from the archives. There’s a holiday weekend worth of reading here easily; thanks for following Filmmaker […]
I’m the first to arrive at a panel on “Sexism & the Film Industry” at the inaugural Berlin Art Film Festival in Kreuzberg. As Berliners trickle in at a considerably early 2:00 PM on a Saturday, I notice that the modest audience is all women. I’m reminded of my conflicting feelings about Emma Watson’s recent HeForShe speech at the UN, a campaign to formally invite men to join the feminist movement. Naturally, a conversation about gender inequality without participation from all genders is insufficient. It’s just that the unspoken camaraderie in a room full of women feels somehow appropriate, at […]
I am walking into a play, my most highly anticipated production of the year – Ivo Van Hove’s adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s 1973 film Scenes from a Marriage at New York Theater Workshop in the East Village. Obviously Bergman is a cinematic legend; he’s also my personal favorite artist. Van Hove’s stage adaptations tend to have a very different aesthetic than the films upon which they are based, but they are colored with the same emotional hysteria that deeply affected me when first watching Persona at the impressionable age of 20. Years later, Persona still takes my breath away. In […]
I’m having dinner upstate with my grandparents indulging the Labor Day weekend – food, books, sleep, repeat. Embracing their rigid routines and schedule is a fascinating escape, one that is also mildly horrifying. “Growing old is not for the faint hearted,” my grandfather tells me, and while I can only theoretically understand the sentiment, this sort of elder wisdom is his bread and butter. “Always have fun and fill your life with experiences and adventure, but also remember to plan for the future,” he says. I’m conscious of this temporal pressure even while feeling comparatively young in my grandparents’ house, […]
Activist, hacker and computer security researcher Jacob Appelbaum, a subject in Laura Poitras’s riveting and important CITIZENFOUR, shot Filmmaker‘s Fall issue cover — an eerie portrait of Poitras at home in Berlin, filmed on discontinued Kodak Color Infrared (EIR) film. Here, via email, is Appelbaum on the photograph: I have been shooting with Kodak Color Infrared (EIR) film for the better part of a decade thanks to a kind introduction to the medium by Canadian artist Kate Young. Sadly shortly after discovery of the film, I learned that it was discontinued by Kodak. The film was given an extra lease […]
With our friends at Indiegogo Filmmaker has just launched a new partner page on the crowdfunding site. Featuring our curated selection of film (and possibly other) projects you should be taking a look at, the page will be updated frequently with new picks. If you have an Indiegogo project you’d like us to consider, you can email me at scott AT filmmakermagazine.com, and please put the words “Indiegogo Project” in the subject line. Currently up on the site are three projects we’ve supported, one of which just launched. That film is Jake Mahaffy’s Free in Deed, currently in post. Published […]