Stephen Elliott is an author, filmmaker, and founding editor of the respected literary web site, The Rumpus. He co-wrote and directed the James Franco-starring About Cherry, which premiered at The Berlin International Film Festival in 2012 before screening at other festivals. And the film The Adderall Diaries, based on his memoir of the same name, premiered at Tribeca in 2015. With these credentials, he (rightly?) assumed that his own second feature, Happy Baby, based on his novel of the same name, had a reasonable chance of getting accepted into one of the more than 15 film festivals he submitted to. But, it […]

How to find the right festival for you and your film? Film Fest Finder, a new free web site, aims to help filmmakers and filmgoers find the right festival to serve their needs. Through a rating and reviewing system, filmmakers and filmgoers can search over 7,000 festivals by name, city, country, or review. PC Thompson, creator and co-founder, along with Donna Pizzi, told Filmmaker Magazine that “there is such a proliferation of festivals out there — 10,000 in all — that navigating those waters is extraordinarily time-consuming, costly and mind-boggling.” To make things easier for filmmakers, Thompson and Pizzi wanted to create […]

“Are you the new festival director?” asks a woman after briefly interrupting our interview. She approached us to ask for directions to a screening room in de Doelen, the central hub of Rotterdam International Film Festival (IFFR). In his native Dutch, Bero Beyer provides what seems to be an elaborate route, but the woman is satisfied. “It’s a great one,” he tells her in English after learning the title she’s off to watch. All at once, the woman realizes who she’s talking to but asks for confirmation anyway. “It’s so nice to meet you, sir,” she blushes, rushing off to […]

This weekend (November 12 – 14) the SNOB [Somewhat North of Boston] Film Festival takes place in Concord New Hampshire. Earlier this week we talked to Jay Doherty, Executive Director of the festival about its history, what sets it apart from other festivals, and some of the films being shown. Filmmaker: How did the SNOB Film Festival start? Doherty: This is the 14th annual festival. It started with a group of people who were interested in bringing independent film to central New Hampshire. They started the Somewhat North of Boston film festival as kind of a joke that a lot […]

Between fighting for real estate and fighting for an audience, it can be hard pulling off a successful film series in New York. Independent programmers can’t be blamed for relying on the lure of unconventional spaces to draw distracted filmgoers. While it’s fun to see a film on a rooftop or a pier, these spaces often serve as exciting backdrops for otherwise conventional content. Few film series actively exploit the connections between site and content to say something meaningful about the spaces around us. That’s what makes On Location different. This ambitious month-long series of “queer interventions” (the schedule can […]

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. […]