SXSW
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“It’s About the Emotion, the Performance, the Rhythm and the Space in Between the Words”: Rosa Ruth Boesten on Her SXSW-Debuting doc Master of Light
A stunning work of cinematic nonfiction, Rosa Ruth Boesten’s Master of Light follows the classical painter George Anthony Morton, a fan of Rembrandt who conjures exquisite portraits of his own family members in the style of the Old Masters. Never formally trained, Morton nonetheless managed to land a spot at the New York branch of The Florence Academy of Art, eventually going on to study in Europe and win awards abroad. Which would be a remarkable feat for any American, let alone a Black man from Kansas City who spent a decade behind bars for dealing drugs. But likewise remarkable […]
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Building a Microbudget Ghost Story Around an AirBnB Location: Director Pete Ohs and Cast on the SXSW-Premiering Jethica
Two women, each fleeing unspecified trauma, holed up in an aluminum-sided mobile home in the middle of a desolate patch of New Mexico flatlands is an apt set-up for a microbudget horror film, but the pleasures and originality of Pete Ohs SXSW-premiering Jethica are in the ways in which it avoids all the more obvious narrative pathways it might have taken. (Indeed, it’s an exemplar of George Saunders’s dictum of “ritual banality avoidance” — rejecting the “crappo version” of a story.) There are no screams or shaky-cam chases, no woman-in-jeopardy jump scares. Instead, Ohs has worked with his actors to […]
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“There Were No Easy Answers to My Questions”: Iliana Sosa on Her SXSW-Debuting Doc What We Leave Behind
Iliana Sosa’s What We Leave Behind is an astonishingly intimate labor of love. The film emerged from Sosa’s desire to document her grandfather Julián, a proudly hardworking man who first left his native Mexico back in the early 1940s to join the US government’s Bracero program, which brought in farm workers to remedy the WWII labor shortage. After his daughters, including the filmmaker’s mom, moved permanently to the States, the widowed Julián spent the next two decades traveling solo from Durango to visit them in the southwest. But as he now nears his nonagenarian years the monthly bus trip becomes […]
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“Flying Blind”: Writer/Director Caleb Johnson On the Production, “SXSW Screening” and Future of His Feature The Carnivores
In light of SXSW’s cancellation, a private “homespun” screening of the only local production in the festival’s narrative line up, Caleb Johnson’s The Carnivores, was arranged at its cinematographer’s (Adam J. Minnick) Austin residence on the night it was scheduled to premiere. The event hoped to encapsulate the spirit of the festival all at once. Upon entrance, invited press, programmers and audience got their photo taken on a polaroid against a classic yellow backdrop and laurels. That polaroid fit snug inside an imitation festival badge. After attendees stuffed themselves with Tacodeli they dragged over the red carpet to their seats […]
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Death of a Moment: A Muslim Filmmaker at SXSW
For the first time in its 34-year history, the SXSW Film Festival got cancelled amid coronavirus fears. For an indie filmmaker like me, I’ll Meet You There – Bismil, which was one of only ten films out of thousands to be selected in the narrative competition, was the film of my life; that personal story I was dying to tell, as best as I could, with as little as I had. The film that took a decade to decide to really shoot. The film that faced hundreds of rejections before one yes. Being in competition at a world-renowned festival like SXSW is not […]
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“… The Smallest Budget I Have Worked With, and Yet It Felt the Most Ample”: Five Questions for Hilary Brougher About Her SXSW-Premiering South Mountain
A welcome sight on the SXSW feature list is a new film from Hilary Brougher, who has been making inventive, emotionally acute independent film across three decades now, always working in some degree of low to ultra-low budget. Her debut, Sticky Fingers of Time, was lo-fi sci-fi with a time-travel hook that might remind you of Looper but with a feminist slant. Stephanie Daley, starring Tilda Swinton and Amber Tamblyn, followed in 2006, a mystery both legal and existential about an unwanted pregnancy. And now there’s South Mountain, which finds Brougher working with her smallest budget yet but with a […]
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“The Shoot was Undoubtedly ‘A Poor Man’s Revenant‘”: DP Eric Treml on The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter at SXSW 2018
The Movie: The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter The Plot: Accompanied by his trusty cameraman (Danny McBride), the recently divorced host of a lo-fi hunting show (James Brolin) takes his son into the wilds of North Carolina to bag his first deer on camera. The Interviewee: Cinematographer Eric Treml. He previously collaborated with Whitetail director Jody Hill (Observe and Report, Eastbound & Down) on HBO’s Vice Principals. Filmmaker: Tell me a little bit about your background in production. You have early credits on some big movies as part of the underwater camera team. Treml: When I first moved to […]
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Mélanie Laurent on Galveston, Affordable Song Rights and Directors (Not) Working with Actors at SXSW 2018
The movie: Galveston The Plot: On the run from a New Orleans mobster (Beau Bridges), a dying hit man (Ben Foster) and a sex worker (Elle Fanning) hit the road for the titular location. Based on the novel by True Detective author Nic Pizzolatto. The Interviewee: Writer/director Mélanie Laurent. This is the French filmmaker’s first English-language feature as director. As an actress, she has appeared in Inglorious Bastards, Beginners and By the Sea. Filmmaker: There’s an interesting quote from you in the press notes that says something like “This is a story that maybe wasn’t meant for me, but I […]
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At SXSW, Sundance Shares Columbus Distribution Figures and Offers DIY Distribution Tips
Sundance Institute’s Creative Distribution Initiative released today a case study for one of its inaugural films that premiered at Sundance last year: Columbus, from :: kogonada, who appeared on Filmmaker’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film list. Opening to strong critical acclaim and grossing over $1 million at the U.S. box office, the film is centered around a Korean-born man who finds himself stuck in Columbus, Indiana, where his father is in a coma. In two weeks, an additional case study for Jennifer Brea’s Oscar short-listed doc Unrest will be released. Established in May 2017, the initiative is aimed at […]
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A Visual Portrait of a Profoundly Internal Person: Finlay Pretsell on His Original Take on the Cycling Doc, Time Trial
Hearing the phrase “a decade in the making” is not that unusual in feature documentary circles, particularly for those stories that, on the surface, look fairly simple and straightforward, yet somehow beg to be told on a big screen. That long duration, though oftentimes frustrating, lends itself to finding the more peripheral, ephemeral elements around the main story. So many documentaries about athletes are reliant upon heavy use of archival footage and sit-down interviews with everyone whoever knew the person, with family members, friends, fellow athletes and coaches all weighing in to form a portrait of the protagonist as champion, […]
