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Jeremy O. Harris and Slave Play, UFOs, Diane von Furstenberg, Anti-Putin Activists and More: The Tribeca Film Festival Announces Its 2024 Edition
Witches
The Tribeca Film Festival, which runs from June 5 - 16 in New York City, announced today its 2024 feature film lineup. As always there are many buzzy celebrity-focused films, from Trish Dalton and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's opening night doc, Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge to LIZA: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story, directed by Bruce David Klein, to music docs featuring Sting, Prince, Linda Perry, Avicii and Detroit techno pioneer Carl Craig. And then there's BRATS, Andrew McCarthy's road trip doc as he reconnects with fellow members of the '80s Brat Pack, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy and Emilio Estevez. But also there's a robust crop of American independent and international debuts from both new filmmakers and returning veterans. Among… Read more
“My Best Ability, In Terms of Acting, Is To Know Everything About My Character.” Dylan Baker, Back To One Episode, 287
Dylan Baker is the definition of a consummate actor. For over three decades he has delivered so many incredible performances in series like The Good Wife, Damages, Hunters, films like Happiness, Selma, Spider-Man 2, and his latest, LaRoy, Texas, where he plays a professional killer. He talks about his approach toward playing despicable people, some who other actor’s wouldn’t touch. He takes us back to his beginnings, and the acting instruction that changed his work and which he still uses today. He tells a story about how the legendary theater director Nikos Psacharopoulos had a big impact on his early career, talks about the excitement of working on ultra independent films like Onur Tukel’s The Misogynists, explains why minimal direction… Read more
“The Charismatic Leader Leads People, But What Toward?”: Rory Kennedy and Mark Bailey on Their HBO Docuseries The Synanon Fix
The Synanon Fix (Photo courtesy HBO)
Currently unspooling across four episodes on HBO and continuing to stream on Max is The Synanon Fix, the latest true-crime catnip from the cable channel that's not a juggernaut of the genre. And while the Sundance-debuting docuseries does involve the usual “suspects” (a cult, a cache of weapons, attempted murder via a venomous snake), it’s also the latest HBO Original from director Rory Kennedy and writer Mark Bailey (Ethel, Downfall: The Case Against Boeing). Which means it’s less interested in lurid details and more focused on actual individuals with an optimistic vision who are drawn into — and failed by — a larger system. In this case the system was Synanon, an organization that was a drug rehab program, a New… Read more
Watch: Devan Scott’s Video Essay, “Why Are Movies So Dark?”
Accompanying his debut article in Filmmaker's print edition, "Did You See (and Hear) That?)," Devan Scott posts today a video essay, "Why Are Movies So Dark?", that provides visual backup for his points. "Contemporary visuals are commonly diagnosed as dark,' 'underexposed' or 'underlit'. In actuality, they describe an array of phenomena, many of them widely misunderstood," he writes. "The most common charge, dim,' is often used interchangeably with 'underlit.' Tools are frequently blamed; 'the digital look' is as much an accusation of modern equipment as an assessment of its apparent effects." Watch Scott's new video above.
“I Love the Kind of Cinema That [Tells You Everything] Through Images, Where Every Frame is Like a Painting”: Ena Sendijarević’ on Her Metrograph Series, Sweet Dreams
Sweet Dreams
Amsterdam-based, Bosnian-born filmmaker Ena Sendijarević’s two features to date, Take Me Somewhere Nice and Sweet Dreams, hone the filmmaker’s personal cinematic language while expanding the parameters of her own perspective. The former, her 2019 debut feature, follows a Dutch teen as she journeys to visit her ailing Bosnian father in the hospital. The latter, which will screen at NYC’s Metrograph beginning today, chronicles the decline of a wealthy Dutch family’s Indonesian sugar plantation at the turn of the 20th century. While her first feature explores the contours of Eastern and Western European relations—a subject Sendijarević is familiar with as a refugee of the Bosnian War—Sweet Dreams required extensive research from the writer-director, involving copious reading and a five-month guided tour of… Read more
