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The Price of Passion: Addressing the Mental Health of Documentary Filmmakers
An image from "The Price of Passion"
Sustainability and scarcity of opportunity have been predominant challenges of a documentary career since the early days of the form, but sustaining mental health has been a significant one as well. Launched in 2021 by a group of documentary filmmakers and mental-health professionals, DocuMentality evolved out of a series of revelatory presentations and conversations–first at IDA’s Getting Real conference in 2018, then a year later, over the course of a two-week online discussion entitled Mental Health and the Documentary Business, hosted by long-running global forum The D-Word. This past May, the DocuMentality team released its first report: The Price of Passion: How Our Love for Documentary Filmmaking Impacts Our Mental Health, the product of a year of research drawing upon… Read more
“The Things that Scare Me the Most Now are the Things I’m Most Interested in Doing”: Jaclyn Bethany, Back To One, Episode 316
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Jaclyn Bethany is an Emmy-award-winning filmmaker, writer and actor based in New Orleans, Louisiana. She has been committed to creating art and telling stories exploring complex women, the intimacy of female friendship, sisterhood and queerness from the female perspective. Some upcoming film projects include Delusion, a short film in collaboration with Adult Film NYC; In Transit, written by Alex Sarrigeorgiou and featuring Jennifer Ehle and Francois Arnaud; and All Five Eyes, which she co-wrote with Greta Bellamacina, featuring Bellamacina and Honor Swinton-Byrne. In this episode she talks about her role as the co-artistic director of The Fire Weeds, a female driven immersive theater company based in New Orleans, and her endeavor to present new theater, and new approaches to old… Read more
“The Streamers Have Eaten All the Bananas”: Behind Her Lens: Producers at the 27th SCAD Savannah Film Festival
Behind Her Lens: Producers Panel during the 27th SCAD Savannah Film Festival. (Photo by Derek White/Getty Images for SCAD)
The 27th edition of the SCAD Savannah Film Festival boasted a number of unexpected bonuses this year. First there was the eclectic,“Hollywood meets indie” mashup guest list to accompany the stellar program (much of which had recently premiered at the top tier fests). Actors in town to pick up awards at the sold out screenings included Amy Adams, Pamela Anderson, Kieran Culkin, Colman Domingo, Natasha Lyonne, Demi Moore, Lupita Nyong’o and Sebastian Stan among others; while the producers and directors attending to nab honoraries ran the gamut from Jerry Bruckheimer, Kevin Costner and Jason Reitman, to Richard Linklater, RaMell Ross, Pablo Larraín, and Sir Steve McQueen. (Though admittedly, I wasn’t really starstruck until I spotted James Carville, in town for… Read more
“There is No Nice Way to Bulldoze a School”: Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham on No Other Land
No Other Land
Originally published February 27, 2024, just following the Berlin International Film Festival, this interview with No Other Land's directors Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham is being republished today, as the documentary opens at Film at Lincoln Center for a one-week run. — Editor Co-directed by an Israeli-Palestinian collective of four, No Other Land was filmed in the West Bank, in Masafer Yatta, where Israeli military and increasingly civilians have forced Palestinians out from their villages. Premiered at the 74th Berlinale, the debut feature won both the juried documentary award and the Audience Award in its section, Panorama—amply deserved honors for its adroit, affecting and infuriating portrayal of a tight-knit Palestinian community resisting Israel’s relentless campaign of expulsion. Basel Adra and Yuval… Read more
Considering the Horrific Possibilities of this Year’s Oscars
Demi Moore in The Substance
Every Tuesday Tyler Coates publishes his new Filmmaker newsletter, Considerations, devoted to the awards race. To receive it early and in your in-box, subscribe here. If there’s one topic more troubling to me than catfiegory fraud — something we’ll get into in a future newsletter, I guarantee — it’s the notion of celebrating Halloween in November. But since Halloween falls on a Thursday this year, I’m afraid I’ll lose this battle; it’s looking like we’ll have two consecutive Halloween weekends this year and there’s nothing I can do about it but throw a side-eye to my friends’ upcoming Instagram posts. But since this newsletter hits inboxes on Tuesday, October 29 and will be on the Filmmaker site on Friday, November 1, I… Read more
“There’s an Inherent Absurdity to the Lengths She Goes”: Josh Margolin on Thelma
Thelma (Courtesy Magnolia Pictures)
When Josh Margolin first heard that his grandmother had nearly become the victim of a phone scam — in which someone pretending to be Margolin attempted to score thousands of dollars from the elder — he immediately felt ill at ease and violated on her behalf. But it didn't take long for the writer-director to recognize a great story: What if his grandmother had given away her money and, upon realizing the scam, set out to get revenge? The result is Margolin's feature debut Thelma, starring June Squibb in the eponymous role as a 93-year-old Los Angeles resident who doesn't let her age and limitations prevent her from settling a score. The action-comedy, which sees the 94-year-old actress performing her own… Read more
