Andrea Ellsworth
This month Filmmaker is publishing diaries from writers and directors who attended the 2025 Sundance Institute Directors Lab. Today we're sharing the diary of Andrea Ellsworth, who traveled to the Lab with The Dispute, co-written with Kasey Elise Walker (whose diary can be found here). Here’s the description: “Down on their luck and desperate for more, two best friends from South Central take a chance encounter as an invitation to trade their dead-end lives in Los Angeles for something new. When chaos ensues during their seemingly lucrative adventure, they realize the true cost of their actions..” A complete list of Sundance Labs participants can be found here. — Editor
“Embrace failure; you’re not here to get it right. You’re here to learn,” shouted… Read more
By Andrea Ellsworth
Steve Zahn gained early attention for his breakout roles in the 1990s, including Reality Bites and That Thing You Do! He became a frequent scene-stealer in films like Out of Sight, Happy, Texas, and Saving Silverman, showcasing his offbeat humor and charm. In HBO’s Treme, he played a passionate music teacher navigating post-Katrina New Orleans. More recently, he appeared in the first season of The White Lotus, earning critical acclaim for his role as a troubled father on vacation. His latest is personal on multiple levels—the indie film She Dances, which he co-wrote with his producing partner Rick Gomez, who also directs. On this episode, he talks about co-starring in that film with his daughter Audrey, and being continually blown… Read more
By Peter Rinaldi
Kasey Elise Walker (center) at the Sundance Directors Lab
This month Filmmaker is publishing diaries from writers and directors who attended the 2023 Sundance Directors Lab. First up is Kasey Elise Walker, who traveled to the Lab with The Dispute, co-written with Andrea Ellsworth. Here’s the description: “Down on their luck and desperate for more, two best friends from South Central take a chance encounter as an invitation to trade their dead-end lives in Los Angeles for something new. When chaos ensues during their seemingly lucrative adventure, they realize the true cost of their actions..” A complete list of Sundance Labs participants can be found here. — Editor
I’m freaking out. Kasi Lemmons and Ed Harris are watching our blocking rehearsal, and I’m not quite sure if I know exactly what I’m… Read more
By Kasey Elise Walker
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In the first two films in their trilogy of environmental-themed documentaries, Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle married — literally — their loving spirit of "ecosexuality" with urgent debates around the preservation of our natural resources. In 2014's Goodbye, Gauley Mountain, Stephens returned to her West Virginia home with Sprinkle only to find the eponymous ridges she remembered from her youth undergoing the environmentally-destructive coal-mining process of mountaintop removal. In the film, as Wren Awry wrote for Filmmaker, Stephens says, "Sometimes I feel like fighting [mountaintop removal] is a losing battle. Then I imagine that some good old queer ACT UP-style activism and eco-sexual performance art may be just what it takes to stop these corporations from destroying the world. That… Read more
By Scott Macaulay
Winter Kept Us Warm
"Winter kept us warm," reads an early line in T.S. Eliot’s landmark poem The Waste Land, “covering Earth in forgetful snow.” This season, often associated with loneliness and despair, heralds quite the opposite both in Eliot’s masterwork and in Canadian filmmaker David Secter’s. The latter’s 1965 feature debut, Winter Kept Us Warm, centers on the blossoming relationship between Doug (John Labow) and Peter (Henry Tarvainen), two University of Toronto college students. An upperclassman, the popular Doug spends more time socializing with his fraternity brothers than studying; conversely, freshman Peter feels awkward in his new surroundings, and as such greatly prefers the company of books (and Finnish folk music) to people.
An unlikely friendship forms between the young men, whose first real… Read more
By Natalia Keogan
8 Above’s June webinar, co-sponsored by Filmmaker Magazine, profiles four new adventurous and innovative distributors that have emerged on the US independent film scene.
Join Scott Macaulay (Filmmaker) and Jon Reiss for a conversation with Elizabeth Woodward (Willa), Munir Atalla (Watermelon Pictures), Elizabeth Purchell (Muscle Distribution), and Theodore Schaefer & James Belfer (Cartuna x Dweck).
🎤 What The Webinar Will Cover
How each company approaches curation, audience building, and community engagement
What makes these new distribution models unique—and replicable
How filmmakers can find the right fit for their work in a shifting ecosystem
Whether you’re prepping for a release, scouting new partners, or just invested in the future of independent film—this is a conversation not to miss.
Date: June 25th 11amPT/ 2pm ET
Registration Link
The… Read more
By Scott Macaulay
Kathleen Chalfant in Familiar Touch
Sarah Friedland’s Familiar Touch follows Ruth, an octogenarian woman experiencing memory loss as she transitions into assisted living. Played with luminous restraint by Kathleen Chalfant, Ruth is not someone we observe from a distance—we move with her. Told entirely from her perspective, the film unfolds through a sensory experience of time and memory. Through light, texture, sound and gesture, we come to understand what it means to live inside a body—and a mind—that is transforming.
Ruth is looked after by Vanessa (Carolyn Michelle Smith), a personal support worker, and Brian (Andy McQueen), the home’s doctor. Over time, she begins to interpret Brian’s gentleness and curiosity during her checkups as a kind of mutual affection. At a Valentine’s Day speed-dating event, Ruth… Read more
By Sofia Bohdanowicz
Every Friday I write a free newsletter that's a riff on various topics — filmmaker sustainability, the health of our ecosystem, new players and ideas, the plight of the producer, the rise of AI and more are frequent subjects. This week, I used the newsletter to announce two upcoming events, our new issue, and my news that after the next issue in September I'll be stepping down as Editor-in-Chief after 33 years. Read all of this below, and if you'd like to sign up to the newsletter, which I'll be writing for almost three more months, you can do so here. — Scott Macaulay, Editor-in-Chief
I’m starting the newsletter this week with notice of a couple of free events for Filmmaker… Read more
By Scott Macaulay
