Until I shot Life on the Line, I never realized how much independent filmmakers and professional gamblers have in common. Many of us leave our hometowns, move to the center of the action, and risk everything to make it in a nerve-wracking and highly competitive environment. Every bettor is a long shot to succeed, just like filmmakers who dream of making their first picture in Hollywood. After spending the last two years meeting, interviewing, filming, and befriending some of the most colorful and successful bettors in Las Vegas, I can honestly say that we’re a lot more alike than I […]
In 1974, Francis Ford Coppola and the cast and crew of The Godfather Part II took over a Lower East Side block in Manhattan. An NYU film student and resident of that block, Mark Kitchell, focused his camera on the proceedings. The result, The Godfather Comes to 6th Street, was not a fluffy “making of” film but a document of the good, the bad and the ugly that happens when a film crew descends on a neighborhood. A portrait of a community, the film also captured the efforts of a group of local activists who objected to the film’s presence; […]
With an exacting intelligence, a hyper-articulate quality that brings to mind the characters of American systems novels, Dan Sallitt’s The Unspeakable Act meditates on the burgeoning mutual attraction of two Brooklyn siblings in a manner that, while leaving many unsettled, has already marked his third feature as a potential breakout for the critic-filmmaker. The scions of an old-school Brooklyn bohemian writer, Jackie Kimball and Matthew Kimball (Tallie Medel and Sky Hirschkron) have long harbored a forbidden desire for one another, although it is most intensely felt on Jackie’s side. Medel’s big green eyes under dark, foreboding bangs fill in all the gaps […]
Keith Miller readily admits that when he first tried to make a film he didn’t really know how to talk to actors. He wasn’t quite sure of himself. He thought he was doing a feature; he ended up with a film that was a half-hour long. But over the next few years he kept writing, kept shooting. After a time, he gained his footing, thanks in no small measure to the fellowship he found amongst the directors, writers and actors of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective. These days he’s confident enough in his vision — and his collaborators — that he […]
Opening the 10th anniversary edition of CineKink NYC tonight is writer/director (and “habitual submissive”) Cheyenne Picardo’s Remedy, a look at the business side of BDSM through the eyes of a character crafted from Picardo’s personal experience Filmmaker spoke with the accidental director – who originally set out to be a critic – about converting a barn into a NYC dungeon, casting non-kinksters, and why Steve Martin’s The Jerk is more influential than Godard. Filmmaker: I noticed this quote from you in the press notes, “I’m hoping to demystify professional BDSM in a way that’s personal and accessible by showing it […]
Ian Timothy, 18, is about to graduate high school — applying to art schools hoping to study animation — but he already has several years of animation experience under his belt. He created his first stop motion at 12 using a DV camera, and quickly discovered he liked doing it so much that it became “pretty much a full-time thing.” Timothy won a Silver Telly Award for animation in 2013, has created animation for music videos, and is currently working on an animation for Adult Swim for the Cartoon Network. In the following interview Timothy talks about the short Day […]
The last nine months or so have seen the release of a number of films about Abraham Lincoln, the latest of which is the indie Saving Lincoln, currently in theaters. The movie is a unique visual experience as a result of its groundbreaking use of archival photographs and green screen. You can see in the video above how much of the movie’s world was created, while below Saving Lincoln‘s director, Salvador Litvak, shares how he came up with the film’s innovative process, CineCollage. My new film, Saving Lincoln, was made within photographs of the American Civil War. Combining elements of theater and […]
Just in the nick of time for Black History Month, and debuting at the 2013 Documentary Fortnight: MoMA’s International Festival of Nonfiction Film, is Christine Turner’s Homegoings, a poetically crafted exploration of the history of African-American funeral traditions. Told via the Harlem neighborhood’s legendary funeral director Isaiah Owens – who found his calling as a small child, burying all deceased animals he stumbled across in his South Carolina surroundings – the doc manages to be poignant, inspirational, and unexpectedly uplifting. In other words, as one subject says about black burials themselves, a “sad good time.” Filmmaker spoke with the doc’s […]
“Complexity” is a word that Jane Weinstock likes to use when describing her ideal movie, and it’s certainly an attribute that could be applied to her own work. “I crave it as an audience member. I think people are contradictory, and I like that kind of psychological realism,” she says. The same word is an apt description for her own pathway into the director’s chair, especially for her most recent film, The Moment. It was a fulfilling journey for the filmmaker, but one she also calls “a really long struggle.” Weinstock has had a varied career, having gotten her start […]
A little over three years ago, I decided I wanted to make a sci-fi short film about a robot trying to become human. My idea was to combine live action with miniatures and rod-puppetry – despite having no previous experience with special effects. Initial reactions from family, friends, and collaborators were of the “Are you insane?” variety – perhaps rightfully so. It was at that point I knew I had to make the film. What followed was an odd combination of luck, coincidence, and disaster – three ingredients that are rarely talked about, yet I’m convinced are completely inseparable from […]