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Flowers and Songs: The Hawai’i International Film Festival (HIFF) At 44
Standing Above the Clouds
Hometown premieres of several long-anticipated local films galvanized this year’s edition of the Hawai’i International Film Festival (HIFF), now in its 44th year. Last year, fewer films debuted due to pandemic shooting delays; “just wait until 2024” was the common refrain. But now, 2024 is here, and those awaited works have finally arrived. Showcasing the rising talents of the region’s film scene and its sheer diversity of topics and genres, films played to not only sold-out houses, but often to two or three sold-out houses simultaneously—the festival had to keep adding screenings to keep up with demand. HIFF’s decision to take over all the screens of its Consolidated Theaters Kahala venue proved invaluable, both for accommodating audience fervor and generating… Read more
“I Actually Feel Like the Firefly Was Caught in the Jar”: Tyler Taormina on His Cannes-Premiering Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point
Christmas Eve in Miller's Point
The below interview was originally published May 20, 2024, during the Cannes Film Festival, where Tyler Taormina's Christmas Eve in Miller's Point premiered in the Directors Fortnight section. It is being republished today, as the film is released nationally by IFC Films, including at New York's IFC Center. — Editor Whether the sprawling fantasia that is Tyler Taormina’s Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point proves heartwarmingly reflective or personally destabilizing in its near-ethnographic study of American holiday ritual will depend, largely, on the composition and size of your own Xmas memories. It’s a strength of the film, however, that Taormina’s expansive canvas allows for — and incorporates — the whole range of emotions that the theater of Christmas can produce, from the… Read more
“This is Going to Be the Most Circuitous Interview”: Alan Rudolph on Breakfast of Champions
Bruce Willis in Breakfast of Champions (photo by Joyce Rudolph)
25 years ago, Alan Rudolph’s Breakfast of Champions left theaters as quickly as it arrived, barely making a blip during a landmark year in American cinema save for a litany of negative reviews that all but celebrated its failure. (Luc Moullet might have been its sole admirer upon release.) Adapted from the Kurt Vonnegut novel of the same name, Breakfast captures a cross-section of American archetypes on the brink of a collective nervous breakdown; correspondingly, the film also feels like it’s also losing its mind. Rudolph, cinematographer Elliot Davis and editor Suzy Elmiger imbue Breakfast with a manic, comically grotesque tone that mirrors the director’s feelings about advertising, politicians and a country that prefers to keep up appearances rather than… Read more
Tokyo International Film Festival 2024: Tsuta Tetsuichiro on Black Ox
Lee Kang-sheng and Fukuyo the ox in Black Ox
Telling the story of a small, subsistence farming mountain community whose few remaining members keep drifting away to nearby cities, Tsuta Tetsuichiro's second feature, 2013's The Tale of Iya, drew upon his background growing up in rural Japan. "I was actually born near there," he explained. "As I observed the lifestyle of the people of Iya, the idea came to me naturally to make a film set there." After shooting his first feature on 16mm film in black-and-white, Tetsuichiro upgraded to 35m color for Iya, whose physicality throughout the seasons overwhelms with brutally immersive snowstorms and epic mountain panoramas. For his third feature Black Ox, which premiered at this year's Tokyo International Film Festival, Tetsuichiro offers another physically impressive production about agrarian life,… Read more
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
