As news reports come in from the aftermath of Iran’s highly contested and most likely fraudulent election, film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, a supporter of challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi, is one of the voices speaking out. From a post by Abbas Djavadi on the blog Iran & Beyond: Mohsen Makhmalbaf, a prominent film producer supporting Mousavi, who stayed in his favored candidate’s headquarters, told Radio Farda that they were called by the Election Commission well before the first results were announced. “Don’t announce Mr. Mousavi’s victory yet,” they were told by authorities. “We will gradually prepare the public and then you […]
The Netflix/Film Independent “Find Your Voice” competition has selected its ten semi-finalists, and now it’s time to vote for the winner, who will receive a total of $350,000 worth of production services and cash towards the making of his or her film. I’m going to go through the ten nominees right now and check them out but, not to play favorites, you might consider Dee Rees’s Pariah as we love her work: she was one of our “25 New Faces of 2008.” Her Netflix submission is below:
Michael Moore‘s upcoming untitled film will look at the global financial crisis. Below is the teaser that began running in theaters this weekend. The film opens in early Oct.
RICHARD BERKOWITZ IN DIRECTOR DARYL WEIN’S SEX POSITIVE. COURTESY REGENT RELEASING. Most young filmmakers quickly define themselves in terms of both their creative roles and genre specialties, however Daryl Wein has so far benefited from doing exactly the opposite. Born in Santa Monica in 1983, Wein grew up in Connecticut and commuted to auditions in New York City as he pursued a career as a child actor, mostly in commercials. At the same time, Wein’s father’s interest in chronicling their family life on home video lead the young thespian to become fascinated with being on the other side of the […]
The 2009 Producer’s Guild “Produced By” Conference wrapped up on Sunday after two days of back-to-back panels discussing the past, present and future of the film business. Attendance was beyond capacity (begging the question, who was left to wait tables at Marix?) and while the information delivered wasn’t exactly groundbreaking, the conference did serve as a summation of the State of the Industry. In a nutshell, here’s where we are today: find alternate ways to squeeze money out of your product (not just ticket sales and ad dollars), and focus only on content with a pre-existing audience, i.e. sequels, adaptations, […]
At the end of March, an exceedingly odd trailer for a feature film showed up on Apple’s trailer page. For a film titled After Last Season, the trailer was a collection of almost random moments and conversation between students, researchers and a doctor seemingly involved in some kind of science experiment involving perception and telekinesis. The sheer mysteriousness of the whole endeavor — the fact that the trailer conveyed so little information about the film itself as well as its low production values (an MRI machine seemed clearly made from cardboard) — spawned an instant internet cult, with fans debating […]
Below I posted Nash Edgerton’s new Bob Dylan video and a couple of people told me they didn’t know much about his work. So, here’s a primer: First, his bio from the The Directors Bureau: Nash Edgerton knows his craft from both sides of the camera from his work as an actor, stunt performer, editor, producer, writer, and director. Since his short DEADLINE, which took out the top prize at Tropfest in 1997, Nash has directed a number of award-winning short films, music videos and commercials. The action packed trailer for Tropfest called THE PITCH was followed by the horror […]
Pitchfork has launched a new column called “Director’s Cut,” in which video directors talk about their latest clips. Their most recent installment features the Australian director Nash Edgerton, whose short film Spider was one of my favorites at Sundance last year and whose music videos I’ve long been a fan of. His latest is for Bob Dylan’s “Beyond Here Lies Nothin,” and it’s characteristically intense and violent, riffing, perhaps, on the infamous motel room scene in True Romance. In the interview, Edgerton says he never met Dylan and got a call offering him the video but he could only listen […]
Courtesy of Mike Mohan, here’s a video review of After Last Season from several viewers who caught it on its premiere this weekend. (Hat tip: Todd Sklar.)
After Last Season director Mark Region is as mysterious a presence as his film is within today’s independent moviemaking community. After Filmmaker wrote about the film a couple of months ago, I’ve tried to get more info on him and his film. However, after the trailer went viral and the film seemed a new cult hit, the production company, Index Squared, has taken a very low-key approach to promoting the movie. But I was able to get in touch with one of the lead actors, Jason Kulas. I asked him some questions about the film over email, and he sent […]