In an interview with the L.A. Times, Matt Damon, currently shooting Contagion with Steven Soderbergh, says the director is seriously considering retiring from the film business within a couple of years. For anyone who watched the director’s world-weary interview in the extras to the Criterion Che set, this might not come as a surprise. Around the same time, he told Esquire that he wanted to retire by 51. In the L.A. Times piece, Damon elaborates on Soderbergh’s thinking with quotes that also provide a nice corrective to the indie-film bromide that “it’s all about the story.” For many of our […]
A former philosophy professor, 52-year-old writer-director Bruno Dumont got his start making commercial films in the ’80s, eventually penning a novel that served as the basis for his extraordinary 1996 debut La Vie de Jesus. Filmed in the tiny provincial hamlet of Bailleul, France, where Dumont grew up, this story of a listless gang of moped-riding teens has nothing at all to do with the Gospels: it is an oblique title for a movie that begins and ends with a death, and whose epileptic protagonist is an odd-looking, hauntingly inexpressive adolescent. Humanité, which won the Grand Prix at the 1999 […]
During our current Holiday Sale, which ends December 24, Filmmaker Magazine makes a great gift for filmmakers and just regular film fans in your circle of friends and family. Here’s what Koo wrote when he included Filmmaker in his 2010 Holiday Gift Guide: FILMMAKER Magazine Subscription – This great quarterly magazine is on sale until Xmas — get one year for $10 or two years for $18. The digital subscription is just $6, which is a ridiculous bargain, especially considering magazine subscriptions make for great gifts: every time an issue shows up the recipient thinks of you…. FILMMAKER is an […]
Filmmaker Justin Eugene Evans forwarded me news that an extension of Section 181, the film production tax break, was included in the bill signed by President Obama today. Here, reprinted with permission, is an email containing the news. Dear Film Professionals – Section 181 has finally been renewed! The new Tax Bill was signed into law by President Obama earlier today. The tax law includes Section 744, which includes language that replaces IRC Section 181’s expiration date of December 31, 2009 with December 31, 2011. Here is what this means: 1.) Any money spent on qualifying domestic film production* in […]
Moon director Duncan Jones’ second feature, Source Code, will open the 2011 SXSW Film Festival, it was announced today. Excerpted from the press release: The smart action thriller is the second feature from SXSW Alum Duncan Jones (Moon), and stars Jake Gyllenhaal (Love and Other Drugs, Brokeback Mountain), Michelle Monaghan (Eagle Eye, Due Date), Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air, The Departed) and Jeffrey Wright (Quantum of Solace, Syriana). The South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival runs March 11 – 19, 2011 in Austin, Texas. When decorated soldier Captain Colter Stevens (Gyllenhaal) wakes up in the body of an […]
In a recent edition of his ongoing online column “Movie Answer Man,” Roger Ebert was faced with the following reader-submitted query: “Since good movies can now be cheaply made, why aren’t we seeing more of the kind of arthouse films that were so influential in the ’60s and ’70s?” Ebert’s response, while relatively curt, was two-fold. “1.) It is very expensive to release, promote, and advertise any movie,” he began. Fair enough — as any independent filmmaker knows, simply getting your movie made is just one small initial hurdle…and as any viewer who watches contemporary independent films can sadly attest, […]
Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain. Written and directed by Terrence Malick. Way better quality than that bootlegged clip floating around the ‘net last week. Can’t wait.
Several of the films that will appear in Competition at this year’s Berlin Film Festival were announced today, and I couldn’t be happier to see two anticipated films by two of our “25 New Face” filmmakers on the list. Miranda July will be traveling from Sundance to Berlin with her new movie, The Future, and first-time filmmaker Victoria Mahoney will be debuting with her Yelling to the Sky. I’m particularly thrilled to see Victoria’s film there because the project was part of the IFP Narrative Lab this year, for which I was a mentor. I saw the film at the […]
That’s the message of “Pay to Play,” a PSA campaign by Wolfe Video that adds an LGBT twist to the studio-style anti-piracy campaign. The socioeconomics of pirating are perhaps a little more complex than the campaign acknowledges, but I agree with the central point that non-mainstream communities are particularly hurt by a migration of audience financial support. So, really, if you enjoy work by today’s gay and lesbian filmmakers online, make sure that they are compensated.