Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and beheaded in 2002. The heart-rending video of his execution played for the world to see. Five years later, the tragedy comes to a harrowing life in Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart. Pearl was a journalist with a promising career, a wife, a baby on the way, with family and friends who loved him until one day in the cluttered streets and back alleys ofKarachi,Pakistan, Al-Quaeda terrorists plucked and devoured him. Angelina Jolie melts into the role of Mariane Pearl, his journalist wife, who plays the part with equal amounts of courage […]
Head over to Filmmaker Videos to check out the latest NYFF short by Jamie Stuart, starring Todd Haynes.
Josh Welsh over at Film Independent forwarded me this info about a cool new documentary project that’s unfolding on YouTube. Two filmmakers, Eric Byler and Annabel Park, are making a film about the politics of immigration in Northern Virginia. They are posting short clips of their film on a channel they have set up on the site and are soliciting viewer feedback about the future direction of the project. “We will respond to viewer feedback, including requests for more coverage on certain storylines, contextual clarifications, and even perhaps on-site production excursions,” the filmmakers write on their YouTube page. Here’s a […]
RYAN GOSLING DINES WITH PAUL SCHNEIDER, EMILY MORTIMER AND “BIANCA” IN CRAIG GILLESPIE’S LARS AND THE REAL GIRL. COURTESY MGM. Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 24, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Nick Dawson interviewed Lars and the Real Girl director Craig Gillespie for our Director Interviews section of the Website. Lars and the Real Girl is nominated for Best Original Screenplay (Nancy Oliver). In one of the more unusual coincidences on this year’s movie release schedule, Craig Gillespie has seen his first […]
An independent filmmaker in post on his new feature forwarded me this link to the satirical weekly The Onion and this story: “Independent Film Made by Dependent 27-Year-Old.” “Hit a little too close to home on this one,” he wrote in his email. Here’s the lede: Independent filmmaker Craig Rivers, still financially dependent on his parents at 27, announced Monday the completion of his feature-length debut, the locally produced, parentally financed Far Above The Jiffy Lube, The Stars Of Phoenix Shine. Shot on a tight budget of $75,000 of Marv and Elaine Rivers’ money, the film chronicles the lives and […]
In Jamie Stuart’s third installment of his shorts series from the New York Film Festival Todd Haynes explains his filmmaking methods and the motivations behind his latest film, I’m Not There. Approximate running time: 4:33. Download the short here by right clicking and choosing Save Target or Save Link. (58M) Please visit Jamie’s site at www.mutinycompany.com.
In the upcoming Fall issue of Filmmaker (which is literally at the printers as I type this), Anthony Kaufman investigates the constant struggles documentary filmmakers are going through to qualify for the Oscars. Well, unbeknownst to Anthony, and us, the Academy was in the process of revising the guidelines, remedying the filmmakers’ criticisms. Read Anthony’s thoughts on his blog about the newest development in this ongoing saga.
Jurgen Fauth posted in the comment section of the post below about the dust-up at the NYFF press conference over Brian DePalma’s Redacted and the black bars that now appear over the film’s final images. He links to his own blog, which has both a video clip of DePalma at the conference as well as a detailed description of what happened, which I’ll quote here: When selection committee member J. Hoberman asked about the black bars that now cover some of the photographs at the conclusion of the film, Palma didn’t pull any punches, either: Redacted is now itself redacted,” […]
Koch Lober releases Ramin Bahrani’s Man Push Cart today on DVD ($26.98). A festival darling this past year, Bahrani’s look at Ahmad (Ahmad Razvi), a Pakistani rock star who moves to America with his family only to work a push cart in Manhattan, is a stirring insight into the sacrifices many immigrants go through to make a living in this country. A simple story, Bahrani uses natural lighting, sparse dialogue and a haunting score to follow Ahmad’s depressing life as he wakes at three in the morning to push a tin box to his reserved midtown corner to serve donuts […]
Jamie Stuart attended the NYFF press conference for Redacted this morning and emailed his take on the squabble at the press conference afterwards: In the middle of Brian De Palma’s NYFF pc for Redacted earlier today, as he began discussing the film’s use of actual war photographs and their graphic nature, Eammon Bowles from Magnolia began shouting from the rear of the Walter Reade theater to refute De Palma’s claims that Mark Cuban was trying to…well…redact them from the picture’s release. Then, just as the pc was coming to a close, producer Jason Kliot rushed the stage and grabbed moderator […]