In 2005 indie director Larry Fessenden was troubled by the state of the world—specifically, by our leaders’ callow response to the threat of global warming. So he did what he does best: He made a horror movie. The Last Winter, about a skeleton crew of oil-dredge workers afflicted by madness and other disturbing phenomena in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, revisits some of the tropes in Fessenden’s spooky 2001 feature Wendigo, including a fearsome, shape-shifting deer-spirit. The film was overlooked when it premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, later acquired by IFC First Take (releases September 19), and recently […]
The IFP Filmmaker’s Conference is this week at the Puck Building (I’m moderating a talk with Crackel’s Tony Lisano in about an hour) and you’ll see some new and other familiar faces on the blog this week. Several filmmakers and journalists will be reporting in everthing from the various panels and events to their own experience navigating the Conference with their projects. So, check back often this week…
Over at his Variety blog, “The Circuit,” Mike Jones writes in his Toronto wrap-up about an encounter with one of the Canada/U.S. border crossing officials: The border agent at the Toronto airport held me at the desk, studying my business card. He was trying to think up the title of a film he’d seen long ago. He’d scoured the internet for it and come up empty. As the line grew behind me, he described it as a story of a man abused by his wife. It involved drinking, a child, poverty, and more drinking. He leaned forward, pointing his pen, […]
KENE HOLLIDAY AND PAT HEALY IN CRAIG ZOBEL’S GREAT WORLD OF SOUND. COURTESY MAGNOLIA PICTURES. Previously best known as David Gordon Green’s right-hand man, Craig Zobel has effortlessly emerged from his friend’s shadow and established himself as an important presence in American filmmaking in his own right. Though born in New York, Zobel grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and stayed in the South for his college education, studying film at the North Carolina School of the Arts alongside Green and a number of other future collaborators. After graduation, Zobel worked on Green’s first three films — George Washington (2000), All […]
Over at his blog, Anthony Kaufman posts a letter from Ted Hope saluting Mike Ryan, who was named one of Variety‘s 10 Producers to Watch. He begins: Despite — or maybe because of — working in the film business, it is rare that I encounter the individual that is clearly driven by passion for film, knowledgable on a wide range of subjects, has a cultivated and constantly evolving aesthetic, and lives and breathes in accordance with principals and politics that they have fully thought out and committed to; to me all those things should be up on the PGA website […]
Alfonso Cuaron’s latest film is playing at the Toronto Film Festival, but you can see it now, for free, online, below… It’s his collaboration with Jonas Cuaron and author Naomi Klein that accompanies Klein’s latest book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing summarizes the book’s thesis thusly: …present-day global capitalism took hold when its advocates learned to exploit disasters. After a disaster (war, tsunami, terrorist attack), you can push your agenda for worsening labor conditions, looser regulation, and pocket-lining exercises (Enron, Halliburton) while the reeling, disaster-struck population of the world has its attention […]
CHRISTOPHER WALKEN IN JOHN TURTURRO’S ROMANCE & CIGARETTES. COURTESY UNITED ARTISTS. John Turturro has the distinction of being both a director’s actor and an actor’s director. A favorite of both Spike Lee and the Coen brothers, over the past 20 years Turturro has marked himself out as one of the most interesting and talented actors in film, and whether it is a blocked writer (Barton Fink), a socially-awkward chess master (The Luzhin Defense) or a grief-stricken widower (Fear X), he adds a depth and humanity to the characters he inhabits. In 1992, he directed his first film, Mac, about three […]
A week ago on Indiewire, Agnes Varun posted a “Doc Filmmakers Guide to the IFP Market,” which is full of solid advice from Market vets to help you navigate the upcoming conference (Sept. 16 – 19). Today, on the Renew Media blog, she posts a follow-up: the entirety of a 1,200 word piece by Tracy Heather Strain, a seven-year Market vet. It’s full of practical advice that anyone attending the Market should read.
In what Gregg Goldstein of The Hollywood Reporter proclaims a “seismic shift of power in the independent film community,” CAA agent Bart Walker, previously the head of their NYC film office and rep to such directors as Sofia Coppola, Julie Taymor and Julian Schnabel, has left the agency to join Cinetic Media. THR reports that Cinetic’s John Sloss and Walker will form a new division, Cinetic Management. From the joint statement Sloss and Walker released: We see Cinetic as a new kind of service company, one that will create innovative structures that benefit filmmakers as well as financiers so that […]
Ronnie Bronstein’s film, co-hosted by Lodge Kerrigan… a rare screening, tonight, IFC Center/New York, 7:30…. see you there.