If you’ve begun watching The Midnight Club on Netflix, you may have noticed the tag “Part of the Flanaverse” affixed to the new series. Though the individual entries in said universe aren’t particularly interconnected, the sheer breadth of writer/director Mike Flanagan’s output for the streamer certainly justifies the “Flanaverse” moniker. The Midnight Club marks Flanagan’s fourth Netflix series, in addition to the four Flanagan-directed movies currently residing on the platform. Based on the young adult novel by Christopher Pike, Flanagan’s newest show follows a group of terminally ill teens at a remote cliffside hospice facility who meet in secret each […]
Nominations for the 2022 Gotham Awards were announced this morning, with Todd Fields’s TÁR topping the list with five nominations, including Best Picture, Outstanding Lead Performance (Cate Blanchett) and two Outstanding Performer noms (Noémie Merlant and Nina Hoss). But perhaps the biggest surprise is in the composition of the Best Feature category, which omitted a number of presumed awards-season heavyweights in favor of a trio of excellent, smaller-budgeted, pure independent films acquired at festivals. Along with TÁR and the Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once, Best Feature nominees are Charlotte Wells’s delicately allusive memory piece, Aftersun, an A24 acquisition out […]
Applications are open through November 11 for Indeed: Rising Voices Season 3. The program is in partnership with writer, director, producer and actor Lena Waithe and her company, Hillman Grad Productions, as well as 271 Films. Indeed: Rising Voices was created to help jumpstart the careers of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) filmmakers, specifically those based in the U.S. Now in its third year, the program selects 10 filmmakers to receive up to $100,000 in financing for their film, which will then premiere at a New York City film festival next year. Indeed has once again made a […]
Rachel Gordon, author of the recently published and recommended The Documentary Distribution Toolkit: How to Get Out, Get Seen, and Get an Audience and James Boyer, director of operations at distributor Collective Eye Films, join D-Word founder Doug Block for this useful conversation about documentary distribution and all of its related subjects. In the talk, Boyer talks about things like needed deliverables, how his company makes acquisitions and the role of festivals in launching films, and Gordon talks about the realities of self-distribution, grassroots marketing techniques, and identifying and interacting with educational instructors who may be able to place films […]
On a special episode of Back To One, I’m sharing a segment from a recent episode of the popular screenwriting podcast Scriptnotes called “Writing As Acting.” In it, screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin “analyze what lessons writers can learn from acting techniques (such as staying present) and working with actors (like staying open).” When I first heard this segment, I desperately wanted to share it with Back To One listeners because I thought it was very enlightening, and maybe even healing, to hear creatives on the other side of the camera talk thoughtfully, and with sensitivity, about the process […]
Today, The Gotham Film & Media Institute announced that Adam Sandler will receive a Performer Tribute at the 2022 Gotham Awards Ceremony. This year marks the 32nd edition of the ceremony, which will take place online and in-person on Monday, November 28 at New York City’s Cipriani Wall Street. Presenting the award are Josh and Benny Safdie, who co-wrote and co-directed the 2019 Sandler-starring crime thriller Uncut Gems. “Adam Sandler’s spectacular performances across some of the most popular films of the past three decades have inspired the community of filmmakers that we represent here at The Gotham time and time […]
Just in time for Halloween, Guy Maddin is inviting London Film Festival attendees to his Haunted Hotel. The Canadian auteur behind films like The Saddest Music in the World, My Winnipeg and The Heart of the World has long explored both installation pieces and filmmaking as an expression of his worldview. With Haunted Hotel he’s managed to blend the two, creating what he calls “a melodrama in augmented reality” for LFF’s Expanded programming. The project, which allows visitors to use iPads to look into and beyond Maddin’s storyboard-like collage art, is set to audio by Magnus Fiennes, giving it a distinctly […]
Cinema Eye Honors announces today its first awards announcements for 2023. The organization, now in its 16th season, recognizes outstanding artistic achievement in the realm of nonfiction and documentary films and episodic works. Specifically, today’s announcement includes the nominees in five Broadcast categories, the annual Short List (which spotlights 10 of the year’s most distinguished documentary films) and the Legacy Award recipient for 2023. Leading the pack in the Broadcast Film and Series category with three nominations is HBO’s Four Hours at the Capital, which details the January 6 riot. Following closely behind with two nods is the second season […]
In A24’s Bodies Bodies Bodies, a clique of privileged twentysomethings retreats to an upstate New York manor to ride out a hurricane in style. They’re soon being bumped off one by one in a Gen Z variation of Agatha Christie. It’s basically 10 Little Influencers, a slasher-esque satire shot with glow stick-fueled style by Dutch cinematographer Jasper Wolf. With the movie now out on physical media and VOD, Wolf spoke to Filmmaker about using film tests to create digital LUTs, stressing out the prop master with an array of actor-wielded flashlights and using characters’ emotions rather than practical sources to […]
Watch the trailer for photographer-turned-filmmaker Alejandro Loayza Grisi‘s Utama ahead of the film’s theatrical release via Kino Lorber in New York and Los Angeles next month. The film, which won the Grand Jury Prize (World Cinema Dramatic) after screening at the this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is also Bolivia’s official Oscar submission for Best International Film. Outside of Sundance, the film has garnered wider recognition after going on to receive awards at various international festivals, among them the Grand Prize for Best Film at Transilvania, Best Ibero-American Film, Jury Prize, Best Director, and Best Original Music at Malaga and Best […]