| Filmmaker Magazine

TOO POPULAR

The issue of Filmmaker that’s at the printer right now has a piece by Lance Weiler about data portability — how we should be advocating for our right to carry with us our social network data as we trek across the ‘net. In the piece he mentions the filmmaker Arin Crumley and his recently deleted Facebook page. Writes Arin on his new Facebook profile, “The old one was disabled by Facebook because I had over 2,000 friends, so for this one, we have to have met in person for me to add you.” Lance’s warning resonated today once more as, […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jan 2, 2009

Alexei Balabanov, Cargo 200

ALEKSEI POLUYAN IN DIRECTOR ALEXEI BALABANOV’S CARGO 200. COURTESY DISINFORMATION COMPANY. Though he only decided he wanted to be a filmmaker in his late twenties, Alexei Balabanov has made up for lost time by creating a body of work that has made him both Russia’s most interesting auteur and one of its most commercially successful directors. Born in Sverdlovsk in 1959, Balabanov studied translation at the Gorky Pedagogical University and then spent a few years working as an interpreter for the Russian Army in the Middle East and Africa. It was only at the age of 28 that he signed […]

by Nick Dawson on Jan 2, 2009

GIVE US YOUR TIRED, YOUR POOR, YOUR HUDDLED MASSES

It seems whenever the economy is down you’ll hear some rose-colored-glasses wearing producer saying, “Great, now that stocks and real estates are no longer offering investors a return, they’ll turn to film!” Well, for those of you waiting to see how the economic collapse will affect independent filmmakers, Hannah Seligson in The New York Times offers one possibility: there may soon be more of us. From the piece: With Wall Street hemorrhaging jobs, bonuses disappearing and the financial sector going through a seismic shift, some bankers and lawyers are switching lanes to more creative career paths. They are putting down […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jan 1, 2009

ARRIVEDERCI, KIM’S VIDEO

For a final post of ’08, I’ll note the closing of the Kim’s Video rental store on St. Marks Place, that home of region-free art cinema, scuzzed-out sexploitation VHS, and the occasional bootleg. As noted in Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York, the collection is being packed up and shipped… to Salemi, Italy. From the blog post: According to the extensive informational poster on display in Mondo Kim’s on St. Marks, “The town of Salemi is planning to launch the Neverending Festival, a non-stop public projection of Kim’s Video Collection DVDs in their new home.” Wow. In addition, “For paid-up Kim’s members, […]

by Scott Macaulay on Dec 31, 2008

FILMMAKER YEAR IN REVIEW: SCOTT MACAULAY

Before I say a few words about my favorite films of 2008, let me mention my favorite films of 2007. Film critics often write about “the movies” or “directors” as if annual changes in quality or taste or choice of material are solely the result of artistic decision – that if the films of a given year aren’t up the ones of the year before it must have something to do with the filmmakers not being sufficiently serious-minded enough. Looking back on 2007, however, from the viewpoint of 2008, favorites like There Will be Blood, Zodiac and I’m Not There […]

by Scott Macaulay on Dec 31, 2008

FILMMAKER YEAR IN REVIEW: JASON GUERRASIO

Here’s Managing Editor Jason Guerrasio’s take on ’08. I always find it difficult to put together a “Best of” list every year because no matter how many films I see I always feel I haven’t seen enough to make an honest list. This year has been even more difficult because so many titles have been pushed to the end of the year. So with that said here’s a collection of titles in no particular order that I enjoyed (most of them really loved), but I feel there are so many more I still need to watch (particularly, Frost/Nixon, Gran Torino […]

by Scott Macaulay on Dec 31, 2008

NOW COMING TO A COMPUTER NEAR YOU

Matt Dentler of Cinetic Rights Management sent word of two films now online that will be of interest to Filmmaker readers. The first is Randall Sharp’s fascinating indie period film Henry May Long, which Alicia Van Couvering covered here on the site in an interview with the writer/director. From Van Couvering’s interview: Filmmaker: How did the film come together? Sharp: I made up the story on a car ride to Woodstock one day. I thought, what would happen if someone was willing to do anything to get someone else to pay attention to them? What if that decision led to […]

by Scott Macaulay on Dec 31, 2008

DISTRIBUTING SITA SINGS THE BLUES

Moments after I posted, below, about Roger Ebert’s love for Sita Sings the Blues and a day after we shipped the new issue of Filmmaker to the printer — an issue that contains Karina Longworth’s piece on the movie — Paley has posted on her website a post that updates us all on her plans for distributing the film. Frankly, I found her plan pretty exciting in the way it hybridizes free and for-sale aspects. When we decided to award her film the Gotham “Best Film at a Theater Near You” Award, the film’s distribution woes were a topic of […]

by Scott Macaulay on Dec 31, 2008

SCHAMUS AND SCOTT ON THE APARTMENT

I’m late catching up to some of the things that have been bouncing around the blogosphere, but here the New York Times‘ A.O. Scott has a nice video essay on Billy Wilder’s The Apartment, which is dubbed “a brilliant alternative to classic holiday films” and one that ends on New Year’s Eve. (I wish these great Times video pieces were embeddable — I get that they have to increase traffic, but I’d so love to post them.) The Apartment was also selected by producer, screenwriter and Focus Features CEO James Schamus as part of a series on the FilmInFocus site […]

by Scott Macaulay on Dec 31, 2008

EBERT SINGS FOR SITA

Wow — check out Roger Ebert’s love letter to “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” Gotham winner Sita Sings the Blues on his blog this week. Here’s how he begins: It hardly ever happens this way. I get a DVD in the mail. I’m told it’s an animated film directed by “a girl from Urbana.” That’s my home town. It is titled Sita Sings the Blues. I know nothing about it, and the plot description on IMDb is not exactly a barn-burner: An animated version of the epic Indian tale of Ramayana set to the 1920’s jazz […]

by Scott Macaulay on Dec 31, 2008

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