| Filmmaker Magazine

SHOOTING PEOPLE TURNS 10

Celebrating their 10th anniversary this weekend, the filmmaking network site Shooting People is currently doing a discounted membership deal if you sign up before Dec. 10. More here: All independent filmmakers get a present from Shooting People between November 10 and December 10: anyone who joins will receive a bonus ten weeks Membership, 62 weeks for the price of 52. One member a day will receive a birthday present from Shooting People, which range from a AVID training package and a Short Film Training weekend from Met Film School, to film magazine subscriptions, and DVDs of independent feature films. Shooting […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Nov 20, 2008

SUNDANCE ’09 OPENS WITH MARY and MAX

The Sundance Institute announced today that they will be opening the 25th Sundance Film Festival with the world premiere of the clay animation film, Mary and Max. Directed by Academy Award-winning short filmmakers Adam Elliot and producer Melanie Coombs (Harvie Krumpet), actors Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette lend their voices to the film and is narrated by Barry Humphries. From the press release: Mary and Max is the tale of two unlikely pen pals: Mary, a lonely, eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max, a forty-four-year old, severely obese man living in New York. The story […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Nov 19, 2008

INDIES BEHIND THE CAMERA AT SNL

SNL this weekend featured a short film directed by Noah Baumbach and starring the show’s guest host, Paul Rudd, whose very funny Role Models is in theaters now. Costarring Fred Armisen and Bill Hader, upcoming in Greg Mottola’s Adventureland, the film, says Karina Longworth at Spout, is “a cute bit of bromance,” but it’s also a kind of a small-screen mumblecore/indie film reunion. Joe Swanberg, whose in-post feature, Alexander the Last, was produced by Baumbach, was the d.p.; fellow Alexander producer Anish Savjani (Wendy and Lucy) produced; Swanberg and writer/director/actress Amy Seimetz operated the camera; and Guatemalan Handshake director Todd […]

by Scott Macaulay on Nov 18, 2008

TOM QUINN ON THE NEW YEAR PARADE

The second film in the “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” series this year is Tom Quinn’s Slamdance Grand-Prize-winning The New Year Parade. I asked him the same question I asked filmmaker Nina Paley, below, and here is his answer. The film screens Friday at 6pm and Sunday at 1:30pm at MOMA. While I don’t consider myself a political filmmaker, I think it’s amazing when storytellers capture the time they live in. Whether it be the invasion of Prague in ’68, Charles Burnett capturing Watts in ’77, or a home video of Christmas in ’86, there is […]

by Scott Macaulay on Nov 18, 2008

THE SAME OLD STORY…

There’s not much new in this Bloomberg story about the indie film scene. Too many films have been made, distributors are shutting down, and the whole indie-film economy is out of whack. It’s just another one of these recaps being narrated not in Variety or Filmmaker but in the mainstream business media, and the constant retelling of this tale has to be having an effect on potential film investors. Gone are the stories of filmmakers hitting gold with their low-budget labor-of-loves. Those have been replaced with tales like this one, from the lede: The 55-year-old filmmaker borrowed $170,000 to complete […]

by Scott Macaulay on Nov 18, 2008

SHORTLIST FOR BEST DOC

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the 15 titles on the shortlist for Best Documentary feature for the Academy Awards (airing Feb. 22). They are: At the Death House DoorThe Betrayal (Nerakhoon)Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah SeneshEncounters at the End of the WorldFuelThe GardenGlass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve PartsI.O.U.S.A.In a DreamMade in AmericaMan on WirePray the Devil Back to HellStandard Operating ProcedureThey Killed Sister DorothyTrouble the Water I’m pleasantly surprised to see Ellen Kuras‘s The Betrayal made the cut (I really didn’t think the Academy had it in them) but […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Nov 18, 2008

"BEST FILM NOT PLAYING" LAUNCHES WITH SITA SINGS THE BLUES

Beginning this week, on November 20, Filmmaker’s annual collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art and the IFP, the “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You,” unfolds at the museum. Five films we think are among the best that played this past year’s festival circuit and which don’t have, at the moment, distribution will be screened, and there will also be Q&A’s and a panel discussion as well. Thursday night’s opening film is Nina Paley’s wonderful and near-indescribable animated feature, Sita Sings the Blues. Here’s how we describe it in the catalog: Written, directed, and animated by Nina […]

by Scott Macaulay on Nov 17, 2008

VARIETY: KILLER SELLS STAKE TO GC CORP

Mike Jones has quite a scoop over at Variety‘s The Circuit: Christine Vachon (pictured at left) and Pam Koffler’s Killer Films, producers of such Filmmaker Mag favorites as I’m Not There, Savage Grace and Boys Don’t Cry, has sold a 50% stake in itself to GC Corp, a New York venture capital fund. The plan is for Killer to make bigger budget films, in the $40 – $50 million range, says GC Corp’s Adi Cohen. Cohen along with GC Corp’s Joseph Grinkorn (pictured, below right) will join Killer’s board of directors, and former THINKfilm senior v.p. Randy Manis will become […]

by Scott Macaulay on Nov 16, 2008

APPLE’S 5 BUCK MOVIES

In a sign of pricing flexibility that could bode well for future indie film titles sold by Apple’s iTunes Movie Store, Apple has just announced a new section called “This Week’s Great Movies for Under $5.” You can download to purchase titles like Basic Instinct, Terminator 2 and St. Elmo’s Fire, among others, for a fiver. It seems to be Apple’s attempt to compete with those cut-rate DVDs sold in bins at the checkout lane of the discount stores, and it points the way towards more elastic pricing of digitally delivered media by Apple.

by Scott Macaulay on Nov 16, 2008

Josh Koury, We Are Wizards

HOLDEN AND DARIUS WILKINS IN DIRECTOR JOSH KOURY’S WE ARE WIZARDS. COURTESY BROOKLYN UNDERGROUND FILMS. Despite his youth, 31-year-old Josh Koury has already carved out quite a reputation for himself within the world of independent film. Born and raised in upstate New York, Koury studied fine art at Munson Williams Proctor Institute in Utica and then film at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, where he also ran a weekly multimedia event. Following his graduation, Koury made his debut feature, Standing By Yourself, a documentary about problem teens in upstate New York, which premiered in competition at Slamdance in 2002 and was released […]

by Nick Dawson on Nov 14, 2008

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