| Filmmaker Magazine

SUNDANCE CHANNEL FOR SALE?

In her Deadline Hollywood Daily, Nikki Finke links to and comments on a Bloomberg.com report that states that the Sundance Channel is for sale and that Cablevision, which already owns the IFC, may be a potential buyer. From Andy Fixmer’s Bloomberg report: The Sundance Channel, the cable network built around Robert Redford’s annual film festival, is for sale and Cablevision Systems Corp. may be the eventual buyer, according to Pali Research. Owners General Electric Co., CBS Corp. and Redford are seeking $400 million to $500 million for the channel, which has 26 million subscribers, Richard Greenfield, an analyst at Pali […]

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 20, 2008

CLOONEY’S CUP RUNNETH OVER

I had a business meeting last week in which there was an honest discussion about whether the “Two Girls, One Cup” phenomenon was played out or not. I’ll say no more. Apparently, though, it has not, as the internet meme has crossed over into the old-media world of Esquire magazine. Karina Longworth reports over at SpoutBlog: I’m fairly certain Cary Grant was never asked by an interviewer to watch internet scat porn so that his word-for-word reaction could be printed in a major magazine, but poor George Clooney lives in a different time. Presumably because there’s very little new to […]

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 20, 2008

SELF DIAGNOSIS

Over at his DIY Filmmaker blog, Sujewa Ekanayake posts a long interview with Barry Jenkins (pictured) about his Medicine for Melancholy, one of the real discoveries (and a film I very much liked) out of SXSW. He talks about Godard, being inspired by Claire Denis’s Vendredi Soir, and whether Medicine for Melancholy is, in Sujewa’s words, “the Barack Obama of indie films.” Here’s his response to the latter — specifically, whether or not his film can “cross over” from the typical “multi-ethnic but largely white” base of indie film to reach more diverse audiences. “The Barack Obama of indie films.” […]

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 19, 2008

THE LILLIPUT REACHES ITS GOAL AT INDIEGOGO

The social marketplace site, IndieGoGo, has announced the first film to reach its funding goal on the site. Titled, The Lilliput, filmmaker Minna Zielonka-Packer raised $10,000 through the site and will use the proceeds to film a sneak peak of the film. Here’s the synopsis of the film from the site: An American filmmaker travels to Poland to make a film about Gombin, the town her father was born in, as a memorial to him and to the Holocaust. Poland 2008 is a country of contradictions where the invisible torture of the past meets the hope of the future. To […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Mar 19, 2008

ALL EYES ON DOCS

Let me start off by saying I’m not a fan of award shows. And in no way am I speaking for the magazine, I personally don’t like them. How you can rate films (or music, or anything in the arts for that matter) is just beyond me. But there’s one thing that an award show can do if done right and that’s bring a community together. That’s what the inaugural Cinema Eye Honors did last night in New York City. Created by filmmaker AJ Schnack and Stranger Than Fiction founder Thom Powers (and sponsored by IndiePix), this celebration of non-fiction […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Mar 19, 2008

UNICORN TIMES

The Film Panel Notetaker has an interview up with filmmaker Leah Meyerhoff, who is bringing a retrospective of her short films to the Boston Underground Film Festival this weekend. She is also beginning work on her first feature, Unicorns, which she hopes to begin shooting this summer. Here’s Meyerhoff answering the question of what made her want to be a filmmaker: I originally thought I wanted to be a marine biologist, something totally not in the arts at all. Then I went school at Brown and started taking film classes. I started with film theory, kind of more on an […]

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 19, 2008

LAUGHING AT THE APOCALYPSE

I haven’t seen Doomsday yet, but I want to — I loved Neil Marshall’s Descent, and despite the 28 Days Later meets Resident Evil meets Road Warrior mix-and-match vibe of the trailer, I can’t believe this director doesn’t deliver something interesting with this new film. Filmmaker contributor Travis Crawford, who has seen the film and sent the below in an email, corroborates my feelings that Doomsday may offer more than people are giving it credit for. From Crawford: I felt that it was a very self-knowing, vintage Verhoeven-esque PARODY of the ultra-violent futuristic action thrillers from which it admittedly derives […]

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 18, 2008

SXSW REWOUND

As David Hudson wrote at GreenCine, there’s a leisurely paced quality to SXSW that creates a general sense of conviviality among not just its filmmaker attendees but also its journalists. Like Hudson, I still have several films to write about, and I’ll to get these thoughts online sometime soon. But, in the meantime, there’s this really nice video by Mike Hedge that I post below. He’s created a hypnotic montage of his own festival moments, including some that I shared. SXSW 2008 from mikehedge on Vimeo.

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 18, 2008

CINEMATIC BORDER CROSSINGS

Over at the main page there are two new web-only pieces that both interview directors whose films open this week and who both quite consciously explore in them issues of borders and identity in a globalist age. One is a new director, Patricia Riggen (a Filmmaker 25 New Face discovery in 2005) and the other is a veteran, Olivier Assayas, and their films couldn’t be more different. Damon Smith interviews Riggen about her La Misma Luna, an emotional and affecting mother-son tale that draws from both the Mexican telenovela and the American indie road movie genres. And then there’s Olivier […]

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 18, 2008

GOT WOOD

Last when I was a mentor for the IFP Rough Cuts labs, one of the most interesting projects was Alex Karpovsky’s Woodpecker, a doc-styled feature about those obsessed with the hunt for an ivory-billed woodpecker. I missed seeing the finished film at SXSW and hope to catch up with it very soon. In the meantime, at GreenCine David Hudson has rounded up some links, including this podcast conducted by Aaron Hillis, and has posted his own thoughts as well. Head over there to read more about Karpovsky’s fascinating film.

by Scott Macaulay on Mar 18, 2008

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