For those who bookmark this blog, check out an exclusive clip from John Sayles’ upcoming film Honeydripper now on our main page. The film stars Danny Glover as the owner of a failing juke joint in 1950s Alabama who hires a young electric guitarist in hopes to keep from closing down.
Andrea Arnold’s beautifully crafted first feature, Red Road, the follow-up to her Oscar-winning short film, Wasp, was shot on digital video and exploits a fresh, bold palette in telling the story of Jackie (Kate Dickie), an alienated Glasgow policewoman whose job is to watch Glasgow’s banks on surveillance monitors. One day, she notices a man behaving unusually and, becoming fixated on him, crosses a line. Stepping out from behind her monitors, she follows him towards the dangerous housing project called Red Road… Why is she so obsessed with this figure, a man she first glimpses as a shadow, almost a […]
In the issue of Filmmaker we just sent to the printer today (which explains the slacking on the blog), Steve Gallagher interviews Mary Jordan, director of Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis. The doc portrait of artist and filmmaker Jack Smith opens in New York tomorrow at the Film Forum, and I highly recommend it. Here’s an excerpt from Steve’s piece: Filmmaker: Were you surprised to discover that Jack Smith’s work is so political? Jordan: I’m a human rights person. I was a social activist myself before I got interested in Jack. So, for me, this documentary is a […]
Dave McNary reports in Variety the exciting news that Bingham Ray, former head of October Films and United Artists, will head up a new theatrical distribution arm at Sidney Kimmel Entertainment. The piece is short on details, but the coupling of Ray, the distributor behind the U.S. releases of films by Mike Leigh, Todd Solondz and Lars von Trier, among others, with the production company behind such films as United 93 is very promising right off the bat. More to follow…
Brandon Harris, who blogs at Cinema Echo Chamber, covered the Aspen ShortsFest for us and contributes here a round-up in advance of his more detailed coverage in the Summer issue: One of the premier showcases for emerging directorial talent in North America, the Aspen ShortsFest concluded its 16th addition this past weekend. The Academy Award qualifying festival looks abroad for a majority of its programming, with over seventy-five percent of its fifty-nine competition films originating from outside the United States. With crowds made up largely of local film fans, zero sales activity and industry involvement at a minimum, this quaint […]
JUDY GREER, DAVID DUCHOVNY AND WILLIE GARSON IN JAKE KASDAN’S THE TV SET. COURTESY THINKFILM. Writer-director Jake Kasdan comes from a filmmaking family: his father is Hollywood heavyweight Lawrence Kasdan, director of Body Heat (1981), The Big Chill (1983) and Grand Canyon (1991), and his younger brother Jonathan has just written and directed his first film, In the Land of Women. Jake’s own debut came in 1998, when he wrote and directed the quirky private detective movie Zero Effect, which he followed up in 2002 with Orange County. In between, Kasdan directed several episodes of two high-quality but short-lived Judd […]
There’s an eccentric tale of gentrification, “Revenge of the Mouse Coffins,” in this week’s Village Voice involving… Michel Gondry’s apartment. Here’s the lede: Filmmaker Michel Gondry—director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep—has taken over my old East Village apartment. I’m talking about the large, run-down Avenue B loft we got kicked out of last year after a long, expensive legal battle. The one my husband and his brother took turns living in for 15 years. The one we mistakenly believed was rent-stabilized, that we’d live in forever. The piece, by Sari Botton, edges towards […]
The 8th Annual IFP Independent Producers Conference will be on April 21st, 9:00-5:00 pm at Minneapolis Community & Technical College in Minneapolis. Guest panelists include Christine Vachon, Jeff Lipsky, Scott Z. Burns, and Lance Weiller. Titled, this year, “From Business Plan to Box Office,” the event is a day-long conference ending with a mentoring session. From the press release: A successful independent film producer knows the important elements of the business of filmmaking and how to utilize them to their full advantage. In financing a film, the producer must show potential investors that there is a strong producing team in […]
The folks at Axium, one of the leading film payroll companies, recently sent an email updating its mailing list of changes and new developments in the various state film rebate programs. With their kind permission, here it is: COLORADO is planning to again fund its incentive, originally called the “Defense against Canada Act.” Details will be available soon. FLORIDA’s legislature is evauating proposed major changes to its incentives, which will switch from a rebate to a transferable credit of 15% or 20%, with $75 million available over the next three years. Details to follow. IDAHO is considering a bill which […]
Director Matt Manahan, who is finishing up post-production on his feature The Book of Caleb, recently attended the Head Trauma screening/concert/experience in Philadelphia I blogged about last week and sent this report. I went to see Head Trauma finally in Philadelphia. I can be pretty cynical when it comes to some indi films, but Lance is doing something genuinely cool, innovative and different. It was the first screening I’ve ever been to where the director of the film reminds you before the show to keep your phones turned ON, as you would need them to call a number that would […]