| Filmmaker Magazine

FIGHTING FOR FAIR USE

Kirby Dick‘s This Film Is Not Yet Rated didn’t just expose the inconsistencies in the MPAA ratings system but helped in the battle documentary filmmakers fight every time they make a movie and must determine what is in the realm of fair use and what isn’t. In Dick’s film over 100 clips are used to show how violent films are deemed acceptable by the MPAA while films with sexual scenes aren’t. Defining the clips as fair use, Dick didn’t pay licensing fees, which would have ranged between $10,000-$15,000 a clip. Inspired by the film, Kansas City-based Media/Professional Insurance has started […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Feb 23, 2007

Colma Rocks the Indie World

COLMA: THE MUSICAL. Accustomed as we are to lavish, star-studded productions like Dreamgirls, Chicago and Moulin Rouge, it’s rare to hear the words “low-budget” and “musical” uttered in the same sentence. Contrary to high-priced expectations, however, Colma: The Musical is an upstart indie produced on a shoestring budget in the San Francisco Bay Area that has built a groundswell of support on the festival circuit over the last year, earning awards and prominent placement on year-end critics’ lists. Colma director Richard Wong received a Film Independent Spirit Award nomination in November for the IFC/Acura Someone to Watch Award, which “recognizes […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Feb 22, 2007

SUPERSTAR RETURNS

Both underseen and mythologized due to rights-holder issues, one of the great pieces of proto-independent cinema — and certainly one of the most provocative director launches ever — can now be seen on Google Video. Click here to view Todd Haynes’s Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story.

by Scott Macaulay on Feb 22, 2007

COCAINE ANGEL OPENS IN NYC

If you’re in NYC this week, check out Michael Tully’s Cocaine Angel, which opened at the Pioneer for a weeklong run yesterday. Tully was one of our “25 New Faces” last year, and here’s what Matthew Ross had to say about the film: Filmmaker, musician, blogger and housepainter Michael Tully has been keeping himself busy the past year. It was only about 13 months ago that he and writer-star Damian Lahey finished tearing a festering little hole into the drug-addiction film subgenre with Cocaine Angel, a dime-bag-budgeted, grime-covered crawl through a Florida cokehead’s sunshineless state. With its claustrophobic apartments, torn […]

by Scott Macaulay on Feb 22, 2007

MORE KUBRICK (WITH A BEAT)

After posting about the Coudal Partners Kubrick page, below, I received an email alerting me to this link, which isn’t collated on the Coudal site. It’s from Cinefile Video, and it’s a true Kubrick oddity. Here’s how the site describes it: Somewhere a few months ago, our fearful Cinefile leader Hadrian read the soundtrack album for Full Metal Jacket had on it a track where R. Lee Ermey did a boot camp rap over a cheesy ’80s backing beat. Of course we had to hear it right away… Turns out that it isn’t so much Ermey on the mic than […]

by Scott Macaulay on Feb 20, 2007

KUBRICK TALKS

Stanley Kubrick has been an obsession for many, including the folks at Coudal Partners, who have a “Stuff about Stanley Kubrick” page that collates all of the site’s posts on the director. Included are links to articles about unrealized Kubrick Jim Thompson adaptations, a PDF of his Napoleon screenplay, news about “the greatest movie Kubrick never made” (The Flying Padre) and more.

by Scott Macaulay on Feb 19, 2007

ETHIOPIA AND GHANA?

Alexa has added country rankings to their free internet traffic counter and, for reasons I can’t explain, they are claiming that Filmmaker is the 88th most visited website in Ethiopia. And we are in the top 2,000 in Ghana. I’m happy to see our stats up, of course, but I don’t know why our page view rate is several hundred times higher in Ethiopia than elsewhere. Speaking of internet traffic, Filmmaker coolly slipped over the 50,000 friends mark on our MySpace page, so if you’ve got a film to promote, join and post your banner or poster as a comment.

by Scott Macaulay on Feb 18, 2007

JENA DOES THE SOCIAL REGISTRY

While in Rotterdam I caught Container, the latest experiment from one my favorite filmmakers, Lukas Moodysson. The film, which premiered in Berlin last year, features black-and-white footage of a heavy-set crossdresser and a young Asian woman doing all sorts of strange things underneath a voiceover by actress Jena Malone. To be clear, it is Jena Malone on the soundtrack, and she identifies herself as “the American actress Jena Malone,” but it’s unclear if the non-diagetic voiceover is completely unrelated to the image or whether its the fantasy of one of the characters. In any case, Picturehouse supposedly has the film […]

by Scott Macaulay on Feb 17, 2007

THE FILMMAKER AS FINANCIER

With his various blogs, Sujewa Ekanayake has been a tireless supporter of DIY independent filmmaking. Now, he’s going to put his money where his keyboard has been with a gesture that, if replicated by others, could lead to a new way of financing no-budget films. Two years after the United Nations announced “The Year of Microcredit,” Ekanayake is applying the economic model pioneered by Muhammad Yunus in which tiny loans — microcredit — are offered to unproven entrepreneurs in order to realize their projects to independent moviemaking. From Wikipedia: Microcredit is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to the […]

by Scott Macaulay on Feb 17, 2007

A WALK IN THE SEA WINS THE TEDDY

Congrats to Esther Robinson (pictured), one of Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces, for winning this year’s Berlin Film Festival Teddy Award with her A Walk in the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory. For more on the film check out Brian Brooks at Indiewire, who has a feature up on Robinson’s doc along with two others: Steven Kijak’s Scott Walker documentary and Rodolphe Marconi’s Lagerfeld Confidential. Check out the Teddy link above for the other awards, which include the Best Narrative Feature Prize to Zero Chou’s Spider Lillies.

by Scott Macaulay on Feb 17, 2007

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