This May, the Sundance Native Lab kicked off with a unique two-pronged approach. From May 2-6, fellows met solely online, greeting each other and introducing their projects virtually through Zoom. The following week, from May 9-14, the Native Lab took place in Santa Fe, New Mexico—the first time fellows were able to convene in-person at the Lab’s Southwestern outpost since before the pandemic. Established in 2004, the Native Lab at Sundance connects emerging Indigenous filmmakers with seasoned industry mentors, engaging in a series of workshops that focus on fortifying the fellows’ writing, directing, and technical skills. Several Full Circle fellows, […]
It’s fitting that The Black Phone, an adaptation of Joe Hill’s short story, was shot in Wilmington, North Carolina. Forty years ago, it was the fertile imagination of Hill’s father—Stephen King—that birthed the city’s film industry. Needing a sprawling estate for an adaptation of King’s novel Firestarter, Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis settled on an antebellum plantation in Wilmington. Pleased with the experience, De Laurentiis made the coastal town his America base of operations, shooting three more King films there (Silver Bullet, Maximum Overdrive and Cat’s Eye) and constructing what is now EUE/Screen Gems Studios—the very soundstages that The Black […]
I’m very happy to be welcoming to Filmmaker‘s staff this week Natalia Keogan, who is our full-time Web Editor. Readers will be familiar with Natalia’s byline, as she’s written for the website and print magazine since 2019. Among her recent pieces for us are interviews with Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman about their Afrofuturist musical Neptune Frost, Leslie Harris about her seminal independent Just Another Girl on the IRT, and Jane Schoenbrun and Alex G about We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. A graduate of New York’s Craig Newmark School of Journalism, Natalia’s work has also been published at […]
In the storied history of France’s Luberon Valley, cinema has played a major role. As SCAD President Paula Wallace pointed out during this year’s SCAD Lacoste Film Festival: “The iconic films fashioned in the region of Provence are legendary. Jean de Florette, Manon des Sources, And God Created Woman—the list abounds with classics.” Now add the recently concluded SCAD Lacoste Film Festival to the notable cinematic features. The festival, which took place July 1–4 at SCAD’s location in majestic Lacoste, featured exclusive screenings, industry insights, a special tribute to Agnès Varda, and the presentation of the SCAD Etoile for Lifetime Achievement […]
A ridiculously huge cast — Chris Rock, Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Anya Taylor-Joy, Robert DeNiro, Rami Malek, Taylor Swift, Alessandro Nivola, Andrea Riseborough, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Shannon, Mike Myers and Zoe Saldaña! — are (mostly) all highlighted in this first trailer from David O’Russell’s latest, the comedy/thriller Amsterdam. With cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki and production design from Judy Becker, the film is set in the 1930s and deals with three people who witness a murder and find themselves drawn into “one of the most outrageous plots in American history.” Previously, David O. Russell was interviewed for Filmmaker‘s […]
Read just a sample of Juliette Binoche’s credits — Mauvais Sang, Three Colors: Blue, Damage, The English Patient, Chocolat, Certified Copy, Clouds of Sils Maria, Let The Sunshine In — and one thing becomes clear: few actors have been as internationally respected for such a sustained period of time. In this episode, she speaks about the importance of acting from the body and learning to use “sensation” as a starting point. She tells a story about feeling lost on the set of John Boorman’s In My Country, and what set her free should be a lesson to all directors. She […]
Way back when, during the last in-person Slamdance in the cursed year of 2020, I went to see Tahara, the feature debut of Northwestern University graduates director Olivia Peace and screenwriter Jess Zeidman. The feature focuses on two teenage best friends and Hebrew students, Carrie (Madeline Grey DeFreece) and Hannah (Rachel Sennott), who face a gear shift in their friendship during the funeral of one of their classmates. Carrie is timid and awkward, Hannah is self-obsessed and inconsiderate. When Carrie kisses her Hannah to find out if she’s a good kisser or not, sparkles light up her world. Throughout the day, […]
While the use of larger format sensors like the Alexa LF and the Sony Venice has continued to accelerate—increasingly eclipsing Super35 as the default for robustly budgeted digital cinematography—the sprawling canvas offered by the Alexa 65 has remained more of a specialty, employed by projects seeking a scope of particularly monumental proportions. That’s exactly how cinematographer Mandy Walker envisioned Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. “I remember Baz and I talking about the film really early on and thinking, ‘This character is larger than life,’” said Walker, who also used the Alexa 65 on Mulan and The Mountain Between Us. “Elvis was epic, […]
Alice Diop’s Nous begins with images of a white family looking through binoculars at an apparently uninhabited landscape, then cuts to a shot of the landscape itself, as if inhabiting their point of view. Immediately, then, the film suggests that the act of looking is one worth paying attention to. The question of who gets to look and how the looker reacts to what they see is inscribed, almost wordlessly, onto the film. I thought immediately of W.J.T. Mitchell’s Landscape and Power, which examines the artistic depiction of landscape as a politically charged one central to the formation of national […]
In Hustle, a burned out Philadelphia 76ers scout (Adam Sandler) discovers a raw talent (pro hooper Juancho Hernangómez) in a Spanish pick-up game and attempts to put him on the NBA’s draft radar. It’s got the familiar structural bones of the underdog sports drama—complete with epic training montage—but Hustle is like a perfectly run play. Even if you know what’s coming, you’re defenseless when it’s executed properly. The plot mechanics may be recognizable, but the approach to shooting the basketball scenes is novel. As Hustle cinematographer Zak Mulligan points out, televised presentations of the sport—and most basketball movies—offer the action […]