This episode was recorded prior to the SAG/AFTRA strike. Dierdre Friel always finds a way to ground her characters in such a deep reality that you feel like they aren’t written at all, just simply among the living. Two examples of this can be found in “Ella” on New Amsterdam, and “Greta” on Physical, the Apple TV+ hit that enters its third season on August 2nd. On this episode, she details the helpful exercise of laying out the similarities she shares with the character and using Meisner’s “what if” when the differences outweigh them. She talks about her amazing experience training […]
After world premiering at the Tribeca Festival in June, a trailer officially arrives for Bad Things, writer-director Stewart Thorndike’s follow-up to her 2014 debut Lyle. While her first film was a lesbian riff on Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, Bad Things is overtly influenced by Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel The Shining. In my interview with Thorndike out of Tribeca, I detail the film’s plot in an introductory paragraph: Ruthie (Gayle Rankin) is debating whether or not to sell the now-derelict hotel her mother used to run years prior. With a decisive real estate meeting only days away, Ruthie […]
Regular Dublin folk, and the folk songs that have preserved their histories, guide viewers along the city’s North Circular in director Luke McManus’s first documentary feature. A three-and-a-half mile long loop separating Dublin’s inner city from its first hints of suburbia, the North Circular Road was laid in 1763 concurrently with the city’s South Circular Road, which now comprises residential homes and, until the early 19th century, largely ran through countryside. Due to its longstanding urban location, the North Circular has been synonymous with working class residents, leading to a broader public consensus that much of the road ran through […]
Today, the Deauville American Film Festival in France reveals the 14 U.S. independent films selected for competition at the festival’s 49th edition, to take place September 1-10. This year, French actor, director and producer Guillaume Canet will preside over the main competition jury, which also includes filmmakers Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, Alexandre Aja and Léa Mysius and actress Rebecca Marder. We’ve covered several titles in this year’s lineup on the Filmmaker site: Vadim Rizov positively reviewed Babak Jalali’s Fremont out of Sundance, Scott Macaulay recommended Joanna Arnow’s The Feeling That The Time For Doing Something Has Passed and Shane Atkinson’s LaRoy […]
Months of negotiations came to an end on Friday, July 21 when the Documentary Workers United (DWU) unanimously voted to ratify a two-year contract with the International Documentary Association (IDA), a non-profit that provides grants and general support to documentarians and the broader non-fiction film sector. “Our contract, our union, and our victorious ratification is a labor of love and care that would not have been possible without the continuous work of IDA workers, past and present,” DWU, which is part of the Communications Workers of America local 9003, said in a Twitter thread last week. Several changes ratified in […]
Ventriloquist demons go viral in Talk To Me, the feature film debut of twin brothers and co-directors Danny and Michael Philippou. While the A24 horror venture marks their first official foray into feature filmmaking, the duo have been uploading action-packed videos onto their YouTube channel, RackaRacka, since 2013. Unlike Kyle Edward Ball, another YouTuber-turned-filmmaker whose chilling feature debut Skinamarink released earlier this year, the Philippou’s prior output wasn’t necessarily horror-focused. To date, their channel is mostly comprised of stunts, comedy sketches, satirical vlogs and prank videos. This decade-spanning commitment to making content is likely what primed the brothers to helm Talk […]
Today, Film at Lincoln Center reveals that the 61st New York Film Festival’s Closing Night film will be Michael Mann‘s Ferrari. Starring Adam Driver as Enzo Ferarri and Penélope Cruz as his wife Laura, the film will have its North American premiere at this year’s NYFF, which runs from September 29 through October 15. A synopsis provided by a FLC press release reads: Michael Mann (Heat, The Last of the Mohicans, The Insider) brings his astonishing command of technique and storytelling to bear on this emotional, elegantly crafted dramatization of the life of the legendary race car manufacturer and entrepreneur Enzo […]
Neither Barbie production designer Sarah Greenwood nor set decorator Katie Spencer had Barbie dolls growing up. “Or a DreamHouse, or anything,” recalls Greenwood, who joined Filmmaker on Zoom alongside Spencer following the record-breaking opening of Greta Gerwig’s feminist smash hit. “I was probably a little judgmental about Barbie until this film — I fell into that camp. But I kind of readdressed my thoughts after meeting this Barbie, and [its creator] Ruth Handler.” Spencer adds, “And [after] meeting Greta. We were a part of the backlash generation. Even if we wanted a Barbie, I don’t know that our parents would have […]
On Monday, TIFF announced the gala and special presentation titles for this year’s festival, which runs from September 7 through 17. Now the documentary slate has been revealed, which includes 93-year-old veteran filmmaker Frederick Wiseman’s French restaurant doc Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros, Errol Morris’s John le Carré exploration The Pigeon Tunnel, Roger Ross Williams’s anti-blackness investigation Stamped From the Beginning, co-directors Caroline Suh and Cara Mones’s Louis C.K. takedown Sorry/Not Sorry, Pierre-Henri Gibert’s Agnès Varda tribute Viva Varda! and more. TIFF’s opening night doc film will be Copa 71, Rachel Ramsay and James Erskine’s film about an international women’s soccer tournament […]
While rapper Travis Scott stars in Harmony Korine‘s latest film Aggro Dr1ft (announced today as part of the Venice 2023 lineup), today Scott announces another collaboration with Korine (and a handful of other filmmakers): Circus Maximus, the 75-minute visual accompaniment to his forthcoming album Utopia. Scott and Korine direct alongside Gaspar Noé, Nicolas Winding Refn, Lamb director Valdimar Jóhannsson and celebrated artist and music video helmer Kahlil Joseph. A brief official synopsis reads: Prepare to enter Circus Maximus as Travis Scott takes his audience on a mind-bending visual odyssey across the globe, woven together by the speaker rattling sounds of […]