The IFP has just released the ten projects selected for their Independent Filmmaker Lab, hosted by Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn. For five days this week the filmmaking teams will participate in workshops in which they receive advice on technical, creative, and post-production issues. There are two tiers of mentorship support: via the program’s Lab Leaders who lead each of the five-day-long intensive sessions, and workshop leaders who provide technical, creative and strategic support to help bring films to completion. The 2009 Documentary Lab leaders are producer Lori Cheatle (51 Birch Street) and producer Lesli Klainberg (Paul Monette: The Brink […]
For the new Filmmaker, which hits stands and online next week, I interviewed Steven Soderbergh and Sasha Grey about their Red One-shot new film, The Girlfriend Experience. Check back next week for the articles, but, in the meantime, here’s the just-posted trailer.
David Lynch gets back to his animation roots with this video for Moby’s latest single, “Shot in the Back of the Head.” Lynch may be the first, but somehow I don’t think he’ll be the last director to compose images for this track. Moby’s songs have been licensed to over 70 films, including Michael Mann’s Heat, the conclusion of which was scored by his “God Moving Over the Face of the Waters,” and this track has that same vibe of conclusive melancholy. Note: this video is best viewed full-screen, HD, in a darkened room.
In the last week I’ve had two “what’s going on with Chris Cunningham?” conversations. The insanely talented director was the subject of one of Palm’s “Director Label” disks and released his Rubber Johnny short in 2005, but hasn’t been heard from much since. This spot for Gucci featuring Cunningham’s own Donna Summers “I Feel Love” remix is only 30 seconds long, but it’s pretty beautiful and serves, I guess, as our Cunningham fix of the moment. (Note: the clip on the Gucci site is shorter and of better quality than the clip below. I recommend watching it first.) After viewing […]
If you haven’t read Marcus Hu’s remembrance of Wouter Barendrecht, who died unexpectedly last week, over at Indiewire, I highly recommend that you do so. Marcus lovingly captures Wouter’s charm, irreverence, and warmth, and the piece’s headline — “Wouter Barendrecht: A Family Man” — speaks to his ability to make what some people view as just a business instead a global sharing among friends and colleagues. Marcus opens: Wouter cared deeply for his friends and cherished them. His wonderful group dinners were his expression of embracing us, not as work colleagues, but as family. The Fortissimo family he designed with […]
Simon Channing Williams, one of the towering figures in British cinema, died Sunday of cancer. Williams was best known as Mike Leigh’s producer and his partner in Thin Man Films, their production company. Commented Leigh in The Guardian, “”He was a natural-born producer, a great leader, always an enabler, a protector; never a dictator or an interferer. Infinitely generous, his life was all about doing things for people, and bringing out the best in everybody. He was the ultimate fixer, and a phenomenal organiser. He relished the impossible challenge, and loved the cut-and-thrust of negotiations, at which he was a […]
I wonder what the Hollywood gossip queens of old, the Hedda Hoppers of their day, would think about celebrity scandal in era of Twitter, Facebook and Funny or Die, which is becoming expert at the celebrity instant-response genre. The following clip, written by Owen Burke, directed by Eric Appel and riffing on Lindsay Lohan’s current “I’m So Alone” Us cover, is funny but also not without an emotional edge. Lindsay Lohan’s eHarmony Profile from Lindsay Lohan
A cabin in the woods, fog, a creepy, Rosemary’s Baby-type vibe, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe, and gorgeous, painterly photography from Anthony Dod Mantle — this trailer for Lars Von Triers’ upcoming Anti Christ looks great to me. The Cannes list isn’t out yet, but I’d be very surprised if this isn’t on it. Lars von Trier’s Antichrist – Official Trailer from Zentropa on Vimeo.
Head over to Festival Ambassador to see Bradley Beesley‘s photo diary he did for us using the Nokia N95 while at SXSW premiering his latest film Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo. Here’s the synopsis from the SXSW cataloge:Filmmaker Bradley Beesley visits and explores an oddball American phenomenon: that of the prison rodeo. He journeys with his cameras to Oklahoma State Prison – the only remaining U.S. prison rodeo that is actually located on penitentiary grounds – and watches, cameras rolling, as ill-prepared male and female convicts risk their lives for the promise of cash and a brief spotlight. And to […]
According to Boing Boing, the following short film, entitled “Will You Be Here Tomorrow?”, is an actual workplace safety video. If so, I wasn’t aware that there was a gory sub-genre of the eductional genre in which budding Tom Savini’s can practice their craft. The comments thread following has several posts that fill out the filmography, with the second clip being an artier German film entitled “Staplefhrer Klaus,” and the third a 1983 film called “The Thrill Seekers.”