Here’s a new short from one of our “25 New Faces” of 2007, Azazel Jacobs, whose sublime third feature Momma’s Man will be released in theaters this summer.
In Cannes, Anne Thompson interviews Michael Moore about his latest documentary, and colleague Mike Jones is there to capture it on his cell phone.
In honor of Abel Ferrara’s latest, Chelsea on the Rocks,, premiering in Cannes, here’s a little-seen-in-the-U.S. French pop video he directed for Mylene Farmer. The song is “California.”
AMERICA FERRERA, LUCY GALLARDO AND ELIZABETH PEÑA IN DIRECTOR GEORGINA RIEDEL’S HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS SPENT THEIR SUMMER. COURTESY MAYA RELEASING. Like her friends Azazel Jacobs, Gerardo Naranjo and Goran Dukic, Georgina Riedel is a distinctive new voice in American independent filmmaking. A first generation Mexican American who grew up in Arizona, Riedel studied film at the University of Arizona where she made a series of shorts. She gained her MFA at the American Film Institute, where she became friends with fellow directing students Jacobs, Naranjo and Dukic. Riedel’s graduation film, One Night It Happened (2002), a black-and-white romance about […]
A bunch of new, mostly cinematography-related stuff has just been been posted on our main page, and I want to draw your attention to it. First there is our article in which four cinematographers discuss the creative and production decision-making behind their latest features. The dps are Ellen Kuras (currently in production on Sam Mendes’s new film for Focus Features), Tim Orr, Andrij Parekh and Sean Kirby. On the same page: Damon Smith on Ellen Kuras’s documentary, Nerahahoon. Next is a feature called “Illuminating” in which six directors — Miguel Arteta, Pete Sollett, Miranda July (who is beginning her new […]
FILMdetail has posted a 2.0 version of their “Most Useful Movie Websites” list. I was happy to see that Filmmaker made the cut along with a lot of other sites, most of which I knew but some I didn’t. The list also includes an exhaustive list of the best movie podcasts out there. Check it out and bookmark away.
In the WTF! department comes this story just posted by Dave McNary at Variety: Werner Herzog will direct this summer a remake of Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant starring Nicolas Cage. Really, that’s what it says. You can click over there and confirm it. And as the picture to the left notes, this is the first Filmmaker cover film to be remade. (What’s next? Suture? 24-Hour Woman? Twin Falls, Idaho?) Ed Pressman is producing and Avi Lerner’s Nu Image/Millenium is financing. The script is by Billy Finkelstein. Bad Lieutenant is one of my all time favorite independent films, and it’s going […]
Recently I was talking to the script readers in my production office about script reading and development and remembered an article we published years ago by filmmaker and former development exec Barbara Schock. It was a great piece that looked at the screenplay development process with a critical eye, examining why the traditional method so often fails to generate great work. Along the way she offered a series of sensible tips on how to make that process better. I went home and rummaged through my old issue of Filmmakers trying to find it and then thought to try the web. […]
Jason Kottke has a fascinating entry today at his Kottke.org entitled “Approaching the Uncanny Valley from the Other Direction.” In case you haven’t heard about the “uncanny valley,” it’s a term originally created to apply to robotics that can now, Kottke says, refer to the human visage in the age of plastic surgery. First, from Dave Bryan at Glimpses: Japanese roboticist Doctor Masahiro Mori is not exactly a household name—but, for the speculative fiction community at least, he could prove to be an important one. The reason why can be summed up in a simple, strangely elegant phrase that translates […]
Created to support high-quality, independent projects at the rough cut stage of production prior to submission to film festivals, IFP announced today the films that will take part in its May Documentary Lab that connects first-time feature filmmakers with leading industry mentors, which this year includes filmmakers Doug Block (51 Birch Street), Liz Garbus of Moxie Firecracker Films (The Farm: Angola, USA) and editor Keiko Deguchi (Cats of Mirkitani). Excerpts from the films will then screen at IFP’s Independent Film Week in New York City this September. The 10 selected films include: Burning in the Sun – A young entrepreneur […]