This interview with the director of the recommended The Unknown Country was originally posted during the 2022 SXSW Film Festival and is being reposted today as the film opens in New York, Los Angeles and other markets via Music Box Films. — Editor From the plains of the Dakotas to the Mexican-American border, landscape — seen through rain-streaked windshields at night, from overhead drone shots, and from the point-of-view of a single woman moving across a country that’s both reassuring and suddenly alien — is both subject and setting in The Unknown Country, the debut dramatic feature from artist and […]
Titled after the hit party song no child of the early 2000s could escape, Cooper Raiff’s second feature, Cha Cha Real Smooth, originated as a love letter to parents of disabled children. Inspired by the perserverance of his own family (Raiff’s younger sister does not possess the ability to walk nor speak), Raiff’s screenplay eventually grew to become the story of Andrew (Raiff), a 22-year-old Tulane University graduate who moves back in with his brother (Evan Assante), mom (Leslie Mann), and her lover (Brad Garrett) in Livingston, New Jersey. Working a dead-end job and with his girlfriend in Barcelona on […]
In the early 1990s, French director Olivier Assayas was invited to develop a remake of a classic work of French cinema for television. “I hadn’t known where to start until I remembered [Louis] Feuillade’s Vampires,” he remembered in 1996, referring to the 1915 silent serial in which Musidora played the costumed criminal Irma Vep. “I spent a few weeks considering the possibility, then I decided that, attractive as it was, I couldn’t take it any further. Somehow, my heart wasn’t in it.” A few years later, another invitation: this time to join Claire Denis and Atom Egoyan in the sort […]
During the lead-up to the release of Rebeca Huntt’s first feature, BEBA, a raw documentary portrait of the artist as a young Afro-Latina filmmaker on a path towards self-acceptance and discovery, the filmmaker and DP Sophie Stieglitz led a one-day workshop on 16mm production at the cinema arts organization Mono No Aware. Presented by NEON (Beba’s distributor) and Ghetto Film School, six women of color filmmakers were invited to take place and attended “an intimate discussion around personal filmmaking” led by Huntt before being sent outside to the streets of Brooklyn with a roll of film and a Bolex camera. […]
One of the more surprising revelations in the provocatively titled six-part docuseries Mind Over Murder has nothing to do with the sad tale presented onscreen of the “Beatrice Six,” as the three men and three women convicted (and ultimately absolved) of killing a beloved grandma in Beatrice, Nebraska back in 1985 came to be known. Instead, the surprise comes when the end credits disclose the story is being revisited by none other than critically-acclaimed director Nanfu Wang (In the Same Breath, One Child Nation), not exactly a usual suspect for the sensationalist true crime genre. Then again, Wang doesn’t seem much interested […]
The Gotham, Filmmaker‘s publisher, announced today that Gotham Week, its annual conference and project market, will move to a new location: the Brooklyn Navy Yards. Taking place September 17 – 23, the ’22 edition marks the event’s return to in-person following two years of a virtual format. In addition, The Gotham announced a new component to Gotham Week, the inaugural Partner Expo, which will bring together, according to the press release, “partners from The Gotham’s Expanding Communities, Owning It, and Gotham EDU programs for the first time. The Expo will showcase thought leadership on the advancement of the film and […]
The day before the start of his 20-film retrospective at Film at Lincoln Center, Dario Argento talked with film historian Rob King in front of a small delegation at the Italian Cultural Institute. King started by pointing out that the director has now directed giallo films for 53 years, or “four years longer than John Ford made westerns.” Asked what the genre means, Argento said he’s been asked this question thousands of times and that “once more” he will answer—“I don’t know.” Asked if his approach to directing giallo has changed, he also answered as he always has—No. He simply […]
Luke Bracey didn’t dream about being an actor when he was a kid, he didn’t study the craft, and on his first job, which came from his very first audition, he didn’t even really know when he should start saying the lines. But with roles in films like Point Break, Hacksaw Ridge, Holidate and the soon-to-be-released One True Loves, he has built a career with his instinct, experience, and innate talent. Now he plays Jerry Shilling in the Baz Luhrmann blockbuster Elvis. He talks about what stopped him from getting overwhelmed by that “old school” big movie production, the value […]
The NBA Finals have just concluded, but the most popular film on Netflix remains Jeremiah Zagar’s basketball drama, Hustle. Adam Sandler (continuing his Happy Madison Productions partnership with the streamer) is Stanley Sugerman, a jetlagged international scout for the Philadelphia 76ers. In Spain, Sugerman discovers an exciting new talent, Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangomez), dominating local competition on an outdoor court. Convincing this raw talent that he’s a star in the making, Sugerman brings Cruz to Philadelphia to prepare for the NBA Draft Combine. Unfortunately, greedy team owners, spiteful American prospects (including Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards, giving a “I’m going […]
“We’re not sure how to describe it,” Bujalski told the Cambridge Day‘s Tom Meek of his seventh feature, the Tribeca premiere There There. “We’re just gonna put it on the screen and let everybody else tell us what we did.” That promised a strange film, and There There delivers. After a disorientingly shot-at-home sax solo from musician Jon Natchez (whose quarantine-vibes solo sets provide interludes between segments), There There begins the first of six narrative sequences centered around pairs of unnamed characters with Lennie James and Lili Taylor, who’ve spent the night together for the first time. They’re introduced in rigorously locked-off shots […]