17709 Results for “”
-
Cannes 2023: Sean Price Williams and Nick Pinkerton on The Sweet East
Originally published during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, our interview with Sean Price Williams and Nick Pinkerton about their recommended feature, The Sweet East, is being reposted today as the film is in theatrical release from Utopia. America’s fraught political present meets the less savory corners of cinema’s past in The Sweet East, the first feature directed by celebrated cinematographer Sean Price Williams. Penned with typically acerbic wit by film critic Nick Pinkerton, The Sweet East stars Talia Ryder in a should-be-star-making performance as Lilian, a high school senior who impulsively runs off while on a class trip to Washington, […]
by Jordan Cronk on Dec 1, 2023 -
“Why Make It Simple?” Pedro Costa on The Daughters of Fire
In 1951, a volcano erupted on Fogo, one of the Cape Verde islands. That incident is the starting point for The Daughters of Fire, an experimental short by the Portuguese director Pedro Costa. Costa splits the screen into panels portraying three women—Adelaide, Clotilde, and Irodina—singing over an arrangement of Biagio Marini’s “Passacaglia (Opus 22).” The film ends with footage from A Erupcao do vulcao da ilha do Fogo, a 1951 documentary by ethnologist Orlando Ribeiro. The films are part of Canción de Pedro Costa, a museum exhibition currently touring Europe. In museums the films are projected separately in three different […]
by Daniel Eagan on Dec 1, 2023 -
Past Lives, Four Daughters Top 33rd Annual Gotham Awards
Celine Song’s aching tale of ambiguous connection, Past Lives, won Best Feature at last night’s Gotham Awards, held at Cipriani Wall Street. The annual awards, mounted by Filmmaker‘s publisher, The Gotham, bestowed Best Documentary to the hybrid Tunisian picture Four Daughters, directed by Kaouther Ben Hania. Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall won two awards (Best Screenplay and Best International Feature), while A.V. Rockwell won Breakthrough Director for her Sundance Grand Prize winner, A Thousand and One. The complete list of nominees and winners (in bold) is below. Best Feature “Passages” “Past Lives” “Reality” “Showing Up” “A Thousand and One” […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Nov 28, 2023 -
“You Can’t Get to the Transcendent Stuff Without Risking That It All Might Go Off the Rails”: Olli Haaskivi, Back To One, Episode 270
You know Olli Haaskivi from his work in series such as Winning Time, Manifest, and The Sinner, and films like Motherless Brooklyn, Nancy and of course, this Summer’s blockbuster Oppenheimer, where he played scientist Edward Condon. On this episode he shares his experience of working with Christopher Nolan on that film (which he says seemed less sprawling than some student films he’s worked on!), why he felt the freedom to bring his ideas and “all of himself” (spoiler: Nolan is not afraid of actors!), and how all this affected the work in the moment. Plus he talks about his “this […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Nov 28, 2023 -
“It’s Hard to Survive if You Don’t Also Have Your Entrepreneur Hat On”: Brit Marling, Back To One, Ep. 269
Brit Marling is an inspiration. The talented multi-hypenate became an indie darling in 2011 with Another Earth and Sound of My Voice—collaborations with Mike Cahill and Zal Batmanglij respectively. She avoided various vapid roles and unfulfilling career paths and instead went on to star in (and co-create with Batmanglii) the hit Netflix series The OA, which was bafflingly cancelled after two seasons, despite a rabid and large fan base. The two are back with another series, FX’s A Murder At The End of The World—a cool Zoomer detective whodunit set in a remote super-hotel in Iceland. On this episode, she […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Nov 22, 2023 -
“I Have Never Seen Any Restaurant Movies”: Frederick Wiseman on Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros
Haute cuisine as a form of artistic creation—one both time-intensive in its preparation and ephemeral in its shelf-life—and how to keep such a tradition alive is at the center of Frederick Wiseman’s Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros. Whittled down from 150 hours of footage, the four-hour documentary takes on a leisurely pace matching both the unhurried unfolding of the dining experience at the titular restaurant and the elaborate process of crafting a meal. Beyond showing us the preparation of the food and every conceivable method of cookery, Wiseman brings us the source of it, too, following the Troisgois chefs as they visit […]
by Elissa Suh on Nov 22, 2023 -
Encounters with the Coachella Valley Landscape: Terra Long on Feet in Water, Head on Fire
Terra Long’s exquisite debut feature film, Feet in Water, Head on Fire, is at once cine-essay, landscape film and sensory investigation into the production of space. The space in question is the Coachella Valley of Southern California, on traditional Cahuilla territory, a place produced and transformed over multiple eras by overlapping mythologies, migrations and capital accumulation strategies. Arid, hot and prone to tectonic trauma, the landscape is challenging to many kinds of harvest, save the tenacious date palm, a species widely cultivated across North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia with roots in Arabia stretching back millennia. That the […]
by Brett Story on Nov 21, 2023 -
2023 SFFILM Rainin Grant Recipients Include Lily Gladstone and Nijla Mu’min
SFFILM has announced the 17 recipients for the 2023 SFFILM Rainin Grant, awarded in partnership with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, which includes $425,000 in funding and professional support for narrative projects at different stages of production. From the press release: The SFFILM Rainin Grant program is the largest granting body for independent narrative feature films in the US, and supports films that address social justice issues—the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges—in a positive and meaningful way through plot, character, theme, or setting. Awards are made to multiple projects once a year, for screenwriting, development, and post-production. Recipients are offered […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Nov 21, 2023 -
How to Make Nickelodeon Slime Look Like Oil: Special Effects Coordinator Brandon K. McLaughlin on Killers of the Flower Moon
Brandon K. McLaughlin remembers the exact moment he knew he wanted to work in the movie business. It was Halloween night and McLaughlin was eight years old. His uncle—a special effects technician—had invited him to set to watch the Disney adventure The Rocketeer being made. “I got to see them blow up the zeppelin while the Rocketeer was running on top of it,” McLaughlin said. “From that point on, I never wanted to do anything else. I was fascinated with everything that went into the magic of moviemaking, and the special effects department creates that magic, tricking the audience into […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Nov 20, 2023 -
“Where Exactly Does Consent Live?” Rea Tajiri on Wisdom Gone Wild
Rea Tajiri’s Wisdom Gone Wild takes a hard look at a difficult subject. Tajiri’s 93-year-old mom Rose is a witness to the US’s dark concentration camp history, having been incarcerated along with the rest of her Nikkei farming family during the Second World War. Primarily through Rose’s engaging tales, alongside home video and family photos, Tajiri goes (and takes us) on a decade-plus, nonlinear cinematic journey— neatly paralleling Rose’s own thought process, as the veteran filmmaker’s mom began her dementia decline at the age of 76—or should I say, dementia “reinvention.” For far from being a tragic story about “losing” […]
by Lauren Wissot on Nov 20, 2023
