17711 Results for “”
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The Man Machine: On the NPC Streaming Phenomenon
On a hot July afternoon, a friend sent a video, a TikTok livestream, to a group chat, followed by a question: “What is this genre called?” A young man in a Spider-Man suit and hoodie was rhythmically swaying back and forth in a parking garage as he stared into the camera. He frequently broke his silence when he received a “gift” sent by one of the stream’s 2,000 viewers. Depending on the gift type, he repeated one of a few phrases, each with the same delivery: “Hey, thanks for the rose”; “Too much ice cream makes me cold”; “Nothing like […]
by Deniz Tortum on Sep 20, 2023 -
Daniel Chein
The hybrid documentary Time Hunter will present creative technologist Mark Mushiva in two complementary contexts, and a striking 15-minute work sample provides a sense of how the strands will interweave. In the first, Mushiva is documented in his daily life, including his delivery of a presentation on his theory of Afro-acceleration. “Because Black people were seen as nonhuman and whiteness was seen as human, maybe the role of Blackness is to accelerate away from what is human,” he explains. That means actively embracing technology: “Get the chips, cyberonify, whatever it is.” The second strand envisions how Mushiva’s theory might look […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 20, 2023 -
Paradigm Shift: The Current State of Development Labs
When the Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) announced in spring 2020 that they would shutter, many in the independent film community were shocked. For 17 years, TFI had supported hundreds of filmmakers and projects, including underrepresented artists, through its Tribeca All Access program, as well as Latin American filmmakers and VR visionaries. At the time, TFI’s closure appeared to be the result of a unique case of pandemic skittishness combined with its parent organization’s increasingly for-profit ambitions. Rather than an outlier, it may have been a sign of things to come. Given the lingering effects of the COVID era and the […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Sep 20, 2023 -
John Rosman
Set in Oregon, John Rosman’s debut feature New Life initially keeps its cards close to its chest. The opening shot of a bloodied, frantic woman looking for a place to hide implies someone dangerous is hot on her trail—but is she a victim or a wanted fugitive? Retrieving keys from the front steps of an empty house, the woman enters and finds an engagement ring that may or may not be hers. Within minutes, law enforcement arrives, and she’s back on the run, befriending anyone who will get her closer to the United States/Canadian border. A tale of two women—one […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 20, 2023 -
Inhabiting the Role: Todd Haynes on May/December
Todd Haynes’s May December, which premiered this year at the Cannes Film Festival and was snatched up by Netflix almost immediately, marks a return to the kind of expressive women’s drama for which the director is arguably most beloved. Think Far from Heaven (2002) or Carol (2015), two films about forbidden romance whose lush, stylized aesthetics both encourage nostalgia and destabilize easy emotional identification. As the title suggests, May December, too, concerns a taboo love affair—one whose throwback elements are anchored to the tabloid frenzies and true-crime obsessions of the 1990s. Written by Samy Burch, a casting director making her […]
by Beatrice Loayza on Sep 20, 2023 -
Kayla Abuda Galang
During the pandemic, Kayla Abuda Galang found herself considering making a short film. While her upbringing was split between San Diego and Houston, she’d studied in the Radio-Television-Film program at the University of Texas at Austin and decided to plant roots there after graduating in 2014. Galang took whatever odd jobs would pay the rent before embarking on a four-year stint as a wedding photographer. “Immersing myself in Texas wedding culture was such a fun detour in my life,” she chuckles. When COVID hit, Galang felt terribly homesick. Unable to see her large Filipino family in person and cooped up […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 20, 2023 -
Holiday Misfits: Alexander Payne on The Holdovers
Before The Holdovers, director Alexander Payne and actor Paul Giamatti hadn’t worked together in nearly two decades. After premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2004, their Oscar-winning comedy Sideways went on to garner countless awards and generate profitable spinoffs—a Japanese remake, musical theater adaptation, film-branded bottles of pinot noir. During the 19 years since the film’s release, Payne and Giamatti attempted to team up on new projects, but none came to fruition until a screenplay by David Hemingson arrived on Payne’s desk a few years ago. Envisioning the script as something that could be revised and expanded upon […]
by Erik Luers on Sep 20, 2023 -
Sarah Friedland
Filmmaker and choreographer Sarah Friedland describes herself as “working at the intersection of moving images and moving bodies,” an apt encapsulation of an evolving artistic practice spanning experimental film, video installations and, now, features. Realized from 2017 to 2022, Friedland’s Movement Exercises Trilogy consists of three short films exploring the ways in which movement contextualized within specific settings encodes personal, social and political meanings. The first of the trilogy, Home Exercises, depicts older adults navigating the tasks and habits of daily living. Drills focuses on the choreographies of school and workplace preparedness exercises, referencing 1917 Boy Scouts drills as well […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 20, 2023 -
Mackie Mallison
In short, experimental portraits of Asian American immigrant families, including his own, the mixed American Japanese filmmaker Mackie Mallison features conversations with older relatives conducted by their younger kin. In It Smells Like Springtime (2022), the subject is Chinese American jeweler Ada Chen—how her relationship to her parents and her work intertwine with rampant stereotypes she faces in the United States. With Live From the Clouds (2023), the focus is on the filmmaker’s Texas-based extended family and the long distance that separates them from their relatives in Japan. Incorporating home movies, animations, voiceovers and superimpositions, Mallison’s nonfiction work brings family […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 20, 2023 -
Ben Brewer
“I’m not a big visual effects guy,” says Ben Brewer. “I just think of it as a democratizing tool. There’s no reason why we have to watch Star Wars—anyone with a laptop and access to YouTube can literally make Star Wars.” Or, in Brewer’s case, A Folded Ocean, which premiered at this year’s Sundance in the midnight shorts program. Ocean presents a couple who swoon around each other with an almost unbearably cloying closeness that goes from metaphorical to literal when they wake up one morning to find themselves fused at the arm. The two grow increasingly inseparable, a process […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 20, 2023
