Once again Sundance has teamed with iTunes to showcase a collection of shorts during the fest for free. From January 15 through January 25, visit www.itunes.com/sundance to view 10 shorts from this year’s festival representing a variety of countries, styles, genres, and stories. They include: Acting for the Camera (Director: Justin Nowell; Screenwriter: ThomasNowell)-An acting class. Today’s scene: the orgasm from ‘When Harry MetSally.’ Countertransference (Director: Madeleine Olnek; Screenwriters: MadeleineOlnek and Cast)-A comedy about an awkward woman with assertivenessproblems who seeks the questionable help of a therapist. HUG (Director: Khary Jones)-Drew is a musician with a contract ready tosign. When […]
Michael Cieply had a provocative piece this morning in the New York Times’ Carpetbagger blog in which he wondered: An interesting question — and at this point, it’s only that — has been floating among the people who buy movie rights for big studios and their specialty divisions at festivals like Sundance, which begins on Thursday: Can they, or should they, buy films that were produced under waiver agreements with the Screen Actors Guild? Because these waiver agreements oblige filmmakers to adhere to the final terms of the SAG-AMPTP contract, and that contract has not been negotiated, the thinking goes […]
Filmmaker leaves for Sundance on Thursday and before leaving we’ve launched our Sundance micro-site, where you’ll find all of our blog, feature, news and interview coverage of the festival. Check it now — a number of pieces are up, including Alicia Van Couvering’s conversations with filmmakers anticipating Sundance, my piece on the Sundance Archive Program and Anthony Kaufman’s article on LGBT filmmaking at Sundance following the Prop-8 battle. We’ll also be running each day responses from filmmakers to our annual Sundance question. This year we asked directors how their conception of story was affected by the changes occurring across our […]
I tend to be a check-in, sit on my hotel or condo bed and go through the catalog kind of person. I don’t really plan my schedule way in advance. This year I’ve taken a longer look at the catalog than usual and jotted down a few thoughts on some films I want to see and a couple that we know a little bit more about. Consider these the equivalent of notebook scribblings and reminders-to-self — more coherent (and substantive) writing on many of these films will follow later. Dramatic Competition Amreeka: I saw the first 18 minutes of this […]
On this blog we’ve posted the line-ups of the various Sundance sections, but we forgot to include the shorts. So, to make up, Max Friend in the Filmmaker office has compiled this exhaustive post listing not only all the shorts but also hyperlinks taking you to info on the films, the filmmakers and sometimes the films themselves. Enjoy. U.S. Dramatic Shorts Abbie Cancelled (Directors: Dumb Bunny) — Two couples who have never met find themselves engaged in an awkward dinner after their mutual friends cancel at the last second. Acting for the Camera (Director: Justin Nowell; Screenwriter: Thomas Nowell) — […]
Geoff Gilmore asks himself and us all the right questions about change, independent film, and the evolution of film festival’s in this Indiewire First Person piece, launched on the eve of this year’s fest. I especially liked his riff near the end about stopping our natural tendency to “date” films based on their release date. From the piece: Theatrical admissions have trended downwards for a number of years and the importance of consumer preference and choice, of filmgoers seeing films when and how they want, is essential to success for the film industry in the future. The “long tail” of […]
FilmInFocus has asked a number of filmmakers about theirs. I love Azazel Jacobs’, think I’m going to adapt Michael Tully’s as one of my own, and feel that Astra Taylor somehow channeled my own thoughts about the book we are both reading right now. Check out the lists here.
Let me weigh in quickly on the imbroglio surrounding the deletion of Kevin Lee’s YouTube account. On the account Lee had posted his series of critical video essays on a number of recent and classic films, and in the course of arguing the aesthetic merits of each picture the videos included clips from the movies themselves. Apparently, YouTube received a complaint from the copyright holder of one of the clips and deleted his entire account. Matt Zoller Seitz has the complete story along with a comments thread that is also a must read, and Karina Longworth originally covered the story […]
Last year, I put together a blog post with a taster of some quotes from Director Interviews I did in 2007 and I have now (somewhat belatedly) come up with a compilation of choice soundbites from this past year. Though in my thoughts on 2008 I expressed the opinion that it had been a below average year for cinema (at least in comparison with the high water mark of 2007), it has been a hugely enjoyable 12 months from my perspective as an interviewer. Any year in which you get to sit down with George Romero, Werner Herzog, Catherine Breillat, […]
I like the nice, clean look of the new Indiewire along with a number of its user-friendly interactive features. It’s just gone live so I’ll spend some time exploring it, but for now, here’s a piece of editor Eugene Hernandez’s introductory letter: As I revealed last week, we have spent over a year developing this new site, but it’s actually taken us twelve years to get here. We’ve not only re-designed indieWIRE, but completely re-imagined it. Understanding that indieWIRE has emerged as a hub for filmmakers, the industry, and movie lovers alike over the past twelve years, we have developed […]