… or, what you hear in the political ad.
Here’s mash-up commentary on last night’s Bush speech titled “The Dark Bailout.” Nolan’s The Dark Knight continues to resonate. Hat tip: Hollywood Elsewhere. Source: Matthew Belinkie at Overthinking It.
I completely missed notice that Carlos Reygados’s third feature, Silent Light, is opening today in New York. I think this film is a flat-out masterpiece, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Manohla Dargis writes about the film in today’s New York Times. An excerpt: I’ve seen Silent Light three times — it had its premiere at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival — and find it more pleasurable and touching with each viewing. After having wowed and appalled international audiences with bravura technique in his first feature, Japón (2002), and assaultive provocations in his second, Battle in Heaven (2005), which […]
IFP announced today the launch of First Weekend, a new program that seeks to connect audiences directly with new independent films. The first film profiled in the series will be Lance Hammer‘s Ballast. From the release: “First Weekend” series will be a quarterly program designed to guarantee sold out shows during a self-distributed film’s opening weekend. In purchasing a $25 ticket and supporting the series, audiences are directly supporting truly independent films and filmmakers. The full box-office proceeds will go directly toward the film’s theatrical run. The audience also gets to join in a post screening conversation hosted by a […]
In addition to all the press screenings and the opening night bash, one New York Film Festival-related thing we at Filmmaker look forward to each year is Jamie Stuart’s series of NYFF videos. (For a good recap of Jamie’s work, check out Karina Longworth’s piece here.) You see, even though we host and exec produce these pieces, they remain somewhat mysterious to us, arriving in the middle of the night with a handy promo image attached, and usually warping some kind of previously stated concept to a creatively unexpected degree. Without having gone in-depth about this with Stuart, it looks […]
My name is Ryan Bilsborrow-Koo and this is my guest post for the just-concluded Independent Film Week here in New York. Along with Zachary Lieberman (co-creator of The West Side), I spoke on Monday’s panel “Your Film Online,” and I wanted to expand here on some thoughts I shared during that panel — mostly in response to the prevailing wisdom that “the sky is falling” on independent film. (This is also cross-posted on my own blog, No Film School). I’m a New Face of independent film, not an Industry Veteran, so maybe it’s naiveté that leads me to have a […]
IFP has announced their final Tribute honoree for this year’s Gotham Awards: President of HBO Documentary Films Sheila Nevins. Nevins will be recognized for her contributions to the art of the documentary. She is responsible for overseeing the development and production of all documentaries for HBO and Cinemax and their multiplex channels. As an executive producer or producer, she has received 22 Primetime Emmy Awards, 25 News and Documentary Emmys and 28 George Foster Peabody Awards. Nevins was also presented with a Personal Peabody in recognition of her work and ongoing commitment to excellence. She holds a BA from Barnard […]
In Jamie Stuart‘s first episode in his series of shorts on the 46th New York Film Festival, he invites us into his wild imagination while sitting in on press conferences for directors Laurent Cantet and Kelly Reichardt. Download the short here by right clicking and choosing Save Target or Save Link. (33M) Approximate running time: 5:53. Please visit Jamie’s site at www.mutinycompany.com. To see all the videos in this series please go to https://filmmakermagazine.com/nyff46.php.
From Screen Daily comes the news that Michael Winterbottom will work again with Mat Whitecross, his collaborator on The Road to Guantanamo, on a feature film adaptation of Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine. Winterbottom says he’s already begun filming, and Klein will narrate the film. He should maybe take a breather while Klein appends a new chapter to her book. Her thesis — that late-stage capitalism is reliant on “shocks” that, by dizzying the populace, enable privatization and massive transference of public wealth into private hands by anti-democratic means — is astoundingly relevant to the Wall Street bail-out being […]
I’m sure there will be a few blog stragglers over the next few days as our guest posters gather their thoughts on the just concluded Independent Film Week. For now, though, thanks to all the filmmakers who joined our blog and took the time to relate their experiences. If you haven’t read their posts, scroll below and check out their first-hand accounts of trying to launch new projects at the IFP’s various programs this past week. I also recommend you click over to Hammer to Nail, where filmmaker David Lowery posted his own diary about his experiences in the Narrative […]