With the rallying cry of its hashtagged title, Tom Gilroy’s #WaynesvilleStrong is a darkly comic and scarily plausible vision of a very near future in which low-wage work, enforced patriotism and the panoptic powers of the internet combine to create a pandemic hellscape that one laid-off meatpacking worker must delicately navigate, one videocall prompt at a time. The short was made quickly, in May and during quarantine, with everyone appropriately socially distanced, and to its great credit that what was political satire just two months ago is now turning into, with the current battles over “reopening,” political reality. The short […]
Writer-director Scott Wiper’s The Big Ugly is the best kind of genre film, a crime movie aware of the traditions in which it’s working but not beholden to them; combining elements of ’40s and ’50s crime fiction (Jim Thompson seems to be a particular touchstone) with the flavor of ’70s Sam Peckinpah and Walter Hill filtered through the visual grammar of ’90s Tony Scott, The Big Ugly synthesizes its influences into a unique and compelling western noir. Its emotional power comes largely from Wiper’s richly textured script and the performances by his consistently riveting ensemble, which includes Vinnie Jones, Malcolm […]
Wasp Network attempts to make sense of the anti-Castro groups stationed in Miami during the late 90s. Poised at the other side of the Florida straits, they coordinated terrorist attacks on the Cuban tourism industry, hoping to bring its economy to its last legs. The Cuban government retaliated by planting spies in Miami, the titular Wasp Network, hoping to scupper future attacks on the coasts of Cuba. Here’s a stage for the shadowy intrigue of a political thriller, but Olivier Assayas recounts the bulk of his espionage under the sun, outdoor bars and restaurants, shot reverse shot dialogue whilst drinking, smoking, eating. […]
Mireille Enos made a splash on Broadway in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, then her big break in television came with The Killing, where she played Sarah Linden to much acclaim for four seasons. World War Z opposite Brad Pitt followed, and now the second season of the action-drama hit series Hanna premiered on Amazon this month. Enos talks about how exceptional writing helps multi-season work, learning about story-craft from Tom Stoppard, the importance of being open to intuition, and how empathy helps you build yourself as an actor. Plus much more! Back To One can be found wherever you […]
I made a microbudget movie called #LIKE. Amazingly it is wrapped, posted and on the festival circuit, and it has been receiving glowing reviews like this: “Writer/director Sarah Pirozek’s teenage noir #Like pulses with the energy of a ’70s thriller.” Discouraged by stats on Hollywood hiring and women directors — a 2015 DGA report reported that 84% of first-time scripted TV directors were white men — and inspired by the work of independent female filmmakers like Marielle Heller, Laurie Weltz and Anja Marquardt, I decided to stop waiting for permission to make my first feature. Instead of making a short-film calling […]
In February, cinematographer Benoît Delhomme attended the premiere of Minamata, which he shot for director Andrew Levitas, at the Berlin International Film Festival. After finishing another project in London, he returned to Paris just as the Covid-19 lockdown began. Delhomme spoke with Filmmaker in early June via Skype. Filmmaker: When did you become aware of the COVID-19 virus? Delhomme: When I was in Berlin, it was obvious by reading the news that the virus was approaching. I was quite surprised that the Festival could run normally. I did not feel very comfortable because of the festival crowds. We had a huge […]
Cinematographer Laura Merians-Gonçalves shot Pacified in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Directed by Paxton Winters, the film won awards at the 2019 San Sebastián International Film Festival, the Aruanda Film Festival in Brazil, and the Sao Paolo International Film Festival. Merians-Gonçalves received the Best Debut Cinematography at the 2019 Camerimage in Toruń. Merians-Gonçalves spoke to Filmmaker from Los Angeles in May. Filmmaker: Where were you when the lockdown began? Merians-Gonçalves: I was here in Los Angeles. I had just wrapped a project that I shot for writer/director John Ridley in March, while simultaneously prepping a new movie. We were […]
DP Jarin Blaschke was a week away from the first day of shooting The Northman, directed and co-written by Robert Eggers, when the Covid-19 crisis shut down production. This is Blaschke’s third collaboration with Eggers, after The Witch and The Lighthouse, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for cinematography. Blaschke spoke with Filmmaker the day after learning that production on The Northman will resume at the end of summer. Filmmaker: Where were you when the lockdown began? Blaschke: I went to Belfast in November. We had five weeks of early prep work before the Christmas holiday break, then […]
A summer action movie (based on a pre-existing comic book) starring Charlize Theron may feel like a familiar recipe for a blockbuster hit. But as envisioned by Gina Prince-Bythewood, The Old Guard is less cookie-cutter, multiplex fodder than a humanist portrait of independent contractors who just happen to be immortal beings keeping the peace. From the Crusades through the Civil War and, as the film opens, America’s current War on Terror, the old guard consists of its leader, Andy (Theron) and three men (Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari and Luca Marinelli) who have fought in every war the world has ever […]
SFFILM announced today the seven narrative feature films that will receive a total of $195,000 in funding in the Spring, 2020 round of its SFFILM Rainin grants. Awarded twice annually, the funds support films in the “next stage of their creative process,” which can range from screenwriting to post-production, and which “will have significant economic or professional impact on the Bay Area filmmaking community and/or meaningfully explore pressing social issues.” The panelists who reviewed the finalists’ submissions are Sofia Alicastro, SFFILM Artist Development Manager: Filmmaker Programs; Sophie Gunther, SFFILM Artist Development Manager: Film Funds; Anne Lai, SFFILM Executive Director; Angela […]