Described as the most daring section of the Berlinale, Forum aims to straddle art and cinema. Launched in the late ’60s to diversify the festival, Forum still showcases perhaps the most progressive and experimental films of the 400 total that are slated in Berlin’s beast of a festival. There were 44 titles selected for Berlinale’s Forum program this year, and of the 34 world premieres and 9 international premieres, several played at Berlin’s arthouse Arsenal cinema in the festival’s wake. Though this year’s program was focused on the Arab region, Forum is known for its dissidence and commitment to presenting unpredictable and unconventional lineups. This year, the […]
Criterion has debuted a new video series, “Under the Influence,” in which, you guessed, directors talk the filmmakers who influence and inspire them. Opening the series is Moonlight director Barry Jenkins on the cinema of Wong Kar-wai. Specifically talking about Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love, Jenkins hails Wong’s ability to do something “they tell you not to do in film school,” which is to “translate interiority for the screen.” Anyone seeing Jenkins’ Moonlight, winner of the last night’s Gotham Award for Best Picture, will recognize the influence of Wong on Jenkins’ own expressive depiction of internal emotions […]
TUESDAY AFTERNOON WRITE-THROUGH In 2008, Barry Jenkins remembered on one of several trips up to the podium tonight at the 26th Annual IFP Gotham Awards, held, as usual, at Cipriani Wall Street, he was in this same room as one of the nominees for Best New Director. He lost that year to Ballast‘s Lance Hammer, and, as he went on to note, he hasn’t made a film in the long eight years following. (Neither has Hammer, actually, although I hear that’s changing.) Until Moonlight. His beautiful, amazingly accomplished and much beloved second feature took home four awards tonight, including the […]
At a DOC NYC panel titled “Out of the Box Funding,” moderator Julia Labassiere (Chief Executive of BAFTA NY) defined the prhase as “anything besides getting a commission (for example, from HBO or National Geographic, etc.).” Marilyn Ness, producer of Cameraperson and Trapped, started the panel off by noting that there are no shortcuts to obtaining so-called “out of the box” money: “It’s a lot of work.” Here are ten tips for how to successfully bring in this type of funding. First Money: Friends, Family and Affinity Groups When you begin a new film, you have to figure out your […]
After four years of working on my first feature film, The Purple Onion, it’s now ready and available online. You can read two earlier articles on Filmmaker where I chronicle the filmmaking process here. Dtill, my nurturing of this film could continue indefinitely with more festivals to submit to, more promoting to do, more distributors and agents to contact. But how long can this go on for? Especially when it’s just one person, me, doing all the work? That’s why the time has come to let go. I’m releasing my film on VOD today. And I’m walking away. The experience […]
Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Evolution is her long-awaited sophomore feature; her first, Innocence, premiered in 2004. At the time of Evolution‘s premiere, I wrote: Innocence followed a group of young women being schooled in etiquette, beauty et al. at a vaguely sinister private institution, preparing themselves to be sexualized for a lifetime before an implicit male gaze; Evolution gender-switches the sexual fears attendant to puberty. The setting is, again, an isolated incubation facility, this one for the grooming of young boys. Nicolas (Max Brebant) is one of many interchangeable blond youths (the vibe is very Village of the Damned) being raised by an equally interchangeable group of orange-haired mothers (?) in […]
Kenneth Lonergan’s masterful Manchester by the Sea is the high-profile opening of the week, and one strongly recommended by all of us at Filmmaker. The writer/director is our current print issue cover, with James Ponsoldt’s interview now online as well. In his intro, Ponsoldt wrote: Lonergan’s films all feature stand-out performances, and the constellation of actors in Manchester by the Sea — Kyle Chandler, Lucas Hedges, Michelle Williams, Gretchen Mol and Affleck — are beautifully cast. Their family could be your family. The Chandlers’ struggle to find a new normal in the wake of tragedy is surprisingly funny, human, messy […]
On Sunday I attended two editing-focused events at DOC NYC PRO. The “Morning Manifesto” was delivered by Matthew Hamachek, editor of films including Cartel Land and Amanda Knox. Later that afternoon, veteran editor Geof Bartz, Supervising Editor at HBO and a three-time Oscar winner, gave a masterclass on what to do when the pieces don’t fit. Having recently taken the Edit Center’s six-week Art of Editing Course at the IFP Made in New York Media Center, and currently assisting on the edit of a feature doc with a lot of moving parts, this seemed like a good way to spend […]
For film lovers of all stripes, the launch this month of FilmStruck, a new streaming service partnership between Turner Classic Movies and the Criterion Channel, is nothing short of a major event. As Netflix tilts more and more towards television and original programming, and actual movies cycle on and off on-demand services at a dizzying pace, FilmStruck is poised to be a dependable and invigorating destination for anyone wanting to watch a simply great movie at any time of the day or night. FilmStruck will source films from indie distributors such as Janus Films, Zeitgeist, Film Movement, Oscilloscope Laboratories, as […]
The French state film school La Fémis is the closest thing to a state-sanctioned religion under the secular French administation. Situated in Paris, it is the French temple of cinema, the film school that has educated more Cannes, Berlin and Venice prizewinners than any other faculty in the world. To go to La Fémis has become a badge of honor; the only trouble is that it’s seemingly impossible to get accepted into it. The entrance exam involves a critical written essay on a film clip, a presentation of a potential film project with research, and a discussion on film during a meeting […]