Premiering today here at Filmmaker is #WaynesvilleStrong, a short film by Tom Gilroy (The Cold Lands, Spring Forward) starring Nick Sandow (Orange is the New Black) that, with dystopic wit, speaks directly to today’s arguments around workplace reopening during the pandemic. Set in a distressingly-possible near future, Sandow is a quarantined worker who has fallen afoul of the government’s official “reopen, rejoice and rebuild” policy. Stuck in a videochat hellhole of automated prompts, Sandow’s worker becomes increasingly agitated as the contours of a new, neoliberal form of pandemic-fueled social control becomes apparent. Gilroy describes the film as “a kind of […]
Lesli Linka Glatter began her career in the arts as a choreographer and dancer, and this early experience clearly informs her work as a director. On shows as varied in genre and style as Twin Peaks, NYPD Blue, True Blood and Mad Men, one thing remains consistent when Glatter is at the helm: an astute attention to the dramatic rhythms that are created by finding the precise visual corollary for whatever is going on emotionally in a scene. Hers is a cinema of extreme precision, defined by clear, bold choices when it comes to her compositions and rigorous control over […]
A chance encounter between two travelers trekking along a path on the Annapurna mountains in Nepal propels the story in Cedric Cheung-Lau’s debut feature, The Mountains Are a Dream That Call to Me. Tukten, a young man from Nepal, is en route to Dubai in the hopes of finding opportunity when he meets Hannah, an older Australian woman traveling solo. As important as the lead characters are the Annapurna mountains themselves, having a sentience and knowledge of their own. DP Jake Magee speaks about the character of landscapes, the frustration of relying on nature and the brilliance of editors. Filmmaker: […]
Lynne Sachs’s Film About a Father Who opens Slamdance tonight, and we’re pleased to share an apposite exclusive clip from it—archival footage of Ira Sachs Sr. talking about the development of the Yarrow Hotel (now the DoubleTree), one of his first ventures in Park City, and a mainstay gathering site for Sun-/Slam-dance attendees. Take a look, and click here to read Daniel Eagan’s interview with Lynne Sachs.
“Who is this film made for, in what way is power present, how does the film understand its relationship to its subjects, and who benefits from the film being made?” That’s Samara Chadwick, Senior Programmer at the Camden International Film Festival, on this 2019 edition’s theme of “Story and Power.” But if you’re attending the festival, don’t look for this theme to be a didactic one, she says. “It’s less a series of affirmations and arrival points and more about the process of questioning — opening up a space where the questioning of power is normalized instead of invisibilized.” The […]
Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood’s production designer Barbara Ling built the lurid worlds of the most perverted Batman movies: Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, where Uma Thurman (as Poison Ivy) strips out of a pink gorilla suit while golden Tarzans in table cloths swing from vines and lay belly down to form a human path for her to walk on. I’d be lying if I told you D.P Stephen Goldblatt’s close ups of Batman and Robin’s rubber derrieres and armor nipples haven’t been secured into an easily accessible shelf at the top of my memories, which […]
This year CineKink NYC will be celebrating its upcoming sweet sixteen edition of the fest (April 3-7) by adding something new: the CineKink Artist Spotlight award. And in town to receive the honor — and premiere her latest Adorn, along with its making-of documentary, as well as host her “From Fantasy to Film: Design Your Own Porn Film” workshop — will be Amsterdam-based Jennifer Lyon Bell, no stranger to the kinky fest. Indeed, Bell has been screening her work at CineKink since 2006, racking up awards while making connections she cites as integral to her longevity in a notoriously difficult […]
Marie Skovgaard’s The Reformist follows Sherin Khankan, a feminist revolutionary this American had never heard of, but who is practically a household name in her hometown of Copenhagen. Khankan, Denmark’s first female imam, founded the Mariam Mosque, one of the first in Europe to be led by women. And fortunately, Skovgaard was there to artistically document the mosque’s difficult birth as well as the trials and tribulations (both internally and externally) the uncompromising religious leader faced in its aftermath. Filmmaker spoke with the Danish director prior to the doc’s opening night, CPH:DOX premiere on March 21st. Filmmaker: So how did […]
Legendary musician (and salty Twitter presence) David Crosby hits the tour road again in David Crosby: Remember My Name, an intimate biographical portrait by A.J. Eaton. The film, which premiered at Sundance, had two editors. Via email, both Elisa Bonora and Veronica Pinkham shared their perspectives on working on this film. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Bonora: In 2013 I edited, and was nominated for an ACE for, a documentary film called Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me. The director, […]
Whenever directors watch their own films, they always do so with the knowledge that there are moments that occurred during their production — whether that’s in the financing and development or shooting or post — that required incredible ingenuity, skill, planning or just plain luck, but whose difficulty is invisible to most spectators. These are the moments directors are often the most proud of, and that pride comes with the knowledge that no one on the outside could ever properly appreciate what went into them. So, we ask: “What hidden part of your film are you most privately proud of […]