6302 Results for “Open ”
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SXSW Releases 2014 Features Lineup
Here we go. Unlike many other major festivals who favor an incremental approach, South by Southwest unloads 115 films from their extensive lineup (barring the midnight and shorts selections) in one fell swoop, so there’s plenty to parse through here. 68 of the featured films are directorial debuts, a number of which can be found in the Visions section, which housed my favorite discovery from last year’s festival: Petra Costa’s Elena. That’s not to say there aren’t a few familiar faces: Lawrence Michael Levine’s Wild Canaries will premiere in the Narrative Competition, while Festival Favorites boasts Sundance selections from a bevy of […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Jan 30, 2014 -
After Tiller
While making After Tiller, Lana Wilson and Martha Shane struggled to get support from granting agencies cautious about supporting a film about such a hot-button topic as third-trimester abortion. In response to the pair’s bid for support, one major film grant organization said, “We’re waiting to see where this movie comes down.” Or, in other words, “We can’t support the film unless we support the way you depict this contentious issue.” The genius of After Tiller is that it doesn’t “come down” anywhere. It doesn’t make a case or take sides. At a time when documentaries about major political and […]
by Arielle Grinshpan on Jan 28, 2014 -
Show-Focus: The Future of Pulling Focus
Guillaume Couche, a Masters student at the Royal College of Art in London with a background in mechanical engineering, has created a prototype for what he calls “Show-Focus.” Designed to facilitate the duties of the on-set focus-puller, Show-Focus renders a physical representation of the invisible plane of focus so that the precise focal point can be deduced, and captured, at any time. The model is compromised of two components, communicable through a wireless connection: the camera module and the controller. The camera module, which is attached to the body of the shooting camera, provides a real-time 3D map of what […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Jan 28, 2014 -
Girls Interrupted: Juliet Lammers and Lorraine Price on Last Woman Standing
When I met Canadian director Juliet Lammers during the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival – where we served together on a sprawling panel – her film Last Woman Standing, which made the Hot Docs 2013 Netflix Audience Award top five, wasn’t even on my radar. But it certainly should have been. Co-directed by Lammers and Lorraine Price, Last Woman Standing is more than a riveting sports flick (though it’s that as well). Unique in approach, the doc focuses just as much on the relationship rift between Ariane Fortin and Mary Spencer, two of the world’s best boxers, as it does […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jan 27, 2014 -
Park City Critic’s Notes #5: Short Shrift
There were movies. Some, like New York Times film critic (and my fellow SUNY Purchase Film alum) Manohla Dargis, said there were too many — even before she saw any of them. Sales, at least during the festival, weren’t robust; perhaps some of the weary execs, including a couple she overheard dishing on their inability to sit through American Hustle while in line for a theater, are taking her advice and sitting on their pocketbooks. Perhaps we’ll find some of these movies on VUDU or Seed&Spark or NoBudge. Maybe someone will tap an unexpected and unforeseen audience outside of the […]
by Brandon Harris on Jan 26, 2014 -
Why Didn’t Shane Carruth Change the Distribution Paradigm for this Year’s Sundance Filmmakers?
While many Sundance filmmakers last year this time were nervously awaiting distribution deals, one had done something completely different. Upstream Color director Shane Carruth entered the festival with a DIY distribution plan already in place. He partnered with Sundance Artists Services’s Joseph Beyer and distribution consultant Michael Tuckman, devised a theatrical campaign and swift VOD rollout, and was already at work on merch for the large fan base eager for the follow-up to his cult classic Primer. Carruth and his team pre-screened the film for journalists, including Filmmaker, and, we responded by endorsing both the movie and its distribution paradigm, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 25, 2014 -
Dance on Camera: Organizing a Dance Film Series
While much of the indie film community’s attention remains on Park City, there’s more than enough going on elsewhere to keep filmmakers and art lovers busy. Foremost among such events is the Dance on Camera film series, co-presented by Film Society of Lincoln Center and Dance Films Association and held from January 31 – February 4. Dance films date back at least to Edison’s very first Vitascope exhibition in April 1896 and have been a mainstay of popular and arthouse cinema ever since, from Loie Fuller through Gene Kelly, Maya Deren, and the work of hundreds of choreographers, film directors, and documentarians today. DFA […]
by Randy Astle on Jan 24, 2014 -
2014 Slamdance Award Winners
Yesterday, Slamdance announced its jury, audience and special award winners for its 20th anniversary festival. The jury award for Best Narrative Feature went to Rezeta, the story of a Kosovan model’s trip to Mexico City, while Elliot, which follows the eponymous Elliot “White Lightning” Scott, intent on becoming Canada’s first action hero, scooped up the Best Documentary Feature prize. The winners, perhaps suggestively, received $5,000 in film from Kodak, in addition to $3,500 in legal services. The audience awards went to Copenhagen for Narrative Feature, and Kidnapped for Christ for Documentary Feature. See the full list of winners below. AUDIENCE AWARDS Audience Award for Documentary Feature: Kidnapped […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Jan 24, 2014 -
Why the Zellner Brothers’ Kumiko is The Perfect Allegory for Independent Filmmaking
Warning! This piece contains major spoilers for David and Nathan Zellner’s wonderful new film, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter. If you’ve yet to catch Kumiko (which premiered earlier this week at Sundance), read on at your own risk. Tuesday night at Sundance’s annual short filmmaking awards (held, as all great award ceremonies are, at a bowling alley), David and Nathan Zellner delivered something of an impromptu keynote about the many joys and headaches of independent filmmaking. The brothers, who have had nearly half a dozen films at the festival over the years – as well as three features – talked about […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Jan 24, 2014 -
Jonathan Harris Peeks Inside the Lesbian Porn Industry in I Love Your Work
A three-time Webby Award winner and a 2009 World Economic Forum “Young Global Leader,” who has exhibited at MoMA and built the world’s largest time capsule with Yahoo!, Jonathan Harris can now add the firestarters IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling – for his latest interactive project I Love Your Work – to his esteemed CV. In it Harris invites us on an online journey not to the Arctic Ocean with Alaskan Eskimos – as he did in his previous piece, The Whale Hunt – but into the lives of nine women residing in a much hotter climate, that of the […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jan 23, 2014
