The Open Call for the 2013 Karen Schmeer Editing Fellowship has been announced. The fellowship, which comes with a cash prize as well as various mentorship activities, is currently accepting applications and has a deadline of September 28, 2012. From the website: The Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship assists emerging documentary editors by supporting and developing their talent, expanding their creative community, and furthering their career aspirations. In conjunction with American Cinema Editors (ACE) and other partners, the Fellowship, in its third year, offers a wide array of opportunities. The Fellowship is targeted at documentary editors; fiction experience is welcome, […]
Next month, Filmmaker will be partnering with the website Filminute, an annual online short film competition, by hosting five of the 25 one-minute films shortlisted for this year’s contest, which offers both a juried Best Filminute prize and the audience-selected People’s Choice Award. (In previous years, jurors have included District 9 director Neill Blomkamp, writer Michael Ondaatje, Iranian filmmaker Samira Makhmalbaf and Crash director Paul Haggis.) The site is currently accepting entries for this year’s competition, with the submission deadline on August 20, and the entry criteria are as follows: Your film must be 60 seconds – no more, no less. Produce […]
In Everardo González’s Drought, the residents of a barely-there area in northern Mexico called Cuates de Australia (a strange names whose origins even they aren’t sure of) search for water and travel about during the annual drought. The toll it takes on the land, people, and animals is sometimes deadly. A sort of documentary answer to Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring, the film won the nonfiction prize at this year’s L.A. Film Festival and will play at the IFC Center in New York and Laemmle’s NoHo 7 starting this Friday as part of DocuWeeks. Filmmaker spoke to González about the project’s origins, participants, and […]
Studiously researched, It Is No Dream: The Life of Theodore Herzl reveals the life that informed Austro-Hungarian journalist-playwright Theodor Herzl’s creation of the Zionist Movement, which ultimately led to the founding of the state of Israel. Directed by Richard Trank, the film uses Herzl’s diaries and photographs, correspondence and drama, as well as a limited but effective pool of other historical artifacts to recreate the dynamic world of central European Jewry that Herzl sprang from, while explaining the rapid development of his politic cause in a way that will resonate with both laymen and history buffs alike. Narrated by Ben […]
(2 Days in New York world premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and was picked up for distribution by Magnolia Pictures. It is available through various VOD outlets—Amazon, iTunes, etc.—on July 6, 2012, and opens theatrically on August 10, 2012. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.) I’ve been known to knock the French, toodling around on bicycles with their phallic baguettes, vin rouge, and perennial boredom with all things Americain. But is there any way to withstand the Julie Delpy charm offensive? She had me at bonjour in this witty comedy, a sequel to her earlier film 2 Days in Paris. Delpy (who wrote and directed the film) […]
Solitude: It can come from choice, or by default. An unusual number of movies made across South and Central America over the past year have as a central theme the existential state of loneliness, be it operative or merely a hovering threat. In an umbrella culture that honors celebration, music, and gossip, being shunned, marginalized, or discarded is a declaration of non-being, a metaphoric death sentence. Does the stereotype of Latin Americans as gregarious, affable extroverts hold water? The annual Latinbeat exhibition at the Film Society of Lincoln Center (August 10-23), curated by Marcela Goglio and Richard Pena, measures the […]
“In Production” is a regular column which focuses on notable independent films that are currently shooting. Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and Ben Foster (Here) are among the impressive cast members assembled for newcomer David Lowery’s second feature, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. Currently shooting in Shreveport, Louisiana, the drama-thriller has been described as a modern day Bonnie and Clyde. Coming off the success of his short film Pioneer (which got him on Filmmaker‘s “25 New Faces” list in 2011), Lowery developed Ain’t Them Bodies Saints at the Sundance […]
The Locarno Film Festival has carved out a role for itself since Olivier Père took over three years ago, in which it offers the best of all festival worlds. Acting as perhaps the best cross-section of contemporary cinema—or something very close to it—available on the festival circuit, it has often been described as one of the true “cinephilic” fests. Additionally, in order to make this possible, Locarno still needs to be something of a hotspot, and the “glamor” that makes such a reputation possible is also a key component. However, Locarno manages to avoid being an industry-driven media frenzy like […]
Second #6862, 114:22 In an unnervingly comic touch Frank approaches the closet where Jeffrey hides loaded up with his props, which include Dorothy’s blue velvet gown and his gas mask. He is the exterminator now, inhaling his chemicals, approaching Jeffrey and, ominously, the camera. For Frank has seen us, now. The invisible camera has been called out, hailed, interpolated. Frank stares back at us, returning our gaze, just as the bandit, gun in hand, did in Edwin S. Porter’s 1903 film The Great Train Robbery: Out of the shadows he comes, Dorothy’s tortured, neck and wrist bound husband at his […]
Though Aurora Guerrero made Filmmaker magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” list in 2006, the director behind this year’s Sundance-premiering, award-winning Mosquita y Mari – which most recently took both Outstanding First U.S. Dramatic Feature Film, as well as Outstanding Actress in a U.S. Dramatic Feature Film for its lead Fenessa Pineda, at Outfest – was a welcome new face to me when I caught the film earlier this year. A tale of two Chicanas coming of age in working-class L.A., Guerrero’s feature debut is breathtaking in its understatement, less your typical “queer flick” than a continuation of the […]