Open | Filmmaker Magazine

THE 6TH EURASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The sixth edition of the Eurasia International Film Festival (Sept 21-25) in Kazakhstan was a showcase of films from Central Asian and Turkish-speaking countries, but what particularly stood out in its various programs was the strong output of Kazakh films, a result of increasing government and private backing in project development, production and post-production facilities. High above Kazakhstan’s former capital and current cultural center Almaty, construction crews were racing to finish buildings for the 2011 Asian Winter Games in the foothills of the majestic Tien Shan mountain range. A country larger than Europe, Kazakhstan spans the oil-rich coast of the […]

by Thessa Mooij on Nov 16, 2010

“HELENA FROM THE WEDDING”‘S JOE INFANTOLINO

A few characters and a house — it’s one of the most durable movie starting-points, especially for first-time filmmakers. The latest to use the economy and natural dramatic focus of this concept is producer-turned-director Joe Infantolino, whose Helena from the Wedding opens today. Newlyweds Alex and Alice invite another couple for a New Year’s party at their mountain cabin. But when the quite beautiful and very single Helena is added to the mix, relationship fissures ensue. Helena from the Wedding is a deftly directed and very well acted film, a modest yet rewarding debut from Infantolino, whose producer credits include […]

by Scott Macaulay on Nov 12, 2010

AWEDITORIUM AND THE DESIGN OF DISCOVERY

I’ve been checking out a couple of new, much-buzzed about online apps and tools this week — RockMelt and Auditorium. I’ll post my thoughts on RockMelt after I play with it a bit more. As for Aweditorium,, which is free for the iPad, I need to spend more than 20 minutes with it. But my first reaction is that it is kind of cool and also noteworthy for trying to do something different in the music discovery space. In film, we talk a lot about discovery, but this mostly boils down to discussions of social network sharing, recommendation engines, etc. […]

by Scott Macaulay on Nov 11, 2010

ONDI TIMONER, “COOL IT”

Acclaimed documentarian Ondi Timoner has a knack for picking wildly unpredictable subjects and then going all in, detailing the drama of self-destruction from an insider’s vantage point. Both Anton Newcombe, the fiery frontman of cult-rock mainstays The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Josh Harris, dotcom entrepreneur and Internet stunt artist, were brilliant, fascinating personalities dancing along the edge of personal and professional annihilation in Timoner’s previous Sundance Grand Jury Prize–winning films, Dig! (2004) and We Live in Public (2009). So one imagines the intrepid documentarian hunting around for another larger-than-life character to hitch her cameras to, a mad scientist, perhaps, who’s […]

by Damon Smith on Nov 10, 2010

AMAZONAS FILM FESTIVAL: “THIS TEMPLE OF ART”

The 7th annual Amazonas Film Festival Brazil opened last night with a mixture of culture and cinema in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest. The festival kicked off with a screening of Lucy Walker‘s Waste Land, which looks at Brazilian artist Vik Muniz who uses the garbage from a landfill in San Paulo to transform the lives of some of the people who work there. But for those of us who came over from the States it was the setting of the screening that was more eye catching: the Teatro Amazonas, where the opening scene from Fitzcarraldo was shot. One […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Nov 6, 2010

DOHA TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL: LUCKY STARS

So much depends upon… the position in which one reclines. Seated next to me in the elite section of a flight to Doha, Qatar, an Indian financial wizard with rings on each slim finger nodded and looked thoughtfully out the plane window. Across the aisle, Harvey Weinstein, an overstuffed teddy bear in Qatar Airways pajamas, turned another page of “My Week with Marilyn” and growled for the stewardess. Upon touchdown, a phalanx of young stewards ushered a group of remarkably well-rested travelers into private cars and whisked us away to the second annual Doha Tribeca Film Festival. Could any film […]

by Livia Bloom Ingram on Nov 5, 2010

A Talk with Red Hill Director Patrick Hughes

Starring True Blood‘s Ryan Kwanten, Red Hill is a suspenseful modern-day Western that uses Australia’s dramatic and vast landscapes to stage a drama of frontier justice with an antagonist right out of Halloween-style horror film. Kwanten plays a city cop assigned to a small outback town where he intends to raise a baby with his very pregnant wife. But his move coincides with the escape of Jimmy Conway (Tom E. Lewis) from the local jail. The indigenous Jimmy was wronged years ago, and his brand of frontier justice consists of non-stop mayhem. In my conversation with Hughes, he spoke about […]

by Scott Macaulay on Nov 4, 2010

DAMIEN CHAZELLE, “GUY & MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH”

Damien Chazelle’s Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench is a throw back and perhaps a harbinger of things to come, a bebop tinged DIY mumblemusical that, despite its New Wavesque 16mm B&W aesthetic, is very much a movie of this time and moment. It concerns a relatively young, black and talented trumpet player named Guy and his would be, perhaps still his lover, a white grad student named Madeline (the oddly alluring Desiree Garcia). Played by real life Boston jazz scene leading light Jason Palmer, Guy engages in a series of pseudo-romances, bemoans the marginality of the relatively esoteric Jazz […]

by Brandon Harris on Nov 3, 2010

“WO AI NI MOMMY” AT STRANGER THAN FICTION

While introducing Wo Ai Ni Mommy (I Love You Mommy) at last night’s Stranger Than Fiction, programmer Thom Powers thanked the Sadowsky family for allowing director Stephanie Wang-Breal to document their experiences adopting an eight-year-old girl from China, pointing out that “it’s not an easy thing to let a camera into your life.” Startlingly intimate, Wo Ai Ni Mommy follows the Sadowsky family as they struggle to incorporate their new daughter, who speaks no English, into their family. When the girl, Faith, demands to know why her parents would even want a Chinese daughter, her parents are shocked that multiculturalism is a concept […]

by Mary Anderson Casavant on Nov 3, 2010

VOTE NOW FOR FIRST-EVER GOTHAM AUDIENCE AWARD

Voting is currently underway for the Gotham Independent Film Awards‘ first-ever Festival Genius Audience Award. The IFP and Slated have complied 26 titles from 50 U.S. and Canadian film festivals that will vie for the award, which will be announced during the Gotham Awards on November 29. They include Winter’s Bone, Fair Game, Waiting for ‘Superman’, Waste Land, The New Year and happythankyoumoreplease, to name a few. Voting for the five nominees of the award will close Nov. 7, then voting for the winner will open Nov. 9 and end the night of the event. And by voting you will […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Nov 2, 2010

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