Open | Filmmaker Magazine

Elissa Down, The Black Balloon

LUKE FORD AND RHYS WAKEFIELD IN WRITER-DIRECTOR ELISSA DOWN’S THE BLACK BALLOON. COURTESY NEOCLASSICS FILMS. Since she was very young, Elissa Down has been honing her skills as a director. Admittedly, it wasn’t strictly conscious when she was writing, acting in and masterminding little drama projects as a kid growing up in Australia, or bossing her parents around when they were reading her bedtime stories. However, her vocation as a filmmaker became ever clearer as she grew older and by the time she was a film and television student at Perth’s Curtin University, she had her eye on cinematic success. […]

by Nick Dawson on Dec 5, 2008

SUNDANCE PREMIERES, SPECTRUM, FRONTIER AND MIDNIGHT

Sundance has just released the remaining titles for this year’s festival. There are a lot of movies I’m excited to see on the list. I’ll write more about them in the next few days, but, for now, here’s the official spam: PREMIERES500 Days of Summer / USA. (Director: Marc Webb; Screenwriters: Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber)—When an unlucky greeting card copywriter is dumped by his girlfriend, the hopeless romantic shifts back and forth through various periods of their 500 days ‘together’ in hopes of figuring out where things went wrong. Cast: Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. World Premiere Adventureland / USA […]

by Scott Macaulay on Dec 4, 2008

GOTHAM LIVEBLOGGING

The evening has just kicked off at Cipriani’s in Wall Street following cocktails at the perhaps appropriately named Museum of Finance across the street. Terrence Howard opened with a performance on acoustic guitar, Michelle Byrd gave her opening remarks and intro’d Aasif Mandvi, the host. (Culinary note: Our table was split on the identity of the opening course, with most calling it an omelette, some calling it a pizza, and others just saying it was pasta.) Mandvi quipped that Jon Stewart was originally asked to host but that he outsourced the gig to him. The first award is Filmmaker‘s award, […]

by Scott Macaulay on Dec 2, 2008

A SUNDAY AFTERNOON WITH THE GOTHAM BREAKTHROUGH DIRECTORS

I moderated a panel this rainy Sunday afternoon in New York with the five nominees for the Gotham Breakthrough Director Award: Lance Hammer (Ballast), Dennis Dortch (A Good Day to be Black and Sexy), Barry Jenkins (Medicine for Melancholy), Antonio Campos (Afterschool) and Alex Rivera (Sleep Dealer). I’m not a big fan of reading (and writing) panel conversation blow-by-blows, but it was a good talk and some interesting contrasts and comparisons between the directors emerged during the conversation. I’ll note them here. 1. Independent films can take a long time to make. Four out of the five directors spend several […]

by Scott Macaulay on Nov 30, 2008

TOP 100 CRIME FILMS

The people who run the Masters of Criminal Justice website, which provides “valuable resources to help you make a career transition into criminal justice or to advance your current criminal justice career,” like lists. On the site now are the “100 Best Open Source Security Tools” and “DIY Home Security: 100 Essential Tips, Tools and Resources.” There is also the site’s picks for the “100 Top Crime Movies of All Time.” A lot of the expected classics are there — The Godfather, Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction — but what’s interesting is that the list is broken down by sub-genre. The Matrix, […]

by Scott Macaulay on Nov 26, 2008

HARVEY MILK AT 575 CASTRO STREET

New on the FilmInFocus site is “575 Castro Street,” a short film by San Francisco filmmaker Jenni Olson (The Joy of Life). The film contains images shot on the set of Gus Van Sant’s film over which audio from the real Harvey Milk is played. Excerpted from her director’s statement, which can be read in full at the link above: The visuals of 575 Castro St. (the play of light and shadow upon the walls of the Castro Camera set for Gus Van Sant’s Milk) harken back to those gay short films of the ‘70s: The films that passed through […]

by Scott Macaulay on Nov 25, 2008

Director Catherine Hardwicke on Twilight

All of Catherine Hardwicke’s four feature films – Thirteen, The Lords of Dogtown, The Nativity Story and now Twilight – have been about teenagers. They have also all been about real people, and all but Thirteen cover stories and characters already known to the public. Twilight is a teen vampire love story based faithfully on the Stephanie Meyer’s book trilogy, starring Kristen Stewart as the human Bella and Robert Pattison as the “vegetarian” vampire Edward Cullen who loves her too much to bite her. The books are coveted and obsessed over by young girls across this country, who are assembling in […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Nov 21, 2008

Ellen Kuras, The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)

THAVISOUK PHRASAVATH AND ORADY PHRASAVATH IN DIRECTOR ELLEN KURAS’ THE BETRAYAL (NERAKHOON). COURTESY CINEMA GUILD. Since she first came to prominence almost twenty years ago, Ellen Kuras has established herself as one of the most talented directors of photography working today. Film was not Kuras’ primary focus when she was younger; the New Jersey native initially attended Brown to study anthropology but became interested in photography after taking a class at the nearby Rhode Island School of Design. Though she won a Fulbright Scholarship to go to the esteemed Lodz Film Academy, Kuras instead began working in film, taking numerous […]

by Nick Dawson on Nov 21, 2008

"BEST FILM NOT PLAYING" LAUNCHES WITH SITA SINGS THE BLUES

Beginning this week, on November 20, Filmmaker’s annual collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art and the IFP, the “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You,” unfolds at the museum. Five films we think are among the best that played this past year’s festival circuit and which don’t have, at the moment, distribution will be screened, and there will also be Q&A’s and a panel discussion as well. Thursday night’s opening film is Nina Paley’s wonderful and near-indescribable animated feature, Sita Sings the Blues. Here’s how we describe it in the catalog: Written, directed, and animated by Nina […]

by Scott Macaulay on Nov 17, 2008

NEW MTV INTERNET CHANNEL SHOWS… MUSIC VIDEOS

Okay, I’m a week or two late to the party, but I just came across MTV Music, a new website, in beta, from MTV that streams music videos. For younger readers, a music video — formerly called, in the pre-music-video days, a “promo,” or a “clip” — is a short film or staged musical performance set to a pop song and usually featuring as performers the singer and musicians of that song. MTV used to show them, and for those of us who remember the launch of the channel, music videos once seemed new, interesting, and even culturally relevant. Creative […]

by Scott Macaulay on Nov 11, 2008

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