Open | Filmmaker Magazine

CAN INDIE DIRECTORS EVER REALLY ROCK OUT?

Producer Ted Hope sent in the below rumination on indie film and rock music for the blog. It was presumably prompted by two projects. Hope produced Hal Hartley’s latest, Fay Grim, which opened this weekend. As Hope notes, Hartley has made a “true rock gesture” in all of his films; he’s a director who seems to follow current music, incorporate it into his films, and, through his forays into music video, actively approach it on its own terms.. Also, this week Hope announced The Passenger an Iggy Pop bio-pic set to be directed by Nick Gomez and star Elijah Wood […]

by Scott Macaulay on May 20, 2007

GRIM TIMES

If you’re used to checking out this blog and not the main page, surf over there for Nick Dawson’s interview with Hal Hartley, whose Fay Grim opens today. An excerpt: I’m one of those people who doesn’t think the world has changed any at all since 9/11. It just seemed to be almost inevitable, something like that. That’s one of the reasons why the backstory of Fay Grim goes all the way back into the ’80s. I was trying to sketch out the continuity of all this hanky-panky between the security agencies of the world. I think you’re right in […]

by Scott Macaulay on May 18, 2007

FLAVORFUL

Over at the main page check out Howard Feinstein’s just-posted interview with Wong Kar-wai about his My Blueberry Nights, the opening night film at Cannes.

by Scott Macaulay on May 16, 2007

Cannes ’07: Wong Kar-wai on My Blueberry Nights

It’s a rainy mid-day in late August — the wetness welcome, following an intolerably hot week, even by New York City summer standards. At night during that unpleasant spell the postmodern auteur Wong Kar-wai — the master of lush visuals and unpredictable soundtracks, the absolute perfectionist concerned with memory, loss, loneliness, and the subjectivity of time — had been shooting scenes downtown on the West Side of Manhattan, on SoHo’s funky Grand Street, for My Blueberry Nights, his first movie in English and the out-of-competition opening night presentation at this year’s Cannes Film Festival (The Weinstein Company will release the […]

by Jason Guerrasio on May 15, 2007

THE WRITING ON THE WALL

Below I blogged about the L.A. Weekly piece, “Double Cross at the WGA,” which was an explosive account of the Writer’s Guild of America’s policy of collecting and not always paying foreign levies on behalf of member and non-member writers. It’s a complicated story but well worth following for several reasons, not the least of which is what it says about our current and possibly future system of copyright. Now there’s more on the story. Stefan Avalos has written a long and nuanced piece about the scandal at Fade In Online. (The story begins on the website’s front page and […]

by Scott Macaulay on May 12, 2007

Christoffer Boe, Allegro

ULRICH THOMSEN IN CHRISTOFFER BOE’S ALLEGRO. COURTESY INTERNATIONAL FILM CIRCUIT. Christoffer Boe likes Cannes. After graduating from the Danish Film School in 2001, his student film Anxiety played at the 2002 festival, where it won a prize from French critics, and then Boe returned to the Croisette the following year with his debut feature, Reconstruction. A dazzlingly inventive and playful film, Reconstruction‘s tale of love and parallel universes in Copenhagen beguiled critics and was awarded both the Camera D’Or and the Prix Regards Jeune. Boe was celebrated as international cinema’s most precocious wunderkind, and his film played all around the […]

by Nick Dawson on May 9, 2007

Oren Rudavski, The Treatment

IAN HOLM AND CHRIS EIGEMAN IN OREN RUDAVSKY’S THE TREATMENT. COURTESY NEW YORKER FILMS. After studying at Oberlin College and NYU Film School, director and cinematographer Oren Rudavsky carved out a niche for himself in filmmaking: if you have seen a documentary about Judaism made in the last 20 years, most likely Rudavsky was involved in it. He has made numerous documentaries for television, many of them Jewish-themed, and has recently graduated to making documentary features, with notable success. The highly-praised A Life Apart (1997), an examination of the Hasidic lifestyle in America co-directed by Rudavsky with Menachem Daum (and […]

by Nick Dawson on May 4, 2007

ORPHANS SCREENS IN MEMORY OF LILY WHEELWRIGHT

Sad news that arrived shortly after this year’s SXSW Film Festival was the sudden death of actress Lily Wheelwright, who starred in Ry Russo-Young’s Orphans. Wheelwright gave a tough and honest performance in the film, which won a Special Jury Prize at the fest. Here’s what writer/director Andrew Bujalski had to say about the movie: “A sensitive & peculiar pastoral, Orphans manages to derive as much compelling energy from its locations & spaces (of the wide open & claustrophobic variety alike) as from its two terrific lead actresses, a rarity these digital days. The film will receive a special screening […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 28, 2007

Ray Lawrence, Jindabyne

GABRIEL BYRNE AND LAURA LINNEY IN RAY LAWRENCE’S JINDABYNE. COURTESY SONY PICTURES CLASSICS. Ray Lawrence pulled one of world cinema’s most surprising disappearing acts. His debut film, Bliss (1985), an adaptation of Peter Carey’s novel co-written by Lawrence and Carey himself, played in competition at Cannes, garnered rave reviews and dominated the Australian film awards. Lawrence joined Peter Weir, Fred Schepisi and Bruce Beresford as an Australian director worthy of global attention – but then did not make another film for 16 years. However, when his sophomore effort, Lantana, finally came out in 2001, it cemented Lawrence as one of […]

by Nick Dawson on Apr 27, 2007

JAMAN BRINGS TRIBECA TO YOUR DESKTOP

Adam Dawtrey in Variety has a piece up today noting that digital download service Jaman is offering for free download six films screening at the Tribeca Film Festival. From the piece: Under the pact with Tribeca, six films screening at this year’s fest, which opens Wednesday, will be offered simultaneously for free download by users anywhere in the world for a period of seven days. Deal is believed to mark the first time a major festival will have given online exposure to part of its full-length feature program at the same time the movies unspool at the fest…. The six […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 26, 2007

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