BMI announced today that veteran music supervisor Tracy McKnight, whose work includes scores of independent films, has been appointed the performance rights organization’s new Vice President, Creative, Film, TV & Visual Media. From the press release: In this role, McKnight will lead the day-to-day functions of the Film, TV & Visual Media department. She will help identify and sign new affiliates to BMI, while continuing to cultivate and nurture relationships with the company’s industry-leading roster of film, TV and visual media composers. McKnight will also help develop programs and events that support career development and provide opportunities to highlight the […]
Watching a documentary on film history, editor Walter Murch was struck by how different cinematographers tended to frame faces in close-ups similarly. “I noticed something peculiar,” he said. “No matter what the film was, the eyes of performers in close-up seemed to float along the same line from shot to shot.” Murch tested his theory by tying a string of knitting yarn across his television screen. Dividing measurements from above and below the line gave him 1.618, a number that represents phi, or the golden ratio. Further measurements of faces in close-ups—from the upper frame edges to hairlines, from chins […]
Watch the trailer for Godland, the third feature from Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason. The film takes place during the late 19th century and follows a young Danish priest as he embarks on a grueling journey through the harsh yet stunning landscape of Iceland to establish a church and photograph the inhabitants of the then-remote Danish territory. In his dispatch out of Cannes last year, Blake Williams expands on the film’s sumptuous visuals and the film’s (albeit fictitious) historical reference: “The film is shot on 35mm and lets you know it by adopting what appears to have been an extremely hands-off […]
To say Guslagie Malanda plays Laurence Coly in Alice Diop’s Saint Omer feels incorrect; she becomes her. It’s a performance that holds such subtle power and authenticity that it’s easy to take it for granted. On this episode, Malanda explains why she turned down countless acting jobs after her first film, My Friend Victoria. She talks about the year-long pre-production period that she needed to prepare for the role, the nightmares that plagued her during that time, the breakthrough of learning to breathe, and much more. Back To One can be found wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, […]
The nonprofit Sundance Institute has announced the 12 projects selected for the Screenwriters Lab and the 10 projects selected for the Screenwriters Intensive for 2023. The fellows come from both the U.S. and abroad, with participants hailing from the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon and Nepal. This year’s projects were chosen from over 2,000 submissions, and the selected fellows will work to develop their scripts with Michelle Satter, Founding Senior Director of Sundance Institute’s Artist Programs, and Ilyse McKimmie, Deputy Director of the Feature Film Program. Lab fellows will develop their projects in-person at the Sundance Mountain Resort from January […]
Over the past decade or so, the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival presented by Halekulani—like any good organization—has been in a state of evolution. Ten to 15 years ago, under the then-leadership of executive director Chuck Boller, it was considered one of the best American festivals to celebrate and discover East Asian populist cinema, with guests lists of Hong Kong icons, Japanese auteurs and Korean superstars that put most other festivals to shame. In the 2010s, it shined through its programming of independent Asian American cinema, providing a platform for voices and visions typically shut out of mainstream media. In recent […]
The primordial fear of being watched, stalked and caught by an unknown entity lurking in the dark is the basis of Skinamarink, the microbudget feature debut from writer-director-editor Kyle Edward Ball. The incredibly loose narrative follows young siblings Kevin (Lucas Paul) and Kaylee (Dali Rose Tetreault) as they patter around their family’s strikingly ordinary middle-class house in the dead of night circa 1995. Their parents are nowhere to be found, all of the doors have mysteriously vanished and the lights eventually stop working. While this phenomena is enough to chill any child, their well-being is most threatened by a supernatural […]
The winners of the 16th annual Cinema Eye Honors Awards, which recognizes excellence in nonfiction filmmaking, were announced last night during an in-person ceremony at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens. All That Breathes, Shaunak Sen’s Cannes-winning documentary, took the top prize in the Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking category as well as nabbing an award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography. Yet Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love took home more wins overall, winning in categories Outstanding Achievement in Editing, Outstanding Achievement in Original Score (by Nicolas Godin of French electro duo Air) and tying with Brett […]
The unexpected (and largely unspoken) challenges of parenthood are rawly probed in Holding Moses, a moving documentary short directed by Rivkah Beth Medow and Jen Rainin. The film follows Randi Rader (Medow is in an open marriage; Rader is her long-term partner), a queer, non-binary dancer and Broadway performer who undergoes a personal reckoning when her son Moses is born with a rare genetic disorder of the 22nd chromosome. Via pre-recorded monologue, Rader shares the difficult journey of digging herself out of a deep depression and learning to love her son unconditionally. The candidness of her emotional trajectory may at […]
SXSW has announced the first wave of film and television programming for its 30th edition. The festival will take place exclusively in-person in Austin, Texas from March 10-19. The festival will open with Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, an adaptation of the popular RPG directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Other noteworthy titles include the Evil Dead Rise, the latest entry in the Sam Raimi-created horror franchise, Problemista, Julio Torres’s directorial debut starring himself and Tilda Swinton and Flamin’ Hot, Eva Longoria‘s doc about the creation of the Frito-Lay snack. “We are thrilled to announce the first wave of […]