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IDFA 2024: Winners and Winners
This year’s IDFA (November 14-24) starred Polish filmmaker Maciej J. Drygas’s Trains, a cinematic ride through 20th century industrial revolution-propelled European history via a trove of archival found footage; it unanimously nabbed Best Film in the International Competition. And while the doc is undoubtedly a tour de force of editing and sound design (unsurprisingly, it also took Best Editing in the International Competition), not to mention hypnotically reminiscent of the work of Bill Morrison, it was actually the other B&W archival-heavy film in that section that I just couldn’t shake. Dutch director Luuk Bouwman’s The Propagandist (which did receive the IDFA Award for […]
by Lauren Wissot on Nov 26, 2024 -
“All That Exists is the Illusion that We’re Creating in this Frame.” The Seventh Annual Kevin Corrigan Episode
In this time of the year when traditions give us a sense of comfort and repetition that we need, especially in these volatile days, Back To One has a tradition of its own—the annual Kevin Corrigan episode! The patron saint of the indie film actor was the first guest on this podcast and he has returned every year since, telling hilarious stories from his adventures in the acting world, waxing about Brando, Walken, Scorsese, expounding on music, philosophizing about life in general. These episodes have become listener favorites. In this installment, Corrigan talks about shooting a scene recently where his […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Nov 26, 2024 -
“I Became Obsessed with the Idea that All Great Art Contains the Life Force of the Artist…”: Director Rachel Elizabeth Seed on A Photographic Memory
Filmmaker Rachel Elizabeth Seed’s photographer mother Sheila Turner Seed died when she was just 18 months old, before specific memories could take hold — an absence that structures doc producer-turned-director Seed’s True/False, Hot Docs and DOC NYC-playing A Photographic Memory, which I caught at the Woodstock Film Festival. From the outset, the documentary is an archive-based biographical detective movie of sorts, following Seed over the years in which she learns about her mother by reconstructing the biography of her professional life. This work includes not only her own photography but a 1970s interview series, Images of Man, she produced with […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 24, 2024 -
“You Can’t Tell the Story of America Without a Theft”: Malcolm Washington on The Piano Lesson
Set in 1936, The Piano Lesson—the fourth chronological entry in playwright August Wilson’s ten-play Century Cycle—is both a family drama and a ghost story. The titular musical instrument sits in the living room of Doaker Charles (Samuel L. Jackson), who lives in Pittsburgh’s Hill District with his adult niece Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler) and her young daughter Maretha (Skylar Aleece Smith). As the story opens, Berniece’s brother Boy Willie (John David Washington) and his friend Lymon (Ray Fisher) have arrived at the Charles House from Mississippi, looking to sell a truckload of watermelons they’ve brought from their home state. Once inside […]
by Erik Luers on Nov 22, 2024 -
Will & Harper and the Netflix Effect
Every Tuesday Tyler Coates publishes his new Filmmaker newsletter, Considerations, devoted to the awards race. To receive it early and in your in-box, subscribe here. At this year’s 35th annual Producers Guild Awards (which took place on Feb. 25, two weeks before the March 3 Oscars), Netflix’s American Symphony took the prize for best documentary feature. The Matthew Heineman-directed film followed musician Jon Batiste’s meteoric year in which he won five Grammys (including album of the year) and premiered a new composition at Carnegie Hall—all while his wife, journalist and artist Suleika Jaouad, fought a rare form of leukemia. One […]
by Tyler Coates on Nov 22, 2024 -
“The Film Is Not About AI, Not About Werner Herzog, and Never Aimed To Embrace AI Technology”: Piotr Winiewicz on His IDFA Opening Night Doc About a Hero
Piotr Winiewicz’s About a Hero is as mindbogglingly complex as its eye-catching logline is simple: “A murder mystery – unwittingly starring Werner Herzog.” More precisely, the Polish filmmaker’s doc is actually an adaptation of a script in which the aforementioned cinematic maverick travels to the fictional Getunkirchenburg to investigate the strange death of a local factory worker named Dorem Clery. Even stranger, that screenplay was written by “Kaspar” (as in Kaspar Hauser), an AI trained on the Herzog oeuvre. With a look inspired by the work of German photographer Thomas Demand, the film, shot mostly across northern Germany, also features […]
by Lauren Wissot on Nov 21, 2024 -
Zendaya to Receive Spotlight Tribute at the 2024 Gotham Awards
The Gotham Film & Media Institute, Filmmaker‘s publisher, announced today in a press release that Emmy Award-winner Zendaya will receive the Spotlight Tribute for her performance as Tashi Donaldson in the Luca Guadagnino-directed film Challengers, at the 34th edition of The Gothams, taking place Monday, December 2, 2024 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. From the Gotham: The Spotlight Tribute was created by The Gotham in order to recognize phenomenal efforts by individuals in film and television who captivated global audiences with the biggest projects of the year. With the Spotlight Tribute, The Gotham will honor Zendaya’s remarkable […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Nov 20, 2024 -
“I Grow as I Make a Film”: Nanfu Wang on Her HBO Documentary, Night Is Not Eternal
It’s a bit surprising to think that when I last interviewed Nanfu Wang it was for her six-part HBO docuseries Mind Over Murder, which revisited an infamous case of justice gone haywire in a small town in Nebraska back in the 1980s. Which, in terms of subject matter, is a far cry from this year’s followup (also for HBO). Night Is Not Eternal is a deep character study, a format the acclaimed director has long embraced, that charts the rise of Rosa Maria Paya, daughter of Oswaldo Paya, a five-time Nobel Peace Prize-nominated activist assassinated by the Cuban government in 2012. […]
by Lauren Wissot on Nov 20, 2024 -
Everything That Will Happen Has Already Happened (Or Why I Still Make Independent Ultra-Low-Budget Films in a Time of Media Oversaturation)
I’ve been making films for many years now, at the unusual intersection of US independent and East-European cinema, and teaching at a university in New York. When COVID hit, it made me re-evaluate everything I was doing. I stopped the projects I was working on as they seemed superfluous in that reality. To me, the global response to the pandemic demonstrated like nothing before the shocking inability of international and national institutions to cooperate and deal efficiently and equitably with a planetary crisis. And now, it almost seems as if nothing had happened; it’s just “business as usual.” But it’s […]
by Vladan Nikolic on Nov 19, 2024 -
IDA Documentary Awards Announce Nominees
Today, the IDA announced the nominees for the 40th IDA Documentary Awards. The show will be held on December 5th and hosted by actor and comedian Adam Conover. From the press release: Adam Conover to Host the 40th IDA Documentary Awards The Awards Ceremony will be hosted by actor, comedian, and writer Adam Conover on December 5, 2024, 7:00 PM PT / 10:00 PM ET at The Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles and streamed live documentary.org and simultaneously on IDA YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram channels. Learn more about the nominees and get your tickets for the ceremony at documentary.org/awards2024 The […]
by Emily Huse on Nov 19, 2024
