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Philip Rabalais
“I’m haunted by this question of, ‘Is my work experimental, or is it narrative?’” says Philip Rabalais. “But I also find a lot of energy in this.” Take his latest short, Moonroof, which begins as though a more sedate Beavis and Butthead were transplanted into a seat-POV-restricted variation on James Benning’s Ten Skies. Two heard but not seen male voices look out while asking each other a series of tenuous A-or-B questions (“Would you rather be a car or a very deep hole?”), their gaze restricted to the titular portal. For the lysergic finale, that moonroof unexpectedly detaches itself from […]
by Emily Huse on Sep 18, 2024 -
Annie Ning
Recently, Annie Ning has been digging through photos and videos from her childhood, which was split between her birthplace of Illinois and her parents’ native China. “I have absolutely no memory of this, but there were two years where I guess I really wanted to be a filmmaker,” she says. “I can hear myself on camera yelling ‘action!’ to my friends and explaining how to frame a shot.” About to begin production on a short inspired by her experience at a Chinese international school circa 2008, she’s been using this personal archive as a major reference point. Set “right on […]
by Emily Huse on Sep 18, 2024 -
The Monster You Become: Coralie Fargeat on The Substance
Even for the most callous horror-heads, Coralie Fargeat’s debut feature, Revenge (2017), stunned with its gruesome rape-revenge plot and blunt-force style, announcing the French director as a genre talent on the rise, capable of invoking her cinematic inspirations while departing from them on her own frenzied, feminist terms. The Substance, which won the award for Best Screenplay when it premiered at Cannes earlier this year, somehow cranks up the madness even further, unfolding a dark Hollywood fairytale about aging and feminine beauty standards that stands among the most adventurous in the body horror genre. Demi Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a […]
by Beatrice Loayza on Sep 18, 2024 -
Play by Play: The Making of Hoop Dreams
In 1986, two recent college graduates in film from Southern Illinois University, Steve James and Fred (later Frederick) Marx, walked in the door. To them, Kartemquin was mecca. At the new, student-run Big Muddy Film Festival, Jerry Blumenthal had been an early presenter and judge alongside experimental filmmaker James Benning and Jim Jarmusch. He had shown Taylor Chain II and The Last Pullman Car. “I remember watching The Last Pullman Car and feeling, ‘Wow, this is really good!’” recalled James. “It lodged in my mind that Kartemquin was really interesting. And Jerry was very impressive—classic Jerry, thoughtful and funny and […]
by Patricia Aufderheide on Sep 18, 2024 -
Streaming 3D on the Apple Vision Pro
In the first week of January, I received an email from a programming manager at MUBI—arguably, the leading global streaming platform for arthouse and independent cinema—telling me that the company was working on a new project that would allow it to present stereoscopic (3D) films on its service in the immediate future and asking about the availability of my films’ materials and SVOD rights. Intrigued and perplexed, I verified that I had the rights to all of my solo projects and told MUBI it could include whatever it wanted. A week later, MUBI licensed non-exclusive U.S. and Canadian streaming rights […]
by Blake Williams on Sep 18, 2024 -
History Repeats the Old Conceits: Johan Grimonprez on Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, by Belgian artist and filmmaker Johan Grimonprez, is an essay film of many dimensions: the high tensions of the Cold War, the activism of the Black Civil Rights movement in America and its solidarity with the independence movements that were sweeping across Africa, the power grab between the East and West for control over minerals and resources in the Congo and the relentless espionage attempts to undermine those efforts, including the CIA sending jazz ambassadors to covertly gain intelligence. Plunging viewers into the historical events surrounding Congolese National Movement leader Patrice Lumumba’s leadership and assassination […]
by Christina Zachariades on Sep 18, 2024 -
Waste Not: The Green School Alliance
Like many film school instructors, Kent Hayward, an associate professor of narrative production at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), has also freelanced in the industry. While working on a variety of productions over the years, from Lifetime shows to The Dark Knight, he’s noticed an unfortunate fact. “At the end of the production, when wrap time comes, there is always a mad dash to the dumpster to get rid of everything,” he says, speaking from this year’s University Film and Video Association annual conference, which met at Cleveland State University in early August. “It’s tremendously wasteful to see all […]
by Holly Willis on Sep 18, 2024 -
Claire Read
Shot from the end of 2020 through summer 2023, Penn F-ing Station originated when documentary producer and director Claire Read—raised in lower Manhattan, now a Brooklyn resident, lifelong commuter through the titular transit hub—noticed the structure was starting to be renovated. She wanted to capture it before the changes were finished: “I had some nostalgia and love for this most detested place. Certainly, I’m one of the few people who points a camera at it, because why would you?” The resulting 30-minute vérité documentary depicts Penn Station below ground by documenting the construction and interpolating interview snapshots of average commuters—a […]
by Emily Huse on Sep 18, 2024 -
Ali Vanderkruyk
Beginning with an epigraph from Moby Dick, Ali Vanderkruyk’s experimental short Six Knots takes its title from the nautical speed that (per the guidance of Hawai’i’s Department of Land and Natural Resources) shouldn’t be exceeded within 400 yards of a whale. “Using a metaphor like Moby Dick to ground the project was helpful,” Vanderkruyk says, “not only because it represents an obsession with something you can never reach, but it also is palatable because most people are familiar with the narrative even if you haven’t read the book. By starting with Moby Dick, the audience can understand that it’s about […]
by Emily Huse on Sep 18, 2024 -
Swept Off Her Feet: Sean Baker on Anora
“Tonight, this could be the greatest night of our lives/let’s make a new start/The future is ours to find.” The lyrics of Take That’s 2008 hit “Greatest Day” burst from the soundtrack at the start of Sean Baker’s exhilarating, Palme d’Or–winning eighth feature, Anora. Drew Daniels’ camera tracks across a row of strippers and customers at a Manhattan club before cutting to handheld shots in which one dancer, Anora, or Ani (Mikey Madison), moves from guy to guy, hustling time in the VIP room. (“You don’t have cash? Let’s go to the ATM!”) For the guys, their stacks of twenties […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 18, 2024
