Jacob Perlmutter and Manon Ouimet’s Two Strangers Trying Not To Kill Each Other is as breathtakingly understated as its title is arresting. The doc, which picked up a Special Mention: DOX:AWARD when it world-premiered at CPH:DOX last March, stars the celebrated and prolific photographer Joel Meyerowitz (a two-time Guggenheim Fellow and NEA and NEH awards recipient with 50-plus books and over 350 museum and gallery exhibitions to his credit) and his less famous partner of 30 years, the British artist-musician-novelist Maggie Barrett. It’s also an up close and personal (literally — the filmmaker couple lived with their protagonists during production) […]
The somber existence of a reclusive electronic musician is the focus of Allen Sunshine, the feature debut of 25-year-old Harley Chamandy. The eponymous character (played by Vincent Leclerc) resides in a charming lakeside cabin in Quebec, yet the idyllic nature of his surroundings is tempered by inconsolable grief over his wife’s recent death. As a big-name musical talent in her own right, the solitary Allen is pained by the fact that his grief is not just his own; though he deeply adored her and produced most of her music, it’s clear that fans, both rabid and casual alike, feel equally […]
In 2015 I directed my first feature. It would be six years before I was able to direct my second. But once I had completed the first draft of that script, we had the film in the can within six months. It was a breakneck pace making Long December, a Christmas-set musical drama about a singer/songwriter chasing his dreams of stardom. Its process was complicated further by my choice to not only fill the story with musical numbers performed by the cast but to capture those performances live on-camera — with no lip-syncing or back-tracking. Pulling it off took a […]
Jack Dunphy is a writer, filmmaker, animator, actor and podcaster. His shorts have played in festivals around the world and his latest, Bob’s Funeral, won Best Nonfiction Short Film at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. As an actor, he starred in Peter Vack’s Assholes and Caveh Zahedi’s legendary, unfinished, 24-hour retelling of Joyce’s Ulysses. He can soon be seen in Paradise and Lunch, the new film from Jordan Tetwesky and Joshua Pikovsky, and Anything That Moves from Alex Phillips. His wonderful new podcast, Revelations with Jack Dunphy, in which he talks about his struggles with addiction and mental illness with […]
Shot and set in Gravesend, a town in Kent, England, Andrea Arnold’s new film Bird, starring newcomer Nykiya Adams alongside Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski, is a portrait of a young girl coming of age under chaotic circumstances. Twelve-year-old Bailey, played brilliantly by Adams, is bound by poverty and a dearth of options to her unstable father, Bug (Keoghan); she seeks solace in whatever independence she can find. When a mysterious stranger (Rogowski) appears on her doorstep, an uncanny bond is formed between them, altering the course of her life. Bird is currently in theaters from MUBI. Filmmaker: Your narrative […]
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. Here we are, on Election Day — or, if you didn’t prioritize reading this newsletter on Tuesday, Election Week — and there’s no better distraction from the realities of the world and its discontents than the movies. Or, at least that’s what I’m telling myself. If your election anxiety was triggered in the middle of Focus Features’ Conclave, you’re not alone. I’m very curious to see how that movie in particular will be received post-election, […]
A chance encounter with a teenage Lothario who thought she was still in high school inspired Zoë Eisenberg to begin writing her solo directorial debut, Chaperone, which premiered at the 2024 Slamdance Film Festival and won the Breakouts Grand Jury Prize. “When I was 29, a 17-year-old boy mistook me for a teenager and asked me out to a party,” Eisenberg recalls. “While I declined, I couldn’t help but wonder: what kind of woman would have gone to that party? From there, the questions grew. What happens when a woman chooses not to pursue career or motherhood, the two narrow […]
A historical action-epic set in a 1790’s Hawai’i rift of inter-island warfare, Gerard Elmore and Mitchel Merrick’s 26-minute short Kūkini boasts kinetic chase scenes and battle sequences combined with a rigorous attention to cultural accuracy and practice: In addition to consulting with Native Hawaiian practitioners and historians, Elmore and Merrick filmed it entirely in ʻŌlelo Hawai’i, the indigenous language of Hawai’i. In addition to being a director, producer, editor and cinematographer, Elmore is one of the creators and leads of the ‘Ohina Film Labs and Showcase, one of the biggest forces giving opportunities to filmmakers in Hawai’i (a 2023 count […]
Hometown premieres of several long-anticipated local films galvanized this year’s edition of the Hawai’i International Film Festival (HIFF), now in its 44th year. Last year, fewer films debuted due to pandemic shooting delays; “just wait until 2024” was the common refrain. But now, 2024 is here, and those awaited works have finally arrived. Showcasing the rising talents of the region’s film scene and its sheer diversity of topics and genres, films played to not only sold-out houses, but often to two or three sold-out houses simultaneously—the festival had to keep adding screenings to keep up with demand. HIFF’s decision to […]
I first learned of Alika Tengan (then Alika Maikau) when his short Mauka to Makai (co-directed with Jonah Okano) screened at the 2018 Hawai’i International Film Festival, where I was a member of the Made in Hawai’i jury. The film’s naturalism, commitment to its characters and refusal of easy melodrama demonstrated a maturity far beyond the young filmmaker’s age; our jury gave it the Best Film award. It turned out to be just the first of several Made in Hawai’i Best Film awards for Tengan; he also won for his 2019 short Molokai’i Bound, and this year won it again […]