Today, the nonprofit Sundance Institute announced the 35 projects that will receive a total of $1,396,500 in unrestricted grant support through this year’s Sundance Institute Documentary Fund. The grantees are in various stages of production: Five in development, 15 in production, 10 in post-production and 5 actively pursuing audience engagement and social impact campaigns. The Open Society Foundations, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Gucci, the Kendeda Fund and Luminate came together to make this year’s grants possible. 2022 marks the 20th anniversary of the Documentary Film Program (DFP), and the grantees receiving funding this year prove how […]
Can product placement ever transcend advertising? Pepsi’s vintage logo—a comically over-present staple of ’80s and ’90s commercial Hollywood filmmaking—is continuously conspicuous in Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s White Noise. As a period marker, this makes sense: the novel was published in 1985 and the film’s production design places it in the early ’80s. Thematically, it’s obviously relevant: DeLillo’s first-person narrator, J.A.K. Gladney (Adam Driver), regularly has his thoughts interrupted by lines that simply list corporate names or interpolate overheard advertising chatter. DeLillo originally thought of naming the book Panasonic, writing to his editor that “The word ‘panasonic,’ split into its component […]
This week, Netflix’s Blonde and A24’s God’s Creatures head to streaming and theaters, respectively. The digitally-shot Blonde is a highly stylized look at the life of Marilyn Monroe, shifting aspect ratios and alternating between color and monochrome while employing extreme wide angle lenses, body cam mounts, infrared and more to expressionistically convey Monroe’s perspective. God’s Creatures is the antithesis—austere and somber, captured on 35mm, with an observational point of view distanced from the main characters, a mother in a small Irish fishing village whose life crumbles after providing a false alibi for her son. The films do share one thing in common—cinematographer […]
The brackish waves of the Atlantic are a source of livelihood and peril for the inhabitants of a coastal Irish fishing village in God’s Creatures, the directorial work of Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer. Aileen O’Hara (Emily Watson) is the manager of a local fishing plant, tasked with sifting through daily catches of oysters and haddock on a whirring conveyor belt and preparing them for market. She is diligent yet warm, providing a maternal presence for many of her employees, namely young Sarah (Aisling Franciosi, The Nightingale). During an ordinary shift, Aileen and a handful of other employees witness […]
Since the passing in January of Irwin Young, chief mensch at New York’s fabled DuArt Film Lab, there has been an outpouring of tributes and reminiscences, including a packed memorial at Lincoln Center in May. But no tribute has been more on point than “The Process: A Tribute to Robert and Irwin Young,” the Metrograph’s recent 24-film series dedicated to Irwin, the lab’s owner, and older brother, director Robert M. “Bob” Young, for the epic contributions they jointly made to the American indie film scene from the 1960s through the 1990s. For the big screen is precisely where the Young […]
It might have been notching up its 70th birthday, but rather than reminisce about the past San Sebastian continues to focus on new voices, as evidenced by a set of award winners full of up- and-coming talent. Though the festival on Spain’s northern Basque Country coast managed to continue during the pandemic, this year was the first time since 2019 that a real sense of normality resumed. That meant more guests were able to return as restrictions eased—including David Cronenberg and Juliette Binoche, both picking up life-time achievement Donostia Awards—while masks were no longer required in cinemas. Picking up his […]
Founded in 1972, DCTV (Downtown Community Television Center) has the distinction of being one of the rare permanent cinema landmarks in NYC. Housed in a striking firehouse on Lafayette Street in Chinatown, the non-profit media center has long been the one of the most prominent documentary production and film education centers in the country. After a storied legacy of hosting various educational programs, folding-chair screenings, master classes, panel discussions and Chinatown-specific community events, on its 50th anniversary the building will now finally house its own specialized cinema. “We don’t make films for ourselves, we make films for people to see […]
An unwritten rule of public restroom usage is that one should never attempt to strike up a conversation with the person one stall over, and that’s doubly true if the person next to you is an all-powerful god sent down from the cosmos. After a night of grieving and binge-drinking leads to hugging the toilet bowl at a gross rural rest stop, Wes (Ryan Kwanten) finds himself in that scenario when the person in the stall introduces themselves. That person is nothing more than a voice funneled through a gloryhole, but what that voice requests of Wes (and why) raises […]
Unknown Wonders—a Bulgari ad (or, as the fashion house would have it, “brand film”)—was the second sponsor bumper before every public screening at this year’s TIFF. The first time I saw it, the credit “Anne Hathaway” was unsurprising enough, but being followed by one for Zendaya and “A film by Paolo Sorrentino” had a Family Guy mad libs quality. I laughed helplessly and instantly hated it, even though (or especially because) it’s a predictable commercial in which two stars vibe at a luxurious Italian villa. The assignment perfectly fits Sorrentino’s sensibility, down to a peacock entering the frame, and hence partially […]
IBC Show was back in full swing with its familiar multi-day in-person event, with more than 37,000 smiling faces eager to attend the festivities. The Amsterdam gala is like no other trade show in the industry, pinning studios, media entertainment companies, tech innovators, software providers, filmmakers and creators under one roof. You can literally have a meeting with Google or Amazon AWS in the morning, then learn about the latest offerings from Canon, Sony or Avid in the afternoon. Similar to this year’s NAB Show and Cine Gear Expo LA, the future of technology was a buzzy topic on the […]