In Robert Machoian’s The Integrity of Joseph Chambers, insurance salesman Joe (Clayne Crawford) is a kind of oxymoron: a prepper weekend warrior. If most survivalists are steadfastly in it for the long game, larding their basement bunkers with all sorts of durable foodstuffs, solar panel-driven batteries and cartons of Cipro, Joe jumps into the doomer mindset impulsively early one Saturday morning by deciding to hunt a deer. “We need to know how to do this stuff,” he says to his skeptical wife (Jordana Brewster) in their beautiful range-hooded kitchen, before heading out in his jeep, shotgun by his side. Joe’s […]
I love music, and my walks around the world have often been narrated by various artists, mainly American rappers, as they paint stories that detail everyday experiences and color my memories and thoughts. My trip to Cannes as a Gotham Producer’s Network Fellow this year was no different, so please indulge me in the narrative direction my story takes, guided by the songs on my playlist. Nipsey Hussle: “Grinding All My Life/Stuck in the Grind” All my life, been grindin’ all my life, Sacrificed, hustle paid the price, Want a slice? Got to roll the dice, that’s why, all my […]
Five years after upending the gender dynamics of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the Isabelle Huppert-starring Mrs. Hyde, French director Serge Bozon has returned with a modern spin on the legend of Don Juan. Like his early features Mods (2002) and La France (2007), Bozon’s Don Juan is a musical of sorts: characters often break into song—not in joyous expressions of amour fou, but rather in pained soliloquies of regret and heartbreak. Starring Tahar Rahim and Virginie Efira, the film opens with Efira’s Julie no-showing at the couple’s wedding, an act of self-possession that leaves Rahim’s coquettish Laurent, a […]
The Tribeca Festival kicks off today, remaining in its pandemic-motivated June slot while embracing in-person screenings and events. The Godfather, accompanied by a discussion with Al Pacino, is the big retrospective, and among the celebrity-driven live talks is the sold-out conversation between director Mike Mills and Taylor Swift. As usual, for our recommendation list we at Filmmaker have tried to look past the higher-profile events, focusing on independent work by both promising new and established older creators that we’ve strong reason to believe will be worth your while. God’s Time. The feature debut from 25 New Face Daniel Antebi, God’s Time […]
Being a parent and working in the film industry is tough. Being a parent at a film festival, with your child in tow, is another matter. Thanks to a fully supported day care facility in Cannes called The Red Balloon, or Le Ballon Rouge, after Albert Lamorisse’s popular children’s film, I just about conducted “business as usual” on the Croisette. I’m still reeling from this opportunity, as are the other participating parents who continue to converse in a long “parents in Cannes” WhatsApp group chat. Some variation of “I couldn’t have attended Cannes without this service” is the most common […]
Opening with a cast rendition of the 20th Century Fox (now known as Searchlight Pictures) theme that accompanies its logo, Andrew Ahn’s Fire Island finds inspiration in group dynamics. Comedians Joel Kim Booster (Model Minority), Margaret Cho (All-American Girl), and Bowen Yang (Saturday Night Live) lead an ensemble of queer friends on a weekend escape to the titular gay enclave. Although their financial prospects are dim, the tightknit group has lucked out these past few summers, crashing at the pad of their older lesbian friend, Erin (Cho). Something of a den mother, Erin greets her houseguests with “Bitch, I knew […]
Gabe Klinger previously wrote at Filmmaker about the making of his Double Play: James Benning and Richard Linklater (2013), which is now available on the Criterion Channel. Here, he recounts the last nine years of what he describes as “his sometimes uneasy path as a feature filmmaker” and discusses his latest project. — Editor It’s approaching a decade since I shared some anecdotes in these pages about directing my debut feature, Double Play: James Benning and Richard Linklater. Conceived with support from Ciné+ — a French pay TV channel where one of our producers, André S. Labarthe, had a pipeline deal […]
For two weeks I lived within a Cannes-imposed schedule, with every day structured by the bookending options of a new Directors Fortnight title each morning and a new Competition film at night. More importantly, there was the 7 am roll call, when tickets were unlocked online for screenings four days out. This became a relatively smooth process once the functionally unusable press URL initially given for this purpose was changed, but those tickets still went fast. Every day (before the last four days of the festival, when this unloved ritual ceased), my roommates and I would wake up at 6:59, log […]
Critics at Cannes were divided over Triangle of Sadness, some happily going along with its soak-the-rich ride on a yacht, others unmoved by a comic setpiece with wealthy passengers throwing up their oysters. The Competition jury, however, was crystal clear on the matter: director Ruben Östlund joined a select group of two-time Palme d’Or winners, adding this laurel to his previous one for The Square. As he did at the 2017 Cannes closing ceremony, after receiving his award, Östlund lead the audience in a primal scream. This time for the 48-year-old Swede it must felt like a relief as much […]
Researching the life and career of Maria Schneider (The Passenger, Last Tango in Paris) for a larger project, filmmaker Elisabeth Subrin discovered a brief interview the actress gave in 1983 for the French TV show Cinéma Cinéma. It’s a conversation alternately defiant and mournful, with Schneider reflecting with real critical awareness upon the gendered power structures of the film industry as well as the violations she experienced living and working within it — including, in one painful section, on the set of Last Tango in Paris. Subrin used the interview as the basis for a 60-second short that was a part of […]