6582 Results for “production”
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“A Cautionary Tale, Born of My Own Fears of Making an Impossible Choice…”: Kristi Hoi on Her Student Short Film Showcase Short, No Law, No Heaven
Poignant and with astonishing visual style, No Law, No Heaven is a decades-spanning drama about love and regret set within Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City by University of California, Los Angeles graduate film student Kristi Hoi. It’s one of five winners of the 2020-21 Student Short Film Showcase, a collaborative program from The Gotham, Focus Features, Jet Blue and the Westridge Foundation, currently available for viewing via Focus Features’s YouTube channel as well as in the air, on Jet Blue’s in-flight entertainment system. Consisting of three sequences, No Law, No Heaven features the same character as he ages from being […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 1, 2021 -
A Whole Other Toolbox: Theater Director Bartlett Sher on Making his First Feature, Oslo
One of the most impressive directing debuts I’ve seen this year is Bartlett Sher’s clear, concise and extremely moving drama Oslo, a movie that distills complex themes and conflicts into a remarkably accessible and riveting political suspense film. Adapting his own Tony Award-winning play, screenwriter J.T. Rogers tells the true story of the secret back-channel talks and unlikely friendships between a small group of Israelis, Palestinians, and a Norwegian couple acting as facilitators that led to the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords. The script is a model of elegant structure, weaving precise journalistic details into a sophisticated ensemble character study in […]
by Jim Hemphill on Jun 1, 2021 -
“I Tell [the Audience] the Truth and Allow Them to Lie to Themselves”: Derek DelGaudio on His Frank Oz-Directed One-Man Show, In and Of Itself
The following piece contains mild spoilers for Derek DelGaudio’s In and Of Itself, the film version of which, directed by Frank Oz, opens today at IFC Center and is currently also streaming on Hulu. For the live viewer of Derek DelGaudio’s In and Of Itself — a theater production which ran in Los Angeles and New York from 2016 to 2018 — the piece began not when the suited, dark-haired performer took the stage but 20 minutes before, in the lobby. As ticket-holders lined up before entering the theater, they were asked to pick a card — not a playing card, but, […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 28, 2021 -
Sitcom Boot Camp: Matt Shakman on WandaVision
In a world where most episodic directors tend to specialize in hour-long dramas or half-hour comedies—and some specialize even further within those formats, becoming known for procedurals or prestige dramas or multi-cam sitcoms—Matt Shakman might be the most versatile filmmaker working in television today. He has directed one of the funniest comedies on TV (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), one of the largest scale and most popular premium cable series (Game of Thrones) and was behind some of the best episodes of Succession, Fargo and Mad Men. As comfortable with network crowd-pleasers like The Good Wife as he is at the […]
by Jim Hemphill on May 27, 2021 -
The Gotham Announces 20 Projects and Selected Fellows for the 2021 Documentary and TV Series Labs
The Gotham Film & Media Institute (formerly IFP), Filmmaker’s parent organization, announced today twenty feature and series projects participating across two labs this month: the Gotham Documentary Feature Lab (May 17-21) for debut non-fiction feature films currently in post-production and the Gotham TV Series Lab (running May 24-28), for outstanding projects in development and written/created by first-time series creators. “We are living through a period of remarkable innovation in the independent film industry. This year marks our second virtual lab series which has helped us to provide greater access to The Gotham’s resources so that creatives can expand their network and further develop […]
by Filmmaker Staff on May 27, 2021 -
Trailer Watch: Somos., James Schamus’s First Television Series, Soon Premiering on Netflix
Producer, screenwriter and director James Schamus has created a six-episode series, Somos., for Netflix that will premiere June 30. The first trailer has dropped along with a statement by Schamus on the Netflix site. Based on a ProPublica oral history of a cartel massacre in Allende, Mexico, crimes that journalist Ginger Thompson writes were triggered by actions by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the series has two goals, says Schamus: In telling the story, we have two core objectives: to make visible the people our culture often works to erase from our perceptions and memories, and to affirm our co-existence […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 26, 2021 -
The Past Inside the Present: Jia Zhangke on Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue
With each new film, be it fiction or documentary, Jia Zhangke reasserts his status as one of the keenest chroniclers of China’s unprecedented—and unending—transformation. His latest, Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue, serves as a reminder that he is not alone on his mission. The documentary consists largely of interviews with three of China’s most important authors (plus the bereaved daughter of a fourth), whose reflections on how their artistry intersects with national history echo the social commentary resounding throughout Jia’s own work. Indeed, their words could just as well be Jia’s own, serving almost as a mission statement […]
by Forrest Cardamenis on May 26, 2021 -
“Five Years Have Gone By and You Still Haven’t Made a Second Feature”: Anja Marqaurdt on The Girlfriend Experience, Season Three
At the Berlin International Film Festival in 2014, the German-born Anja Marquardt’s debut feature, She’s Lost Control, premiered to positive notices and went on to a healthy festival life. A fictional account of a graduate student (Brooke Bloom) doubling as a professional sex surrogate for men struggling with physical intimacy, the film represented a unique new voice on the independent film scene, ultimately netting Marquardt Film Independent Spirit Award nominations for Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay. Several years removed from that film’s theatrical run, Marquardt has now taken on a project with similar themes but a much more […]
by Erik Luers on May 25, 2021 -
Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Recommendations: Explorers, Fool for Love, 12 Monkeys
One of director Joe Dante’s most interesting and underrated films gets the Blu-ray treatment it deserves with the Shout Factory release of Explorers, Dante’s 1985 follow-up to Gremlins that walks a similarly unconventional line between Spielbergian sentiment and Tashlinesque pop satire, with an undercurrent of unsettling melancholy thrown in for good measure. There’s genuine warmth and wonder to spare in the first half of the film as friends Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix, and Jason Presson build their own spaceship; when they actually manage to rendezvous with the aliens who have been communicating with them, the movie shifts gears to become […]
by Jim Hemphill on May 24, 2021 -
“A Dream of Education”: Reel Works Celebrates its 20th Anniversary
When Maya Velazquez’s teacher told her class about Reel Works, the ninth-grader at Park Slope Collegiate had no idea what story she wanted to tell, only that filmmaking was something she wanted to try. Cultivating that spark of interest is what Reel Works, a New York-based nonprofit organization that teaches filmmaking to students, has done for the past two decades. Reel Works now celebrates its 20th anniversary and will host a 20th Anniversary Gala on May 26. And while the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the global film business in 2020, Reel Works actually had its most successful year yet, serving an […]
by Dominique Castanheira on May 20, 2021
