6583 Results for “production”
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“A Time-Traveling Conquistador Confronting Modern Mexicans”: Rodrigo Reyes on His Tribeca and Hot Docs Selected 499
499, the fourth feature film from “25 New Face” alum Rodrigo Reyes, is an epic, enchanting road movie that travels seamlessly through time (a 500-year-old journey reenacted in the present day) and space (across Mexico, from coastal Veracruz to the nation’s capital — or what used to be called Tenochtitlán back when the Aztecs claimed it as their own). Cemented by Eduardo San Juan Breña’s gripping performance as a Spanish conquistador who finds himself washed up into the future and onto modern day Mexico’s shores, the film recreates the path taken by Hernán Cortez in his 1621 quest to conquer the […]
by Lauren Wissot on Apr 25, 2020 -
“Our Criminal Justice System is Broken, and the Sooner Folks See that the Sooner We Can Begin to Fix It”: Roger Ross Williams on the Netflix docuseries The Innocence Files
Executive produced and directed by Liz Garbus, Alex Gibney and Roger Ross Williams, with episodes also helmed by Jed Rothstein, Andy Grieve and Sarah Dowland, The Innocence Files is a riveting, nine-part docuseries that dives deep into eight wrongful convictions that The Innocence Project and its affiliated Innocence Network fought tooth and nail to overturn. The Netflix series gets off to a binge-worthy start with its first three installments — “The Evidence: Indeed and Without Doubt,” “The Evidence: The Truth Will Defend Me,” and “The Evidence: The Duty to Correct” — all directed by Academy Award-winner Roger Ross Williams. (And if your time […]
by Lauren Wissot on Apr 24, 2020 -
Day 5 of 25: Tayarisha Poe, Lauren McBride, Jomo Fray on Selah and the Spades
“She found no joy in fully formed things, she sought those times of the year, those people, who were discovering their potential. Selah loved potential.” Quoted in Filmmaker’s Winter, 2015 print issue, in our now-defunct Super 8 column, those are the words of the narrator of the first iteration of Tayarisha Poe’s wickedly beguiling, sociologically astute teen crime drama, Selah and the Spades. At that time, “transmedia” was a bit more the rage, and Poe’s hybrid website/webseries/photography/literary site had a smart, sprawling appeal. By the time we caught up with Poe again, selecting her for our Summer, 2015 issues’ 25 […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 24, 2020 -
The Hardest Working Cat in Show Biz
My favorite cat in the cinema is whichever cat I’m currently watching, but my official favorite cat in the cinema is the orange tabby who lives in the sheriff’s office in Jacques Tourneur’s 1955 Western Stranger on Horseback. Part of the cat’s appeal is that the sheriff is played by tough-guy character actor Emile Meyer, and that the filmmakers opt for contrapuntal characterization by having Meyer cuddle the mellow cat in nearly all of his scenes. But the punctum is a shot from inside the office at nighttime, in which the villain’s henchmen force the front door and enter. The […]
by Dan Sallitt on Apr 23, 2020 -
“I Don’t Want to Work in a Place Where I Can’t Touch the Camera”: Gerardo Naranjo on Tribeca 2020 Premiere Kokoloko
A girl, a number of guns, also some cars: recombining knowingly archetypal elements from Gerardo Naranjo’s first two features, Drama/Mex and I’m Gonna Explode, Kokoloko is delightfully loose and unconstrained. In Oaxaca, Marisol (Alejandra Herrera) loves Mundo (Noé Hernández), much to the disapproval of her thuggish cousin Mauro (Eduardo Mendizábal), who literally picks her up and throws her in his car to separate the two. The not-quite-love-triangle unfolds in a larger, equally unsettled arena: road blockades are plotted, cartels are in orbit, and violence erupts at every level. The beachside backdrop recalls the Acapulco setting of Drama/Mex, Marisol and Mundo’s lovers-on-the-run arc I’m […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 23, 2020 -
Quarantine Reading: John Gregory Dunne’s The Studio
As a publication about film, we find ourselves in the peculiar position of publishing during a moment when theatrical access to movies, and their ongoing future, is as much in question as everything else. During this suspension of normal filmwatching habits, we’ve reached out to contributors, filmmakers and friends, inviting them to find an alternate path to the movies by participating in a writing exercise engaging with any book about or lightly intersecting with film, in whatever way makes sense to them. Today: Eric Marsh on John Gregory Dunne’s all-access portrait of 20th Century Fox in 1967, The Studio. In 1967, […]
by Eric Marsh on Apr 22, 2020 -
Amazon Prime Video, SXSW Announce “SXSW 2020 Film Festival Collection”; No U.S. Narratives Among Seven Feature Titles
After announcing on April 2 that the two companies would partner to bring selections from the cancelled 2020 SXSW Film Festival to home viewers, Amazon Prime Video and SXSW announced today the titles that will comprise the free-to-view “2020 SXSW Film Festival Collection.” A total of 39 works — features, shorts, music videos and episodic titles — opted into the program. Of the 39, only seven are features — five percent of the festival’s feature selection — and the four narrative films are all international titles. For producers and filmmakers, the Amazon/SXSW collaboration was immediately controversial upon announcement, with several […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 21, 2020 -
From the Filmmaker Newsletter: When Do We All Go Back to Work?
Each Friday, Filmmaker sends out a free newsletter containing an original Editor’s Letter as well as news of film openings, events, etc. (the latter mostly streaming and online, these days). The Editor’s Letters usually aren’t posted online, but here’s the April 17 edition, which links to a Deadline piece and considers the question everyone in film production is asking at the moment. If you’d like to receive the Filmmaker newsletter, you can subscribe for free here. — SM When do we all go back to work? While provisional answers to this question are suggested every day in the newspapers and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 20, 2020 -
“There Were Clearly Other Things Going On, From Klan Involvement to Pedophile Rings…”: Maro Chermayeff on the HBO Docuseries Atlanta’s Missing And Murdered: The Lost Children
HBO’s Atlanta’s Missing And Murdered: The Lost Children, a five-part docuseries executive produced and directed by Sam Pollard and Maro Chermayeff, along with Jeff Dupre and Joshua Bennett, is an intricate reexamination of one of the most horrific events in that southern city’s not-too-distant history — the kidnapping and murder of at least 30 (though likely more) African-American children and young adults between 1979 and 1981. Though the crimes ultimately would all be pinned on one man, a 23-year-old oddball named Wayne Williams, the case has now been reopened by current Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. The case was the […]
by Lauren Wissot on Apr 20, 2020 -
Canon Reformation (2): New Commercials, 12 Monkeys, Mysterious Skin
Along with getting re-accustomed to watching movies at home, I’m also relearning the rhythms of having TV in my life on a regular basis, which hasn’t been the case for a good while. My preferred choice for some daily structure and accompanying info drip is local news via two easily streamable options, ABC and CBS. The former’s preferable because they almost never cut away to, or acknowledge, the daily presidential press conference. Anchor Bill Ritter was temporarily home with COVID-19 before returning to the studio, while weatherman Lee Goldberg was for a while doing the forecast from what looked like […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 15, 2020
