6577 Results for “production”
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~31 Films Shot on 35mm Released in 2017
This is my fourth time rounding up the previous year’s US theatrical releases shot, either partly or in full, on 35mm, and it increasingly feels like I’m asking the wrong question. If the number of films originating on 35 has remained more or less consistent the last three years, they fall into an increasingly limited number of categories: auteur films by directors too old or stubborn to change and with the clout to follow through on that; period pieces; and enormous blockbusters. (To these we can now add the return of 70mm-originated and released films with Dunkirk and Murder on the […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 5, 2018 -
Don’t Fence Me In: Pitching Boundary-Crossing Docs at CPH:FORUM 2018
Of all the various fundraising tools and opportunities at filmmakers’ disposal these days (the majority of them still in the DIY vein), pitch forums present a constant challenge: are they still relevant? With formats increasingly resembling chat or even game shows, today’s pitch forums are becoming performance-driven, the implicit agreement being that decision makers will actively support at least some of the projects presented with funding, distribution and sales opportunities. As someone who works in a freelance capacity helping to choose projects for various pitch forums (although not CPH:FORUM), I see first-hand how the few projects that make the stage […]
by Pamela Cohn on Apr 4, 2018 -
“It Was Important to Me Not to Fetishize a Classic Vision But to Look to the Present for Inspiration”: Director Aaron Katz on his L.A. Neo-Noir, Gemini
His fifth feature, and the first following his co-directed (with Martha Stephens) breakthough comedy Land Ho!, Gemini returns writer/director Aaron Katz to the character-based neo-noir of his earlier Cold Weather but with the cloudy Portland grays of that film replaced here with a sunlit sensuality befitting the picture’s L.A. setting. Indeed, shooting in his new hometown for the first time, Katz looks for inspiration to the kind of ’80s thrillers — American Gigolo and Bad Influence in particular — that found their treacheries and ambiguities within the city’s sunlit highways, dark nightclubs and oversized mansions. And while city geography is […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 31, 2018 -
“We are All Cracked Vessels”: Writer/Director Lynn Shelton on Her First Feature in Four Years, Outside In
After several years working in television, veteran independent filmmaker Lynn Shelton (Laggies, Your Sister’s Sister, Humpday) returns to the big screen with Outside In, a tense relationship drama dealing with the complexities of romance. Co-written by Jay Duplass and produced Washington-based Mel Eslyn and Lacey Leavitt, with both Jay and Mark Duplass on board as executive producers, the film opens today in theaters followed by a Netlix release on June 1. Jay Duplass stars as 38-year-old Chris, who is granted early parole thanks to the advocacy of Carol (Edie Falco), his former high-school teacher. As he struggles with the challenges […]
by Tiffany Pritchard on Mar 30, 2018 -
New Directors/New Films 2018: An Elephant Sitting Still, Notes On An Appearance and Those Who Are Fine
New Directors/New Films concentrates on first/sophomore features on the more ambitious/undistributable side of the festival ledger; with that mission, it may be my favorite annual NYC fest, so all the more regrettable that deadlines and hellacious MTA/personal dysfunction limited my press screening attendance to three films. (I’ve written from elsewhere about the following titles: 3/4; Black Mother; Hale County This Morning, This Evening; Matangi/Maya/M.I.A.; The Nothing Factory. The latter is especially recommended.) When I finally made it out, Hu Bo’s Berlinale premiere An Elephant Sitting Still made for the kind of textbook intimidating object I crave: a nearly four-hour-long debut by a filmmaker who […]
by Vadim Rizov on Mar 28, 2018 -
Watch: Pure Flix and Chill: The David A.R. White Story
Several months ago I got an email with the subject line “Pure Flix and Chill,” which raised three possibilities a) I was on the receiving end of algorithmic spam cycling through the tail end of the least plausible word combinations b) I was being targeted by an especially inept publicist c) someone had, as they say, “seen me.” The last option was correct: to my equal gratification and shame, the email cited my “appreciation for Pure Flix and the genre of ‘Evangelical Cinema’ as evidenced in your many thoughtful AV Club reviews.” This is true: I do write for other […]
by Vadim Rizov on Mar 27, 2018 -
“We Have Only Scratched the Surface of What is Possible in Erotic VR Media”: Jennifer Lyon Bell on Her Fantasy Film Workshop and Creating Erotic VR
The last time I interviewed veteran filmmaker Jennifer Lyon Bell for this site topics ranged from “fair trade” porn to the inaugural Holy Fuck Film Festival in Amsterdam (where the expat feminist pornographer has long resided). And now Bell, recipient of both the Feminist Porn Awards 2014 Movie of the Year (for Silver Shoes, which premiered at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts) and a psych degree from Harvard, continues to expand her mission of providing sex education for those behind the lens, while also exploring the new media horizon through her own artistic work. I caught up with Bell to […]
by Lauren Wissot on Mar 21, 2018 -
“It’s Like a Drug Movie without the Drugs”: Director Xander Robin on Making his Body Horror Romance, Are We Not Cats
Are We Not Cats, Xander Robin’s nearly unclassifiable debut feature — let’s call it a mashup of downtrodden NYC romantic slacker drama and fantastic body horror — premiered at the 2016 Venice Film Festival, made the festival rounds and is now out on streaming platforms via Cleopatra Films. What makes it particularly worth a watch is Robin’s sure storytelling voice and ability to navigate multiple genres in a single picture. It’s also got a plot twist tied to an extraordinary fetish, one you haven’t seen onscreen before: trichophagia. For those of you to lazy to look that up, that’s eating […]
by Meredith Alloway on Mar 20, 2018 -
“The Shoot was Undoubtedly ‘A Poor Man’s Revenant‘”: DP Eric Treml on The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter at SXSW 2018
The Movie: The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter The Plot: Accompanied by his trusty cameraman (Danny McBride), the recently divorced host of a lo-fi hunting show (James Brolin) takes his son into the wilds of North Carolina to bag his first deer on camera. The Interviewee: Cinematographer Eric Treml. He previously collaborated with Whitetail director Jody Hill (Observe and Report, Eastbound & Down) on HBO’s Vice Principals. Filmmaker: Tell me a little bit about your background in production. You have early credits on some big movies as part of the underwater camera team. Treml: When I first moved to […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Mar 20, 2018 -
A Port City’s Cinema Dreams: Thessaloniki Documentary Festival Turns 20
The boundaries between these two genres [fiction and documentary] are porous. One must feel a documentaristic texture in fiction and create characters in documentaries. – Agnès Varda It’s at once deceiving and heartening to attend a film festival in a gloriously beautiful place that appears to be thriving, not only with arts and culture galore, but what appears to be a robust consumer culture as well — plenty of high-end shops, bars, restaurants and clubs filled to capacity. Especially when the sun goes down, in typical Balkan fashion, everyone comes out to promenade, eat, smoke, drink and debate until the […]
by Pamela Cohn on Mar 19, 2018
