6576 Results for “production”
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6,500 Kilometers in 29 Shooting Days: Jérôme Reybaud on 4 Days in France
I wrote a little bit about 4 Days in France yesterday; a few hours after publishing, I went to meet writer/director Jérôme Reybaud to follow up on some particular points of interest. Some basic plot points about this recommended quasi-romance/road trip narrative: a great deal of the film follows two men driving cross-country across France (one in pursuit of his just-left partner until their routes converge) to an extensive collection of classical recordings, stopping at locations including the top of the very cold Alps, a used bookstore, a theater, and an encounter with a notably aggrieved lady who chews out one character […]
by Vadim Rizov on Aug 4, 2017 -
Post-Romero Zombies and Others in a Trump World: Fantasia International Film Festival 2017
“Holy shit.” “George Romero just died.” “Wtf?!?!?!” “Did you see that?” Those frantic texts, sent in rapid succession by a friend on July 16th, days before I was to head to the Fantasia International Film Festival, hit hard. The legendary horror filmmaker had passed away from lung cancer at the age of 77; his death came as a shock, and not just due to the severity of his private illness. To the outside world, old George was still as productive as ever, and his new project, George A. Romero’s Road of the Dead, was to continue a restless franchise nearing its 50th year. Less than a […]
by Erik Luers on Aug 1, 2017 -
“Every So Often a Train Would Come Rumbling By and the Set Would Shake”: DP Doug Emmett on Shooting HBO’s Room 104
An octogenarian couple returns to the hotel room where they spent their first night together — it’s a logline that would typically preface an elegiac rumination on love and mortality. But by the time that set-up arrives in the season finale of HBO’s new anthology series Rooms 104, it seems just as likely to give way to horror or violence…or interpretive dance. That’s the joy of the newest Duplass Brothers creation — each episode begins as a blank slate capable of unexpectedly evolving into any genre or tone. The 12-episode series — which debuted last Friday night — unfolds entirely […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Aug 1, 2017 -
Twin Peaks: The Return: “Something is Missing”
To a generation viewers groomed by two and a half decades of “outside the box” television ranging from X-Files, Northern Exposure, and Six Feet Under to the arabesque mysteries of Lost, Broadchurch, The Killing, True Detective, and Westworld (to name but a few), the hype over Twin Peaks must have always felt overblown. Those of us who lived it the first time around can only say, “Trust us, you had to be there.” Played straight (maybe even a little corny), but with a twist, Twin Peaks captured the American imagination and became the must-watch event of 1990. Simultaneously nostalgic and […]
by Gabriel Wardell on Jul 31, 2017 -
Laura Poitras Talks Assange, Her Final Version of Risk and Trump’s Tax Returns
Just now released on Showtime, Laura Poitras’s Risk, which found its way to theaters in May via upstart distributor Neon, is in a vastly different form than when it premiered last year in Cannes. The documentary traces a thread running counter to the moral certitude heard from our politicians, mostly on the right, about the role of leaks in degrading democracy. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, the film’s primary subject, has been confined to the Ecuadorian embassy in London for nearly five years following allegations — and, later, charges — of sexual assault against two Swedish women. (The rape investigation was recently […]
by Brandon Harris on Jul 28, 2017 -
“VR is Not Another Kind of Filmmaking”: Baobab Studios’ Eric Darnell on Animated VR
If you’d mentioned Eric Darnell’s name a few years ago, most people would have thought of the Madagascar films or the Penguins of Madagascar spin-off, all of which he co-directed while at DreamWorks Animation, where he also directed Antz and contributed to films like The Prince of Egypt and Shrek. But think of him today and you’re just as likely to conjure up images of bumbling aliens, a fluffy and resourceful bunny or a multicolored crow, and all in virtual reality. That’s because Darnell is the co-founder and chief creative officer at Baobab Studios, which in just two years has established itself as one of the United […]
by Randy Astle on Jul 27, 2017 -
On the Cusp: Person to Person Director Dustin Guy Defa on Turning a Short into a Feature, Directing Actors and the Question of Agents
Dustin Guy Defa is on the cusp of big changes. The filmmaker’s second feature film, Person To Person, opens tomorrow. In it, Defa delicately interweaves multiple stories taking place over one day in the lives of New Yorkers portrayed by an ensemble of legendary performers (Phillip Baker Hall, Isiah Whitlock Jr.), name actors (Michael Cera), newcomers (Abbi Jacobson, Tavi Gevinson, George Sample III), and so-called “non-actors” (Bene Coopersmith). It’s a bighearted, hilarious and impressive display of Defa’s directorial skills and the kind of film that can jump start a career. The road to getting it made is a bit unusual. […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Jul 27, 2017 -
What Does Branded Content Have to Do with Citizens United? (Or, How are Filmmakers Participating in the Corporate Takeover of America?)
Gillian Horvat’s short Whiskey Fist plays tomorrow at Fantasia Fest. Here, she pens her second guest essay for Filmmaker. After asking whether brands’ lives matter, she returns to continue her critique of independent film’s complicity with brand messaging. The last time I unsubscribed from an Urban Outfitters e-newsletter I don’t even remember signing up for they told me they were sorry to see me go. A few days later I got a message from Citibank that they “missed me” because I hadn’t been doing any online banking recently. For a moment, I felt moved. I have close human friends that […]
by Gillian Wallace Horvat on Jul 26, 2017 -
Storytelling, Memory and Alternate Worlds: Michael Almereyda on Marjorie Prime and Escapes
Michael Almereyda has two films this year, the curiously rhyming duo of Marjorie Prime and Escapes. The former, as I wrote from Sundance, is “a heavily modified adaptation of Jordan Harrison’s play, customized to fit the ever-adventurous Almereyda’s tastes and frames of reference. The premise is both simple and tricky: in the future, your deceased loved ones can be brought back as holograms for company. Marjorie (Lois Smith), aging and losing her memory, has her late husband Walter (Jon Hamm), eternally in his 40s, for company, a development which makes her daughter Tess (Geena Davis) a little nervous. From this low-key sci-fi […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jul 26, 2017 -
Kaleidoscope Launches New VR Marketplace
In the three years since its founding in 2014, San Francisco-based Kaleidoscope has made itself a major player in the virtual reality landscape. The company began by hosting exhibition events for new VR pieces—like Joost Jordens’ and Mike von Rotz’s Transition (pictured above)—which they’ve done now more than 40 times across the world. Now, with major film festivals like Sundance and Tribeca increasingly filling that need, Kaleidoscope has turned its attention to production. Late last month the company announced the launch of a funding platform to connect independent VR creators with the financing sources that could fund their work and potentially […]
by Randy Astle on Jul 24, 2017
