For the first time in recent memory, it’s extremely difficult to select the top of the crop at this 53rd edition of the New York Film Festival (September 26-October 11), a question of too many contenders. I am not taking into consideration the tentpole films that anchor the festival, or any big studio movies, like Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies. That’s another kettle of fish. Down below I list what I consider the crème de la crème (appropriate phrase, considering the usual Gallic slant) and review those titles briefly. Since they will all have commercial runs, I’ll be reviewing at length […]
[This is Reinaldo Marcus Green’s second guest post from IFP Independent Film Week; his first one can be found here.] It’s a wrap on IFP Film Week! Having the Pope in New York City this week certainly added some delays to my daily commute, but I think somehow it also added hope to my meetings. If you saw a Black and Puerto Rican man in a suit and tie running in front of the Vivian Beaumont theater (across from the Henry Moore sculpture pond in Lincoln Center) every single day last week, it was probably me. I want to take […]
In this era of digital projectors, ALEXA cameras and minimal, DSLR-enabled budgets, the art of loading rolls of film into a magazine and shooting with a 16 or 35mm lens is fast becoming a fading practice. And yet, there are those determined storytellers who dare to pull it off. But is shooting on film on a low budget even possible these days? A Wednesday morning panel at the IFP’s Screen Forward conference comprised of cinematographer Frank DeMarco (All is Lost, Margin Call), producer Adam Piotrowicz (Listen Up Phillip, Queen of Earth). cinematographer/producer/director/editor Ferne Pearlstein (Imelda) and director/producer Ari Taub (79 […]
Producer Peter Phok (The Sacrament, The Innkeepers, V/H/S) is one of five professionals this morning at an IFP Screen Forward panel titled “Bridging the Gap after Crowdfunding.” The title of the panel is an interesting collision of terms as only recently has crowdfunding been factored into independent film financing equations alongside terms like “mezzanine,” “senior debt” and “tax credit monetization.” But, indeed, crowdfunding is part of many independent films’ financing schemes, and its success — or failure — has much to do with a film’s greenlight. Below, Phok answers questions about film and crowdfunding. Filmmaker: Your panel is called, “Bridging […]
One of the most prolific documentary producers around, Julie Goldman, takes the main stage this afternoon at IFP’s Screen Forward conference to talk about the evolving practice of non-fiction production. With producing credits going back to 1997, Goldman has produced or executive produced such notable films as Buck, Beware of Mr. Baker, 1971 , Best of Enemies and Manhunt: The Search for Bin Laden. She’s currently producing through her production company, Motto, which has allowed her to increase the quantity of her production, just one of several topics she discusses below. Filmmaker: Your producing credits go back to 1997, yet […]
Perhaps the most divisive film at the 40th Toronto International Film Festival was in the inaugural Platform competition section. High-Rise was originally published by author J.G. Ballard in 1975; now, English filmmaker Ben Wheatley (Sightseers) has brought to the big screen the tale of Dr. Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston), a new resident in a luxury apartment building who becomes entangled in a civil war between the building’s different social classes. The media interest kicked into overdrive for the social satire when Soda Pictures purchased the Canadian distribution rights. During the craziness, Filmmaker was able to sit down with Wheatley to talk about […]
As a teenager in the south of France, Maryse Alberti’s first two trips to the cinema led her impressionable eyes to Duel and Harold and Maude. If she’d instead began her cinematic journey with The Barefoot Executive and Escape From the Planet of the Apes, maybe she wouldn’t have become the cinematographer of The Wrestler, Happiness, When We Were Kings and Crumb. But the combined spell cast by Steven Spielberg and Hal Ashby – the great populist entertainer and the iconoclastic humanist – set Albert on a path that has led to a four-decade career pivoting between documentary and fiction. Alberti’s latest straddles […]
[Editor’s note: this is the first of two guest posts from Reinaldo Marcus Green about his experiences at this year’s IFP Independent Film Week. Green was one of our 25 New Faces of Film this year; click here to read that profile.] IFP’s Independent Film Week is an exciting time in New York City, where both aspiring and established filmmakers — writers, directors and producers — come together to share their stories. For one week, NYC becomes the world’s premier destination for independent film, television, and web-series development. It’s a time when nomadic filmmakers feel like they have a home. […]
The on-stage pitch has become a staple of documentary film forums, like IDFA and CPH:DOX, and pitch panels long ago snuck into events like IFP’s Screen Forward Conference (previously the Filmmaker Conference). But the on-stage pitching of web series is something relatively new at these more film-oriented events. Befitting the IFP’s conference name change, three filmmakers storytellers took the stage Sunday at noon at the Bruno Walter Auditorium to impress a panel of web content professionals with their ideas of episodic tales to be streamed online. But given the Wild West nature of web series, where buyers, monetization strategies and […]
There’s a sense of disappointment in the air. At the parties, people have been whispering, maybe this year’s just not a good year. Maybe next year will be better, they forecast in hushed tones. It’s true, many of the much-hyped films were somewhat of a letdown, but the best part of a film festival is when you walk out into a theater with zero expectations and you walk out enamored by what you just saw. There have still been moments like that for me at TIFF this year. A highlight of the fest for me has been Romanian director Corneliu […]