Since repetition in the form of rote memorization is a major element of education, I’m not going to apologize for this, one of my periodic rants on the ways in which filmmakers (and, sometimes, their publicists) fail in the promotion of their films online and through social media. I’m sure that over the years I’ve posted every one of these points before, as have other writers on our site, like Jon Reiss. But, based on my encounters with filmmakers, their films, and their websites these past few weeks, these are worth repeating. Want to decrease press interest and the size […]
Receiving its world premiere in the 2013 Rotterdam Film Festival’s Tiger Awards Competition, San Francisco-based Visra Vichit-Vadakan’s Karaoke Girl is an evocative character study of a Bangkok working girl, a singer in a nighttime karaoke bar for whom memories of her rural past and dreams of romantic fulfillment form a pulsing lifeline away from an emotionally depleting world. A hybrid documentary/fiction film, Karaoke Girl stars newcomer Sa Sittijun as a character largely based on herself. The documentary sections of the film follow her back to her real hometown, and feature interviews with her real family, while the “fiction” sequences are […]
The words “interactive film” obviously evoke some kind of audience engagement, but what that actually means can — and does — change with every project. While there have been a lot of innovations with screenings in public venues, interactive films often tend to play best online or on mobile devices where viewers can input information and make narrative decisions. The new short film many worlds seeks to turn this on its head a little bit and redefine interactivity by, first, making it completely unconscious for viewers and, second, allowing it to take place in a traditional theater. Billed as “a […]
Lumière, Cohen, Zucker, Farley, Duplass, and Polish. All siblings in cinema. Are siblings just genetically inclined to be good partners? My sister Eva and myself are not your garden-variety filmmaking partnership. We’re brother and sister, bound by shared nature and nurture. We formally joined professional forces in 2003 and founded Last Ditch Pictures, now a full-service production company spanning the gamut: commercials and industrials and shorts, editing and scoring and visual effects, and — closest to our hearts and common circuitry — features. I sat down with my sister over the weekend, having just completed post production on our fourth […]
Ever since the start of the Aughts, when he broke through in memorable dramas like Amores Perros and Y Tu Mamá También, Gael García Bernal has grown to become one of the most compelling actors of his generation, an international star who attracts a great bevy of gifted filmmakers. He’s played muse to Pedro Almodóvar, starred as Che Guevara for Walter Salles, and explored the subconscious with Michel Gondry. In addition to developing his own projects (like The Invisibles, a recent immigration-themed collection of documentary shorts; Sundance 2013 success Who Is Dayani Cristal?, a doc he appears in and co-produced; […]
At the beginning of the year, Filmmaker’s Scott Macaulay pointed out again — like many others have as well — that features are no longer the default format-of-choice for indie filmmakers. And as forms like the web series mature, we’re seeing more of the kinks getting worked out and more filmmakers and others finding innovative ways to release and promote new work. Take Netflix’s high-profile series House of Cards, which was just released all at once instead of in spaced-out (i.e. weekly) increments; we’ve yet to see the show’s long tail, but its initial viewer data (that is, its engagement […]
Picking up from where we left off in our last article, we’re happy to announce that Days of Gray is in the can! So much has happened in the last six months, and here’s how we got there. We concluded an incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign in early June with a blow-out party at the Wooly (many thanks to all our backers who came out in droves and danced till the wee hours to the beats of Icelandic DJs!) We also held a very well-attended screening at the Scandinavia House showcasing previous works from Bicephaly Pictures as well as some of Hjaltalín’s music videos to give […]
Director Sam Neave and his producer/star Marjan Neshat are both Iranian-born, but the films they tend to make together — including 2003’s Sundance entry Cry Funny Happy and their terrific new two shot high-wire act Almost in Love — focus on the romantic travails of upper-middle-class Westerners in ways that are as funny as they are earnest. Their newest film, despite its intentionally schematic, downright arty structural contrivance, is a surprisingly rich meditation on friendship, the difficulty of settling down and the importance of being earnest. Performed in humorous and melancholy shades by an odd assortment of performers, most notably Ms. Neshat, Gary Wilmes, Alan Cumming and Alex Karpovsky — who […]
Your film didn’t get into the A-level fests so far? With Sundance, Berlin and SXSW having already been announced — or come and gone — for 2013, there are some disappointed filmmakers grappling with an official rejection and its impact on the life of their films. Not getting into a major festival is certainly not the end of the world, but being unprepared for anything except acceptance really can be the end if filmmakers haven’t planned and budgeted for the lack of a conventional distribution deal. Because it isn’t smart just to play the festival circuit and hope for a […]
Cinekink NYC has announced the line-up for its 2013, tenth anniversary edition, which runs February 26 – March 3, 2013. Presented by Cinekink, “an organization dedicated to the recognition and encouragement of sex-positive and kink-friendly depictions in film and television,” the festival has historically mixed documentary, fiction and experimental work, drawing from the festival circuit, the art world, and adult production. Here’s the line-up, and further information can be found at the festival’s site. (The festival’s closing-night film is a restoration of Radley Metzger’s ’70s porno-chic hit, The Opening of Misty Beethoven. Read our interview 1997 interview with Metzger here.) […]