The increased emphasis on red carpet and premiere status in Toronto seems to have left the festival with an identity crisis. Compared to festivals like Locarno and Rotterdam, which have hit their stride in promoting the new guard of international cinema, just a quick glance at this year’s program guide makes it clear that the “Festival of Festivals” is in the midst of redefining itself. Wavelengths, formerly a sidebar of avant-garde shorts programs, has expanded to include the section previously known as Visions. Many of the more interesting films in the festival could be found here, including the much-buzzed-about Leviathan […]
Memorable movie moments may be made out of triumph — the winning of the big game, the getting of the girl — but a career in film rarely reaches its triumphant third act in 90 minutes. Even the most successful filmmakers spend years on their journey, and it is for them — those waiting and hustling for their breaks — that Independent Film Week exists. Founded in 1979 by IFP, the publisher of Filmmaker, Independent Film Week has mushroomed over the past 33 years into a one-of-a-kind event that connects emerging and established artists with the producers, financiers and executives that […]
When Ted Hope moved from New York to the Bay Area in September to take over as executive director of the San Francisco Film Society, he was stepping into an organization that, with the recent success of its vibrant and generous Filmmaker360 program, had already been making a substantial impact in the independent film world. In 2008, the late Graham Leggat, then the SFFS’s executive director, identified the need to reevaluate the organization’s ailing Film Arts Foundation, which had been in existence for more than 30 years but, despite having a robust fiscal sponsorship program, had dwindled in importance because […]
Ten years ago this summer, Good Machine, the film company responsible for helping launch the careers of such American auteurs as Nicole Holofcener, Ang Lee, Todd Field, Todd Solondz and many, many others, was absorbed by Universal Studios, effectively marking the end of an era in indie film. Good Machine co-president James Schamus would start Focus Features, the Universal subsidiary that he still oversees today (one of the last specialty distributors based in New York), while Ted Hope, the other co-president, started his own production company, This is That. But the company closed its doors in 2010 and now, Hope, […]
There is a saying I once heard: “Once you change the method of distribution, the product has to change.” This itself is a take on the idea that distribution defines the product. You see this around every day in the products you buy. Cars are influenced by the dealership networks that sell them. Phones by the mobile network operators and the choice of computer you use at work by whatever the IT department or value-added reseller prefers to work with. Mass-market restaurants offer what can be sold by wholesalers — typically frozen, long shelf-life staples. Almost every product category is shaped more by […]
At the start of my interview with Tim Squyres, the editor of most of Ang Lee’s films, including his latest, Life of Pi, I tell him how much I like the movie. I say that I know I like it because its images, its ingeniously affecting conclusion, and, most of all, the headspace it created for me have lingered for days. Upon waking each morning, scenes have come flooding back. And the subtleties of the film’s ending, which contains a rich meditation on the role stories play in our lives, have resonated in my mind in unexpected ways. “I get […]
With the 2008 post-crash Presidential election as ironic backdrop, Andrew Dominik’s violent crime, Killing Them Softly, bitterly regards our crumbling American dream. Brandon Harris interviews the Australian writer/director.
Jessica Yu revisits the subject of her own Academy Award-winning short documentary Breathing Lessons by speaking with writer/director Ben Lewin, whose The Sessions brings the story of the paralyzed poet Mark O’Brien to dramatic life.
David O. Russell makes bipolar disorder, dance competitions and the NFL the stuff of romantic comedy in Silver Linings Playbook, a seriously funny feature with star turns by Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. Miguel Arteta interviews writer/director Russell and executive producer/star Cooper.
Filmmakers Rob Imbs (director) and Benjamin Eckstein (cinematographer) are currently shooting a low-budget independent feature film, Game Changers, a drama/comedy about two video-gamers who are approaching their late twenties. With an initial target budget of $30,000, Game Changers might be better described as a shoestring budget feature, given that they began shooting with only half that amount raised. Though this is their first film together, Imbs has previously made a feature-length video, Eckstein has extensive shooting experience in corporate video and documentaries, and Imbs is an experienced editor who will be doing most of the editing. Imbs, who is based […]