6580 Results for “production”
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KICKSTARTER: “PARIAH” PRODUCER NEKISA COOPER’S “FIVE NIGHTS IN MAINE”
Though her Sundance hit Pariah opens through Focus in the winter, producer Nekisa Cooper hasn’t slowed down as she reached out to us about a project she’s currently getting off the ground through Kickstarter, Five Nights In Maine, directed by Bay Area filmmaker Maris Curran. They are currently trying to raise $40,000. Here’s the synopsis: Sherwin and Fiona are at a crossroads. As an interracial couple living in the south, they seem to have created an idyllic bubble for their love. But after a recent visit to her ailing and prickly mother, Fiona is changed. Suddenly, their relationship is contentious […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Aug 23, 2011 -
THE KINDS OF WRITERS WE ARE LOOKING FOR
About a year ago I posted a call for new writers, a post that led to amazing folks like Zack Wigon and Nicholas Rombes showing up in these pages. So, as we continue to build out and add content to the website, I thought I’d let any journalists out there know our current needs. I continue to look for people who can write with knowledge and authority about the business side of independent film. And I’m also looking for people who know something about filmmaking itself and are genuinely interested in the below-the-line and production worlds (i.e., film sets and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 21, 2011 -
ON GATEKEEPERS AND “MALKOVICH’S MAIL”
Each week I write an original newsletter that I usually don’t repost to the blog. Here’s this week’s, about a favorite documentary I just found on YouTube. To receive future newsletters, you can sign up for free here. If I ever teach a course in the film business, there’s a documentary I’m going to make required viewing. My guess is that you probably haven’t seen it because it was made for AMC a few years ago as part of a short-lived strand of docs about film. It’s called Malkovich’s Mail, and it was directed by the independent filmmakers Keith Fulton […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 21, 2011 -
Raul Ruiz Remembered By James Schamus
The great Chilean filmmaker Raul Ruiz passed away today in Paris. Through his feature The Golden Boat, which was James Schamus’s first as a producer, Raul gave a group of us in New York’s nascent ’80s independent scene (including myself and Robin O’Hara) a wonderful and nearly indescribable introduction to filmmaking. So, I’m grateful here to James for this piece remembering Ruiz and those thrilling and formative days. — Scott Macaulay Raul Ruiz: First Thoughts Raul Ruiz passed away today, age 70, in Paris. He’ll be remembered as one of the truly great, idiosyncratic and visionary voices of world cinema. […]
by James Schamus on Aug 19, 2011 -
NYFF ANNOUNCES CLOSING NIGHT FILM & MAIN SLATE
The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today that Alexander Payne‘s The Descendants (pictured) will be the closing night film for this year’s New York Film Festival. NYFF’s main slate was also unveiled and includes David Cronenberg‘s A Dangerous Method and Pedro Almodóvar‘s The Skin I Live In, which both will be screened as special gala presentations; Simon Curtis‘ My Week With Marilyn, which will have a centerpiece screening; and Roman Polanski‘s Carnage, which will open the fest. Read the complete lineup below. NYFF’s 49th edition will take place Sept. 30 – Oct. 16. General public tickets will become available […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Aug 17, 2011 -
MARINA GOLDOVSKAYA, “A BITTER TASTE OF FREEDOM”
One of Russia’s most celebrated filmmakers, Marina Goldovskaya, had led a colorful and peripatetic life as a nonfiction filmmaker specializing in docu-diaristic portraits of poets, artists, leaders and everyday people. Currently head of the documentary program at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television, Goldovskaya was also eyewitness to a half century of turbulent history, which she has spent the past 40 years meticulously archiving on celluloid and digital video. After attending the State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in the 1960s, she quickly established herself as a leading cinematographer in a business dominated by men, a fertile period she details […]
by Damon Smith on Aug 17, 2011 -
An Independent Filmmaker at Comic-Con
Last month, I travelled to San Diego to spend three days at Comic-Con, the massive annual gathering of fans of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, comics and related pop culture. It was my first time to the event and I was there to screen my new sci-fi short Digital Antiquities at the Comic-Con Independent Film Festival. I’ve been to many festivals with my films, but Comic-Con was an experience like no other. The scale of the event and passion of the fans were overwhelming, and as an indie filmmaker I found the experience both incredibly inspiring and deeply humbling. DIGITAL ANTIQUITIES In […]
by J.P. Chan on Aug 15, 2011 -
TRAGIC POIGNANCY: THE TINIEST PLACE
Imagine a village of peasants in a mountainous jungle region of El Salvador that would be completely devastated by bombs during the Civil War (1980-92), and most of its inhabitants, including teenaged boys and girls, brutally murdered by the National Guard. Or better yet, let filmmaker Tatiana Huezo imagine it for us and update it in her unforgettable documentary, The Tiniest Place, one of the finest docs I’ve seen over the past year. The puebla is Cinquera, which was suspected by the government of being a hotbed of leftist guerrillas. Several families, many of which lost most of their children, […]
by Howard Feinstein on Aug 14, 2011 -
Alison Ellwood on Magic Trip
The saying goes that most documentary magic happens in the editing room. That’s an understatement for Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s Search for a Kool Place, a found footage documentary assembled by Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood. Magic Trip takes us back to the cross-country road trip taken by Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters in their psychedelically painted bus, interchangeably called “Further” or “Furthur.” The trip was immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s pioneering work of New Journalism, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Fresh off the success of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey took the book’s proceeds to […]
by Daniel James Scott on Aug 14, 2011 -
Project Nim vs. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
After watching Project Nim, the first half of Rise of The Planet of The Apes is like seeing a documentary (albeit a high production one starring James Franco). Or maybe it’s more accurate to say it’s like seeing the Hollywood-cast, fictionalized version of Project Nim, starring a remarkable digitally-captured performance by Andy Serkis as Caesar, our heroic chimpanzee; our Nim. Of course, like any good Hollywood adaptation of a documentary, halfway through Rise of the Planet of The Apes, the plot veers off from that of Project Nim into a more satisfying conclusion for the apes. Caesar is able to […]
by Alix Lambert on Aug 12, 2011
