Alice Munro wrote a short story once called “Deep Holes,” and it’s as fitting a title as any when one considers her body of work. Munro has made a career out of writing the same short story over and over again, but because that story is shot through with an incredible amount of depth, with endless bottoms of nuance and complexity and minor shifts and adjustments each time, it constantly amazes. Jonathan Franzen (who himself rewrote his 2001 classic novel The Corrections as the even better Freedom), reviewing Munro’s 2004 collection Runaway, nailed it: I like stories because it takes […]
Last Fall I posted a call for new writers to submit their work, and from that reach-out I connected with several folks whose bylines you have seen on our site and in our pages over the last few months. Now, I am specifically looking to connect with experienced writers interested in covering the business (i.e., financing, production, distribution and marketing) sides of independent film. If you are a published writer who has done hard news and investigative reporting on the film business and would be interested in writing for Filmmaker, please drop me a line at editor.filmmakermagazine AT gmail.com.
Writer/director Jentri Chancey emailed to tell me about her and producer Lorrie Marsh’s approach to developing their independent film project, Lost in Sunshine. She writes: We’ve been continuously working to lift this project from its feet for the past two years. Our approach is to reach out to our (target) audience before the movie’s ever made. And creating an online prequel by expanding narratives, and enhancing audience participation via games, etc., is how we’re attempting to do it. Instead of raising money for actual film production costs right now, we’re raising funds so that we can use fan input, digital […]
Sometimes you wind up in a place where you do not have something that everyone else has. So it was being a young American producer at the Rotterdam Cinemart Labs, straight off the plane from Sundance. Think: Independent Film Model Congress. I and my fellow American, Billy Mulligan, found ourselves on Day One in a “Speed Dating” scenario, spending five minutes each with our new international producer friends. From this and the subsequent wine-fueled dinner, I understood quickly that for all the different backgrounds and accents (Bosnian-inflected Scotch English being the prize winner in this department), we were all quite […]
Retribution is a low-budget indie action film that its producers at Openview Cinema plan to release April 1, 2011. Producer Cody Norris sent me the below trailer, and I asked him for more info on how they got the movie, directed by Colten Kidwell, made. Here’s what he wrote: We made Retribution with a tiny budget. Our actors were all volunteers, we were given the use of all our locations, we borrowed or made props, and we didn’t hire any additional crew. When we couldn’t buy things, we improvised. Production lasted more than a year because our actors were volunteers […]
Honestly, what the hell is up with genre these days? It’s a tricky thing to get a handle on, but we all have an idea of what’s happening in the independent film world: as production financing has dried up in a world where cinema is, simply put, not generating as much revenue as it used to, independent filmmakers who might be more at home making “art” flicks have decided to mix their interests with more familiar genre narratives. Catfish, which generated more intellectual-thought-content-per-minute than any other 2010 release, was sold as (and contained elements of) a Blair Witch-esque thriller, set […]
To create a feature with a genuine sense of mystery pulsing beneath the filmed veneer is a rare accomplishment, but to achieve that in a short film? Next to impossible. However, Pioneer — David Lowery’s tender, moody short — is an absolute cryptogram. Little more than a father (well-played by musician/actor Will Oldham) telling a tall and violent tale about an absent mother to his young son, Pioneer manages to stay within the confines of a bedroom yet utterly transports the audience to the high altitudes of childhood imagination. Lowery’s facility to direct children was on fine display with his […]
Known for his stunning 1998 documentary, Dutch Harbor: Where the Sea Breaks Its Back, as well as countless music videos for musicians including Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Sonic Youth, and Dirty Three, director Braden King arrives at Sundance in Dramatic Competition with HERE. Set in Armenia — and in many ways starring Armenia — HERE is a love story camouflaged as a road movie, or perhaps it’s the other way around. The atmospheric film follows Gadarine and Will (played by Lubna Azabal and Ben Foster), an Armenian art photographer and an American satellite-mapping engineer, from the exact moment they notice each […]
Good things come to those who wait, as writer-director Megan Griffiths will attest. The debut feature from the Seattle-based filmmaker, The Off-Hours, was seven years in the making before it finally went into production last spring. Inspired by Griffiths’ own experiences working the night shift, this moody, atmospheric indie captures the lives of the people who frequent a diner in a nowhere truckstop town, including pretty young waitress Francine (Amy Seimetz), her foster brother Corey (Scoot McNairy), soft-spoken truck driver Oliver (Ross Partridge), and alcoholic diner owner Stu (Tony Doupe). There are also cameos from fellow directors Lynn Shelton (whose […]
2010 was a big year for Michael Mohan. His first feature, One Too Many Mornings, premiered at Sundance (and can now be watched – in its entirety – on Hulu). He directed a music video for Fitz and the Tantrums that was blogged about by Justin Timberlake (no, really). And one year later he returns to Park City with a short film, Ex-Sex. Mohan’s short about ex’s hooking up is gorgeous to look at, totally relatable, and so pitch-perfect in its bitter-sweetness that the only logical question would be: Couldn’t you make it as a feature? Please? Characters […]