6580 Results for “production”
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Rashad Frett
A first-generation Caribbean American whose family traveled back and forth from Connecticut to the Virgin Islands during his childhood, Brooklyn-based Rashad Frett grew up “aspiring to be creative” and explored different possible outlets, such as drawing and acting. He wound up joining the military instead, where he was a combat medic for his unit during 9/11—an experience that began an introspective period during which he explored different career avenues, including business school, until he enrolled in the communications department at Central Connecticut State University. There, the experience of studying filmmaking with director and professor Jeffrey Teitler was catalyzing, and to […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 20, 2023 -
Center of Gravity: Justine Triet on Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall begins with no image, just sound: the click of a recording device being turned on and Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller) asking, “What do you want to know?” Starting from this clearly symbolic opening line, the ensuing brief exchange foreshadows much. Sandra is an autofiction author whose work has generated controversy (her family objected to her first book, an event she dramatized in her second), so volunteering herself for interrogation by earnest graduate student Zoé (Camille Rutherford) isn’t merely an opportunity to provide biographical context but a risky invitation for moral scrutiny. Their conversation turns […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 20, 2023 -
Invisible on the Interstate: Joanne McNeil on Amy Reid’s Long Haulers
“Everything in your house has, at one time, been moved on a truck,” says one of the truckers featured in Long Haulers. Amy Reid’s film subtly demystifies what can be a uniquely alienating form of labor, and the film itself has recently emerged from relative invisibility. The titular vehicles are typically driven by men. Reid’s debut documentary follows the lives of three women who are among the nearly seven percent of long haul truckers working in the United States. Completed in 2020, Long Haulers might have then seemed incredibly timely given the global supply chain crisis, which was among the […]
by Joanne McNeil on Sep 20, 2023 -
Aurora Brachman
During the summer of 2015, documentary director and producer Aurora Brachman—then a 19-year-old psychology major at Pomona College in southern California—took a solo trip to the Pacific island of Kiribati. She had received a filmmaking grant from the Pacific Basin Institute, and this particular locale drew her because, she says, it’s “projected to be the first country submerged due to rising sea levels.” “I had never made a film or touched a camera before,” she continues. “Frankly, I had no business doing this. But it completely changed my life.” Upon returning, Brachman continued on the psychology track but still finished […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 20, 2023 -
Editor’s Letter
Welcome to the fall 2023 edition of Filmmaker—our 31st anniversary issue containing the 26th edition of our 25 New Faces of Film list. Or perhaps I should say, “Welcome to the fall 2023 edition of Filmmaker Magazine” and actually use that final descriptor, one which I often edit out of interview copy when people say it. As I wrote in this space a year ago in a longer-than-usual editor’s letter tied to our silver anniversary, I picked the name “Filmmaker” after being inspired by a magazine called Musician that ran for nearly 25 years in the latter part of the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 20, 2023 -
Daniel Chein
The hybrid documentary Time Hunter will present creative technologist Mark Mushiva in two complementary contexts, and a striking 15-minute work sample provides a sense of how the strands will interweave. In the first, Mushiva is documented in his daily life, including his delivery of a presentation on his theory of Afro-acceleration. “Because Black people were seen as nonhuman and whiteness was seen as human, maybe the role of Blackness is to accelerate away from what is human,” he explains. That means actively embracing technology: “Get the chips, cyberonify, whatever it is.” The second strand envisions how Mushiva’s theory might look […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 20, 2023 -
John Rosman
Set in Oregon, John Rosman’s debut feature New Life initially keeps its cards close to its chest. The opening shot of a bloodied, frantic woman looking for a place to hide implies someone dangerous is hot on her trail—but is she a victim or a wanted fugitive? Retrieving keys from the front steps of an empty house, the woman enters and finds an engagement ring that may or may not be hers. Within minutes, law enforcement arrives, and she’s back on the run, befriending anyone who will get her closer to the United States/Canadian border. A tale of two women—one […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 20, 2023 -
Inhabiting the Role: Todd Haynes on May/December
Todd Haynes’s May December, which premiered this year at the Cannes Film Festival and was snatched up by Netflix almost immediately, marks a return to the kind of expressive women’s drama for which the director is arguably most beloved. Think Far from Heaven (2002) or Carol (2015), two films about forbidden romance whose lush, stylized aesthetics both encourage nostalgia and destabilize easy emotional identification. As the title suggests, May December, too, concerns a taboo love affair—one whose throwback elements are anchored to the tabloid frenzies and true-crime obsessions of the 1990s. Written by Samy Burch, a casting director making her […]
by Beatrice Loayza on Sep 20, 2023 -
Kayla Abuda Galang
During the pandemic, Kayla Abuda Galang found herself considering making a short film. While her upbringing was split between San Diego and Houston, she’d studied in the Radio-Television-Film program at the University of Texas at Austin and decided to plant roots there after graduating in 2014. Galang took whatever odd jobs would pay the rent before embarking on a four-year stint as a wedding photographer. “Immersing myself in Texas wedding culture was such a fun detour in my life,” she chuckles. When COVID hit, Galang felt terribly homesick. Unable to see her large Filipino family in person and cooped up […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 20, 2023 -
Holiday Misfits: Alexander Payne on The Holdovers
Before The Holdovers, director Alexander Payne and actor Paul Giamatti hadn’t worked together in nearly two decades. After premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2004, their Oscar-winning comedy Sideways went on to garner countless awards and generate profitable spinoffs—a Japanese remake, musical theater adaptation, film-branded bottles of pinot noir. During the 19 years since the film’s release, Payne and Giamatti attempted to team up on new projects, but none came to fruition until a screenplay by David Hemingson arrived on Payne’s desk a few years ago. Envisioning the script as something that could be revised and expanded upon […]
by Erik Luers on Sep 20, 2023
