The following interview appeared originally in Filmmaker‘s Fall, 2007 print edition. We don’t cover enough screenwriters in Filmmaker, but that’s not entirely our fault. This magazine is devoted to independent film, and for many, the director is also the writer. Or the script has emerged from improvisation or some other nontraditional means. And while there is a new breed of independent-minded screenwriters today — Charlie Kaufman, Capote’s Dan Futterman and Juno’s Diablo Cody come immediately to mind — many of the “marquee screenwriters” still work almost exclusively in the studio world. By virtue of the unique niche that screenwriter Oren […]
FATHER CHRISTOPHER HARTLEY (CENTER) IN BILL HANEY’S THE PRICE OF SUGAR. COURTESY MITROPOULOS FILMS. William M. Haney III — or Bill Haney to you and me — is one of those people who one suspects would be successful at almost anything he chose to turn his hand to. He started his first business while still an undergrad at Harvard, and made $15m when he sold his stock in the company, aged just 26. He then moved on to invest in two environmental companies and then a software company, continuing his success with all three. He first became interested in film […]
In 2005 indie director Larry Fessenden was troubled by the state of the world—specifically, by our leaders’ callow response to the threat of global warming. So he did what he does best: He made a horror movie. The Last Winter, about a skeleton crew of oil-dredge workers afflicted by madness and other disturbing phenomena in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, revisits some of the tropes in Fessenden’s spooky 2001 feature Wendigo, including a fearsome, shape-shifting deer-spirit. The film was overlooked when it premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, later acquired by IFC First Take (releases September 19), and recently […]
KENE HOLLIDAY AND PAT HEALY IN CRAIG ZOBEL’S GREAT WORLD OF SOUND. COURTESY MAGNOLIA PICTURES. Previously best known as David Gordon Green’s right-hand man, Craig Zobel has effortlessly emerged from his friend’s shadow and established himself as an important presence in American filmmaking in his own right. Though born in New York, Zobel grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and stayed in the South for his college education, studying film at the North Carolina School of the Arts alongside Green and a number of other future collaborators. After graduation, Zobel worked on Green’s first three films — George Washington (2000), All […]
Jeff Garlin may be best known as Larry David’s right hand man on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, but there’s more to this Second City alum than his deadpan humor. Along with doing stand up and developing new TV shows when Curb isn’t taping, he’s also been trying to get his feature films made. His first is I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With, which premiered at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival to rave reviews and then suddenly lost its momentum and collected dust for over a year until finding distribution through IFC Film’s First Take banner and The Weinstein Company. […]
I want to thank David Lowery for contributing the great interview with Ronnie Bronstein that’s up on the main page right now. I love Bronstein’s film Frownland and am really happy to be hosting a special screening of it with director Lodge Kerrigan at the IFC Center next Wednesday at 7:30 pm. Lowery is right when he calls Frownland “one of the most confrontational and uncompromising visions to emerge from the American independent scene in recent memory,” and I hope that a lot of you come to this special edition of Filmmaker‘s series at the IFC. Here’s a taste of […]
MARK DUPLASS AND GRETA GERWIG IN JOE SWANBERG’S HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS. COURTESY IFC FIRST TAKE. Whatever the merits or otherwise of the “mumblecore” tag, one positive thing it has certainly done is help bring deserved attention to filmmakers like Joe Swanberg. The precocious 25-year-old was born in Detroit, but moved around as a kid before attending Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where he studied film. After graduation, he used money he had made from web design work to fund his first feature, Kissing on the Mouth (2005), which played at the SXSW Film Festival at the time the concept of […]
CHRISTOPHER MINTZ-PLASSE, JONAH HILL AND MICHAEL CERA IN GREG MOTTOLA’S SUPERBAD. COURTESY COLUMBIA PICTURES. It’s a sign of Hollywood’s wrongheadedness that it’s been a decade since Greg Mottola last made a movie. In 1996, Mottola arrived on the scene with his debut, The Daytrippers, a funny and poignant indie that recalled the classy Hollywood comedies of the ’60s and ’70s. Though the film led to Mottola becoming friends with Woody Allen — unquestionably an influence on Daytrippers — his next two projects failed to come to fruition, so he turned his focus to television. Mottola’s work in TV has been […]
Matt Dentler came up with a great concept to help get the word out about Joe Swanberg’s Hannah Takes the Stairs, which begins a theatrical run Wednesday, August 22 at New York’s IFC Center. He’s done interviews with Swanberg and the film’s other principal collaborators and parceled them out to a number of different film bloggers. Here’s the Filmmaker segment, and thanks, Matt, for including us. JOE SWANBERG INTERVIEWED BY MATT DENTLER On the eve of the theatrical debut of Joe Swanberg’s SXSW 2007 hit, Hannah Takes the Stairs, I wanted to check in with each of the film’s principal […]
IFP Documentary Rough Cut Lab – November 6 – 9, 2007, NYC The IFP Documentary Rough Cut Lab is a national program connecting mentors and projects before they are submitted to festivals. The Lab aims to identify 10 high quality independently produced documentaries each year that can benefit from the support and expertise of experienced film professionals. The key creative teams of these projects receive feedback from a range of professionals in editing, scoring, post delivery, outreach, marketing and publicity, sales representation and festival strategy. The 2007 Documentary Lab Leaders: the documentary production team of Arts Engine, Inc.: (Election Day, […]