To say Guslagie Malanda plays Laurence Coly in Alice Diop’s Saint Omer feels incorrect; she becomes her. It’s a performance that holds such subtle power and authenticity that it’s easy to take it for granted. On this episode, Malanda explains why she turned down countless acting jobs after her first film, My Friend Victoria. She talks about the year-long pre-production period that she needed to prepare for the role, the nightmares that plagued her during that time, the breakthrough of learning to breathe, and much more. Back To One can be found wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, […]
The nonprofit Sundance Institute has announced the 12 projects selected for the Screenwriters Lab and the 10 projects selected for the Screenwriters Intensive for 2023. The fellows come from both the U.S. and abroad, with participants hailing from the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon and Nepal. This year’s projects were chosen from over 2,000 submissions, and the selected fellows will work to develop their scripts with Michelle Satter, Founding Senior Director of Sundance Institute’s Artist Programs, and Ilyse McKimmie, Deputy Director of the Feature Film Program. Lab fellows will develop their projects in-person at the Sundance Mountain Resort from January […]
Over the past decade or so, the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival presented by Halekulani—like any good organization—has been in a state of evolution. Ten to 15 years ago, under the then-leadership of executive director Chuck Boller, it was considered one of the best American festivals to celebrate and discover East Asian populist cinema, with guests lists of Hong Kong icons, Japanese auteurs and Korean superstars that put most other festivals to shame. In the 2010s, it shined through its programming of independent Asian American cinema, providing a platform for voices and visions typically shut out of mainstream media. In recent […]
The primordial fear of being watched, stalked and caught by an unknown entity lurking in the dark is the basis of Skinamarink, the microbudget feature debut from writer-director-editor Kyle Edward Ball. The incredibly loose narrative follows young siblings Kevin (Lucas Paul) and Kaylee (Dali Rose Tetreault) as they patter around their family’s strikingly ordinary middle-class house in the dead of night circa 1995. Their parents are nowhere to be found, all of the doors have mysteriously vanished and the lights eventually stop working. While this phenomena is enough to chill any child, their well-being is most threatened by a supernatural […]
The winners of the 16th annual Cinema Eye Honors Awards, which recognizes excellence in nonfiction filmmaking, were announced last night during an in-person ceremony at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens. All That Breathes, Shaunak Sen’s Cannes-winning documentary, took the top prize in the Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking category as well as nabbing an award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography. Yet Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love took home more wins overall, winning in categories Outstanding Achievement in Editing, Outstanding Achievement in Original Score (by Nicolas Godin of French electro duo Air) and tying with Brett […]
The unexpected (and largely unspoken) challenges of parenthood are rawly probed in Holding Moses, a moving documentary short directed by Rivkah Beth Medow and Jen Rainin. The film follows Randi Rader (Medow is in an open marriage; Rader is her long-term partner), a queer, non-binary dancer and Broadway performer who undergoes a personal reckoning when her son Moses is born with a rare genetic disorder of the 22nd chromosome. Via pre-recorded monologue, Rader shares the difficult journey of digging herself out of a deep depression and learning to love her son unconditionally. The candidness of her emotional trajectory may at […]
SXSW has announced the first wave of film and television programming for its 30th edition. The festival will take place exclusively in-person in Austin, Texas from March 10-19. The festival will open with Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, an adaptation of the popular RPG directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Other noteworthy titles include the Evil Dead Rise, the latest entry in the Sam Raimi-created horror franchise, Problemista, Julio Torres’s directorial debut starring himself and Tilda Swinton and Flamin’ Hot, Eva Longoria‘s doc about the creation of the Frito-Lay snack. “We are thrilled to announce the first wave of […]
Tallie Medel is an award winning actor, educator, artist, and one third of the legendary Cocoon Central Dance Team. Her fiercely authentic and nuanced performances in films like Dan Sallitt’s Fourteen have garnered attention from critics and audiences alike. This past year she gifted us with Becky in the acclaimed Everything Everywhere All At Once. In this episode, she talks about the communal environment on that production that benefited the performances, the importance of establishing true connection with her scene partners and using the present moment as a tool, how learning and teaching Clown has changed and shaped her work, […]
The Cinema Audio Society announces today the nominees for the 59th CAS Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing 2022. The contenders in all seven categories were chosen by professional sound mixers from hundreds of submissions to highlight excellence in their field. At this year’s ceremony, the CAS Career Achievement Award will go to Oscar-nominated production sound mixer Peter J. Devlin CAS (Black Panther, Wakanda Forever), while Alejandro González Iñárritu (Bardo) will receive be honored as the 2023 CAS Filmmaker of the Year. “There are a plethora of award-worthy contenders this year,” said CAS president Karol Urban in a press […]
The Sundance Institute announces today the lineup for the Beyond Film conversations at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, which will all be open to the public. The slate is comprised of three separate series—Power of Story, Cinema Café and The Big Conversation—and will feature filmmaker panels, audience discourses and broader artistic conversations. Beyond Film will be hosted in-person at the festival from January 19-23, with several conversations accessible virtually for nationwide audiences through the Festival’s online platform beginning on January 24. Also announced today are conversations hosted by Sundance Collab and several of the Festival’s partners, which are similarly available […]