Amazon Studios
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Trailer Watch: Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan in Foe
A trailer arrives today for Foe, the latest directorial effort from Australian filmmaker Garth Davis. Adapted from the novel of the same name by I’m Thinking of Ending Things author Iain Reid, the screenplay is co-written by Davis and Reid and stars Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal as a Midwestern American couple circa 2065 who must navigate a sudden change in their relationship. An official synopsis reads: Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal star in Foe, a haunting exploration of marriage and identity set in an uncertain world. Hen and Junior farm a secluded piece of land that has been in Junior’s […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Aug 24, 2023 -
“…About That Pivotal Time in a Young Person’s Life When Libido and Ambition Get All Mixed Up”: Director Sarah Adina Smith on her Amazon Dance Drama, Birds of Paradise
The complexities, uncertainties and rivalries of young female friendship are explored in heightened, near-surreal ways in Sarah Adina Smith’s ballet-school drama, Birds of Paradise, now playing on Amazon Prime. Working-class Kate (Diana Silvers) is the awkward newcomer at a somewhat gothic Parisian dance academy, and she’s immediately thrust into competition with Marine (Kristine Froseth), the talented, beautiful and mercurial daughter of the American French ambassador. The two women, placed together as roommates, quickly bond, however, following a competitive dance-off in a psychedelic dance club, a night-long endurance test that Smith cleverly constructs along the lines of the classic game-theory test, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 5, 2021 -
“Before Directing, I Never Truly Understood Just How Exhausting and Taxing the Filmmaking Process Is”: David Weil on Solos
Showrunner David Weil’s Amazon series Hunters was one of the most audacious pieces of television I saw in 2020, a profound meditation on morality and history articulated with the exhilarating narrative rush of a great genre film. Epic in its sweep and ambition, the show made me eager to see what Weil would do next—where does a filmmaker go after such a bold swing for the fences? The answer turned out to be Weil’s new show (also for Amazon) Solos, which operates at the other end of the spectrum in terms of scale but is just as daring in its […]
by Jim Hemphill on May 19, 2021 -
Back to One, Episode 118: Mireille Enos
Mireille Enos made a splash on Broadway in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, then her big break in television came with The Killing, where she played Sarah Linden to much acclaim for four seasons. World War Z opposite Brad Pitt followed, and now the second season of the action-drama hit series Hanna premiered on Amazon this month. Enos talks about how exceptional writing helps multi-season work, learning about story-craft from Tom Stoppard, the importance of being open to intuition, and how empathy helps you build yourself as an actor. Plus much more! Back To One can be found wherever you […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Jul 17, 2020 -
Day 5 of 25: Tayarisha Poe, Lauren McBride, Jomo Fray on Selah and the Spades
“She found no joy in fully formed things, she sought those times of the year, those people, who were discovering their potential. Selah loved potential.” Quoted in Filmmaker’s Winter, 2015 print issue, in our now-defunct Super 8 column, those are the words of the narrator of the first iteration of Tayarisha Poe’s wickedly beguiling, sociologically astute teen crime drama, Selah and the Spades. At that time, “transmedia” was a bit more the rage, and Poe’s hybrid website/webseries/photography/literary site had a smart, sprawling appeal. By the time we caught up with Poe again, selecting her for our Summer, 2015 issues’ 25 […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 24, 2020 -
Trailer Watch: Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here
The U.S. trailer for Lynne Ramsay’s contemporary neo-noir, You Were Never Really Here, which won the Best Screenplay and Best Actor (for Ramsay and Joaquin Phoenix, respectively) at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, has just dropped. An adaptation of a Jonathan Ames story, it stars Phoenix as a modern-day gumshoe tracking down a kidnapped kid. Amazon releases in early ’18.
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 6, 2017 -
Indie Film is Alive
“It’s going be called ‘Indie Film is Dead,’” I remember Ted Hope saying to me back in 1995. He was referring to an article he was submitting for that fall’s magazine, a many-thousand-word takedown of the business practices and internalized logic of the specialty film business. Hope, a prolific producer who had worked with Ang Lee and Hal Hartley, was a frequent contributor to Filmmaker in our early days, writing pieces like one on how to interview a production designer or another on the job of the production manager. But this piece would be different. Here’s the lede: “The marketplace […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 14, 2017 -
Rise of the Machines: Cathy O’Neil and James Schamus on How Algorithms are Changing Society — and Filmmaking
Amazon and Netflix are having a huge impact on the independent film business, and there are more players entering the subscription VOD space every day, both here in the United States and worldwide. I myself just had a great experience working with Netflix on Kitty Green’s Casting JonBenet, which Green, Filmmaker’s own editor-in-chief Scott Macaulay and I produced. Opening day on Netflix was, though, a bit unsettling. The data driving the film’s marketing, and the measures for its success or failure, are closely held corporate secrets — even the sources and kinds of data the company uses to determine how […]
by James Schamus on Sep 14, 2017 -
Trailer Watch: Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq
The idea of a movie about gun violence in Chicago structured as an update of Lysistrata may not make intuitive sense, but the trailer for Spike Lee’s forthcoming Chi-Raq (and Amazon Studios’ first foray into theatrical distribution) makes it immediately clear what you’re going to see. It’s a Spike Lee movie: there will be didactic politics, a people-mover shot, and a definite can-this-actually-work? factor. For more information, read this excellent recent interview with Lee.
by Vadim Rizov on Nov 3, 2015 -
Theatrical 2.0
Releasing movies in U.S. theaters isn’t going away anytime soon. But indie film distribution is experiencing a significant tipping of the scales. While theatrical distribution has always been an advertisement for foreign sales and ancillary platforms, like VHS and then DVD, a new wave of film companies are shifting the balance even further, where theatrical distribution is a means to a digital end. As Vincent Scordino, senior vice president of marketing at rising distributor Alchemy says, “Ancillary platforms have always been important to a film’s profitability, but now we’re talking about them more with the rise of iTunes and the […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Jul 23, 2015
