In February, cinematographer Benoît Delhomme attended the premiere of Minamata, which he shot for director Andrew Levitas, at the Berlin International Film Festival. After finishing another project in London, he returned to Paris just as the Covid-19 lockdown began. Delhomme spoke with Filmmaker in early June via Skype. Filmmaker: When did you become aware of the COVID-19 virus?  Delhomme: When I was in Berlin, it was obvious by reading the news that the virus was approaching. I was quite surprised that the Festival could run normally. I did not feel very comfortable because of the festival crowds. We had a huge […]

In his previous two features, Restless City and Mother of George, Nigeria-born photographer-turned-filmmaker Andrew Dosunmu has placed vivid human dramas within ultra-specific pockets of New York City. His films have examined how immigrant characters find their lives shaped by the often very subtle clashes that come from their retaining their own identities within the larger melting pot of the city. Working continually with the great cinematographer Bradford Young, Dosunmu also makes extraordinarily beautiful films, full of arresting images that convey the rhythms, exuberances but also pathos of these city streets. With his new picture, Where is Kyra?, opening today from […]

In just a few years, Bradford Young has emerged as one of the most auspicious and distinctive cinematographers in American independent film. First noticed in 2011 for his work on Andrew Dosunmu’s Restless City and Dee Rees’ Pariah, he was profiled by the New York Times the following year for his subtle, carefully framed cinematography on Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere. In just the past year, Young confirmed his early promise with two sumptuous and yet highly disparate visions: for David Lowery’s Texas-set period film Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (opening this week) and Dosunmu’s Brooklyn-based contemporary drama Mother of George […]

Black films don’t travel. It’s one of the oldest clichés in the movie business. And it may be as true today as it was 20 years ago when producer Andrew Vajna famously declared, “There are no black actors today [who] mean anything to the foreign marketplace.” Hollywood may have made some headway in overcoming the racial road-blocks that exist in overseas markets; the foreign box-office for Quentin Tarantino’s Jamie Foxx-starring Django Unchained, for example, has well surpassed domestic sales, as did, surprisingly, Martin Lawrence’s 2011 comedy Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son. But those films remain the exception, not the […]