BAMcinemaFest 2019
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“I Can Afford a Month of Editing Right Now”: Diana Peralta on De Lo Mio
While most independent films are birthed out of personal necessity, a time-crunch, and readily available locations, Diana Peralta’s De Lo Mio may represent a pinnacle of can-do gumption. Shot on location in the city of Santiago in the Dominican Republic, Peralta’s debut feature uses her late grandmother’s home as its central location and its truer-than-fiction narrative—following her passing, two sisters return to their grandmother’s cozy property before it gets bulldozed and the land sold. Shot last fall but percolating in the director’s mind for years, De Lo Mio is as much about the sisters in front of the camera (performed by Sasha […]
by Erik Luers on Jun 25, 2019 -
What to See at the 2019 BAMcinemafest
Following its very good opening night film — Lulu Wang’s The Farewell (also Filmmaker’s forthcoming Summer issue cover) — BAMcinemafest the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s essential early summer fest, is underway. This year’s edition is typical of the fest: a well-curated and relatively compact mix of recent festival standouts, a world premiere or two, and assorted other programs, including tomorrow’s day-long (and free) program of industry panels presented in collaboration with IFP. The festival runs until June 22, and for those in or headed to Brooklyn, here are some recommendations from us at Filmmaker. So Pretty. Jessie Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 14, 2019 -
An On-Set Education: Graham Swon on The World is Full of Secrets
When The World is Full of Secrets showed earlier this year at a festival for debut films in remote Khanty-Mansiysk, Siberia, its director, Graham Swon (a 25 New Face of Film in 2016), briefly became almost as much of interest to the public audience and critics there as did his hypnotic cinematic spectacular. That I was there as the only international journalist in attendance to witness Swon fielding eager questions from this newfound audience of intrigued Siberian spectators strikes me now as a fluke of wondrous good fortune. The movie’s long, discursive monologues, in which 15- and 16-year-old girls narrate […]
by Christopher Small on Jun 14, 2019 -
“I Just Saw People Falling Out of the Sky”: Andrew Hevia on Leave the Bus Through the Broken Window
A stranger in a foreign land, with a camera and a penchant for cheap beer: Andrew Hevia’s hyperdigital documentary Leave the Bus Through the Broken Window follows the Miami-bred filmmaker as he visits Hong Kong for the Chinese edition of Art Basel. At first determined to make a traditional documentary accessible for public television audiences, Hevia’s plans are quickly thwarted once he discovers the elusive intricacies of the region. He’s a Cuban-American who can’t understand the language of his new surroundings. Rather than view that as a hindrance, he takes to meeting artists and art collectors, attending art shows, wooing […]
by Erik Luers on Jun 12, 2019 -
“A Movie Where Nobody Wears Clothes and It’s PG-Rated”: Jessie Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli on So Pretty
Before Jessie Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli began the bulk of production on her second feature So Pretty, she wrote an essay for this site outlining some of the goals and background behind the production: The film is an adaptation of a 1980s German gay novel [Ronald M. Schernikau’s So Schön] that I am transposing and translating to a cast of feminine people of many genders in 2018, New York City. […] Given the explicit gender-trouble and queer elements of So Pretty, as well as the fact that it takes seriously the novella’s paraphrased subtitle “a utopian film,” my film must create an image […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jun 12, 2019
