Cam Archer
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Trailer Watch: Wild Tigers I Have Known (15th Anniversary Edition)
When I recently interviewed Cam Archer about his latest short, His Image, the director told me that he has been revisiting old projects, creating new high-definition scans and working on new edits. The first of those projects to see the light of day is out October 26, and a trailer has just dropped. Via video label Altered Innocence comes a 15th anniversary edition of Archer’s debut feature, Wild Tigers I Have Known, in what’s billed as a “2021 Edit and Mix.” Bonus features on the disk include: -Pull-out Poster by Michael Gillette -Deleted Scenes -A 2021 Interview with Lou Stumpf (who […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 1, 2021 -
“Every Image is Goodbye”: Cam Archer on Grief, Walks Home and His MoMA-Premiering Short, His Image
“Dreamy visuals of teenhood — cool hair, telephones, starkly lit bedrooms, troubled outsiders — are laid over structured soundtracks that blend distinctive background ambiences with catchy songs,” is how Mike Plante described the early short films of Cam Archer for Filmmaker in 2006. The occasion was the release of Archer’s first feature, Wild Tigers I Have Known, which joined an emerging body of work that Plante called “art films for teens.” But when we next caught up with Archer, it was just after the Cannes Directors Fortnight premiere of his second feature, Shit Year, starring Ellen Barkin, and his focus had […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 2, 2021 -
The Cult Appeal of the Creative Capital Retreat
“Creative Capital is a cult,” said Phillip Andrew Lewis at the end of his presentation at the art funder’s semi-annual retreat this past weekend at Williams College in Williamstown, MA. “But it’s a good cult.” Lewis’s was both a good line and an appropriate capper to his presentation, which shocked right from the outset. The installation artist began his talk by saying he had been held captive as a child for two years within a radical drug treatment program sponsored by the U.S. government. “I consider my work a form of deprogramming,” he told the stunned audience. For the record, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 2, 2012 -
DRUNK PODCASTING AT CREATIVE CAPITAL
The above scene at the Creative Capital retreat this weekend brought back a lot of memories. The arts funding organization’s semi-annual retreat was held at Williams College in Williamstown Massachusetts, and on the final evening the outdoor barbecue got drizzled out. So, it was moved indoors, and afterwards the cafeteria space became a party space, where artist grantees and consultants danced to Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love.” A level up, Cinemad’s Mike Plante set up his microphones and recorded a podcast. The ’80s music, the party, and radio — it was like one of my own evenings in college, where I’d […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 31, 2012 -
LARS KNUDSEN AND JAY VAN HOY SIGN DEVELOPMENT DEAL WITH K5
Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy, the producing duo behind Gotham Award Best Picture winner and Oscar nominee Beginners, have signed an output and development deal with sales, finance, and production company K5 Media Group. The deal marks an alliance between two rising indie powerhouses. Knudsen and Van Hoy have been building their reputation for the past ten years. In 2004, they founded production company Parts & Labor and steadily accumulated a body of festival circuit sleeper hits including Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy, Cam Archer’s Wild Tigers I Have Known, and Nik Fackler’s Lovely, Still. More recently, the duo produced […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Feb 1, 2012 -
The Microbudget Conversation: The Success Of Failure
Well after a great holiday, and another Sundance, we are back for a new season of the conversation. This year we’re going to try and expand the definition of micro and see it as more of a state of mind and community, as oppose to a budget. I’m looking to hear from more filmmakers, see how they are expanding the limitations of technology, and see how the new model is effecting the old. We are also working on a project you’ll be hearing more about as the months roll on. Our hopes is that it will be some of the […]
by John Yost on Jan 31, 2012 -
CREATIVE CAPITAL ANNOUNCES 2012 FILM AND VIDEO GRANTEES
At a reception last night at the Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York, Creative Capital announced its 2012 Film & Video and Visual Arts grantees. Among the media artists are a number of names familiar to Filmmaker readers, including 25 New Face directors Cam Archer, Matt Porterfield and Yance Ford. Others who received grants include L.A.-based director Nina Menkes, veteran experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs, and Rooftop Films head Mark Elijah Rosenberg, who, as a director, will tell “a multimedia, fictional story of an astronaut heading to Mars alone on a one-way mission.” “Our grantees span artists from 27 years old […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 13, 2012 -
CAM ARCHER LAUNCHES CRIME DOC ON KICKSTARTER
Boundary-busting filmmaker Cam Archer — one of Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces and director of, most recently, Shit Year — is making his first doc, Criminal Thoughts. He talks about it and his career in an unguarded video for Kickstarter. In the video, Archer is up-front about the exploratory nature of his project, which appeals to me. As more and more Kickstarter campaigns seem like pre-buys for existing products/projects, Cam’s appeal to us to assist him during his creative process is striking. From the page: CRIMINAL THOUGHTS, my first feature length documentary, will be an exciting, creative departure for me. in […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 9, 2011 -
An Interview with Shit Year‘s Cam Archer
This post was originally published when Shit Year premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010. The film opens today at the IFC Center. It is both accurate and reductive to call Cam Archer’s Shit Year, which premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in the Director’s Fortnight section, the story of a retiring actress grappling with the emotions produced by her move away from the Hollywood spotlight. Of course, on narrative terms, that is what it’s about. Ellen Barkin plays the actress, who has just given her final talk-show interview, moved to a cabin in the woods, and now […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 21, 2011 -
CANNES COVERAGE, CAM ARCHER INTERVIEW NEW ON THE SITE
With both our “25 New Faces” feature and the IFP’s Narrative Lab coming up, I’ve been kind of backlogged here on the blog. But, I just posted a couple of things: first, Livia Bloom’s recap of Cannes in our Festival Coverage section, and then my interview with Shit Year director Cam Archer, conducted in Cannes after the premiere of his film in the Director’s Fortnight section. And, in a separate post, Bloom wonders why there were not any female directors in Competition in Cannes this year. You can check them out at the links.
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 2, 2010
