Producer and screenwriter James Schamus hardly needs another skill set to add to his CV, but let’s go ahead anyway and add “economic commentator” following the premiere of his engaging, witty and nicely analytical two-part, “That Film About Money,” for the 20-episode We the Economy series. Premiering this week online, We the Economy is a collaboration between Paul Allen’s Vulcan Productions and Morgan Spurlock’s Cinelan. (Disclosure: I’m on the Advisory Board of Cinelan.) The series features filmmakers — both documentarians and fiction directors — tackling, in bite-size form, questions surrounding the workings of our global economy and financial markets. For […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 25, 2014GE and cinelan today announced the five Jury Prize winners of its $200,000 FOCUS FORWARD Filmmaker Competition: Callum Cooper (Mine Kafon), Kim Munsamy (Bones Don’t Lie And Don’t Forget”, Paul Lazarus (Slingshot), Jared P. Scott & Kelly Nyks (The Artificial Leaf), and Rafel Duran Torrent (Cyborg Foundation). The Grand Jury Prize of $100,000 will be announced at a live Awards Ceremony on January 22 during the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. The jury for the Competition includes Sundance Film Festival Senior Programmer Caroline Libresco, actress Daryl Hannah (Kill Bill), and award-winning filmmakers Barbara Kopple (Harlan County, USA), José Padilha (Elite Squad), Joe Berlinger (Paradise Lost), Floyd Webb (Daughters of the Dust), and Peter Wintonick (Manufacturing Consent). The winning films are live and available to view for free on the FOCUS FORWARD website, along with the 15 other Filmmaker […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 7, 2013For Jamie Stuart, Sundance 2012 was a schizophrenic affair. Find out why in this video he made while covering the festival for Cinelan’s Focus Forward initiative. Appearances by Filmmaker‘s founding publisher, Karol Martesko-Fenster, Filmmaker correspondent, d.p. and director David Leitner, Morgan Spurlock, Jessica Yu, Frank Langella and more. Sequelized from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 20, 2012Sundance seems a little incomplete for me without Jamie Stuart, who is shooting this year for Cinelan and GE’s new Focus Forward initiative. Led by Cinelan co-founders Morgan Spurlock and Karol Martesko-Fenster (Filmmaker‘s founding publsiher), the program brings 30 new three-minute short films to festivals internationally. So, to get my Stuart Sundance fix I’ll post this piece he shot for the organization, which is premiering its first five films here at the festival. Jamie may be lensing for this new short-form doc producer, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a photo gallery of snow-capped peaks, shuttle busses lumbering down Park, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 20, 2012Cinelan, the video publisher that syndicates three-minute documentary films, has announced today an open invitation to non-North American filmmakers to contribute to its Focus Forward series. Teaming with GE, it’s an initiative of three-minute docs that focuses on innovation and ideas that change the world. In addition to Oscar and award-winning filmmakers who have signed on to produce the 30 three-minute films such as Joe Berlinger, Lixin Fan, Liz Garbus, Alex Gibney, Steve James, Barbara Kopple, Ross Kauffman, Cinelan co-founded Morgan Spurlock, Jessica Yu and newly announced filmmakers Lucy Walker, Stanley Nelson, Phil Cox and Leslie Iwerks, Cinelan is accepting brief […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Oct 26, 2011