Here are a few of the articles in my Instapaper this week. At Bad Lit, Mike Everleth has his usual excellent selection of Underground Film Links, including this link to “Foreign Cinema: Whither San Francisco’s Experimental Film Legacy,” by Kimberly Chun at the Bold Italic. She visits Canyon Cinema and and various local filmmakers, looking for scene described in the Pacific Film Archive’s first book, Radical Light. Chuck Tryon watches (and likes) The Fighter with his Massachusetts-born fiance and notes the reference to the documentary High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell: A look back at the documentary shows […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 13, 2011Honestly, what the hell is up with genre these days? It’s a tricky thing to get a handle on, but we all have an idea of what’s happening in the independent film world: as production financing has dried up in a world where cinema is, simply put, not generating as much revenue as it used to, independent filmmakers who might be more at home making “art” flicks have decided to mix their interests with more familiar genre narratives. Catfish, which generated more intellectual-thought-content-per-minute than any other 2010 release, was sold as (and contained elements of) a Blair Witch-esque thriller, set […]
by Zachary Wigon on Feb 2, 2011
Making a business out of independent film is harder than ever. But still, great films are being made. In this series of short profiles, Filmmaker asked a number of leading independent producers about their producing models and how they’re finding everything from financing to material to office space.
In its 12th year the Sarasota Film Festival has established itself as an important regional festival stop. Wedged between SXSW and Tribeca, Sarasota’s 10-day event is filled with festival circuit favorites, access to industry folk for the area filmmakers and lots of parties. [Full disclosure: I’m on the jury for the Independent Visions award this year.] Kicking off last night with Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini‘s The Extra Man, the film stars Kevin Klein and Paul Dano as unlikely roommates living in Manhattan, one an aging playboy (Klein) the other a dreamer trying to find his place in life […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Apr 10, 2010The group of filmmakers dubbed “mumblecore” is known for many things, but visual resplendency is not one of them. In fact, some of the movement’s biggest names proudly announce their disinterest in design, careful framing, and the dramatic effects of controlled lighting. From the outset, however, Aaron Katz has been an exception. Even when operating on the tiniest of budgets — as he did when shooting Quiet City for $2,000 — he has paid careful attention to the expressive potential of his characters’ surroundings. The nighttime industrial Brooklyn streets of Quiet City are not the harsh jungle of much urban […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 16, 2010