Danfung Dennis
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“We Have Only Scratched the Surface of What is Possible in Erotic VR Media”: Jennifer Lyon Bell on Her Fantasy Film Workshop and Creating Erotic VR
The last time I interviewed veteran filmmaker Jennifer Lyon Bell for this site topics ranged from “fair trade” porn to the inaugural Holy Fuck Film Festival in Amsterdam (where the expat feminist pornographer has long resided). And now Bell, recipient of both the Feminist Porn Awards 2014 Movie of the Year (for Silver Shoes, which premiered at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts) and a psych degree from Harvard, continues to expand her mission of providing sex education for those behind the lens, while also exploring the new media horizon through her own artistic work. I caught up with Bell to […]
by Lauren Wissot on Mar 21, 2018 -
DANFUNG DENNIS, “HELL AND BACK AGAIN”
Originally published in the Director Interviews section on Oct. 6, 2011. Hell and Back Again is nominated for Best Documentary. Perhaps the most viscerally harrowing documentary account of the war in Afghanistan yet, Danfung Dennis‘ Hell and Back Again is an intense visual experience, one that with the dynamism and fluidity of a narrative film takes you into the heart of the conflict in this troubled corner of the globe. Dennis, who left behind a career in economics to become a war photographer in the middle of the aughts, focuses on Sargent Nathan Harris, a Marine infantryman in Echo Company […]
by Brandon Harris on Nov 15, 2011 -
DANFUNG DENNIS: FROM AFGHANISTAN TO SUNDANCE
Originally posted in the Web Exclusives section on February 11, 2011. Hell and Back Again is nominated for Best Documentary. “At first my view of war was boyish and romantic,” Danfung Dennis told me in his Brooklyn loft five years after we initially met in Kabul, “but that view of war was based on video games and Hollywood.” In the spring of 2006, Danfung flew from Beijing to Kabul and was driven to the Le Monde Guest House. I remember when he arrived. His clothes were neat, his hair stylish, he wore an easy smile and had soft brown eyes. […]
by Stewart Nusbaumer on Nov 2, 2011 -
Hell and Back Again — A Hammer and Nail Review
(Hell and Back Again premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Its official theatrical run begins at the Film Forum on Wednesday, October 5th. As a selection in the DocuWeeks 2011 program, it opens theatrically in New York City at the IFC Center on Friday, August 19th, and in Los Angeles at Laemmle’s Sunset 5 on Friday, Sept. 2nd. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.) In recent years American war docs have largely moved away from exposés on corruption and bad government policy. Instead, the focus has shifted to small, largely apolitical stories about life in the military and the human cost of war. Hell and Back […]
by Paul Sbrizzi on Aug 18, 2011 -
CONDITION ONE REINVENTS WAR JOURNALISM IN LIBYA
At the end of my profile of filmmaker Danfung Dennis in our 2010 “25 New Faces” feature, I touched on what was then his next project. After completing Hell and Back Again — winner of the World Cinema Jury Prize and World Cinema Cinematography Award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival — Dennis embarked on Condition One, which he told me “will use a network of journalists, filmmakers and servicemen to send a stream of high-quality video to millions of mobile devices.” Danfung’s new venture now has a website, a Facebook page and a proof-of-concept video that’s also 90 seconds […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 27, 2011 -
Jamie Stuart’s Sundance Masterpiece
From the shards of our experience shooting interviews and seeing movies at Sundance 2011 comes Jamie Stuart’s “Masterpiece.” With appearances by: Miguel Arteta, Alrick Brown, David Carr, Paddy Considine, Nekisa Cooper, Phife Dawg, Danfung Dennis, Andrew Donsunmu, Sean Durkin, Liz Garbus, Paul Giamatti, Megan Griffiths, Colin Goddard, Rutger Hauer, John Hawkes, Azazel Jacobs, Miranda July, Tom McCarthy, Peter Mullan, Adepero Oduye, Elizabeth Olsen, Jessica Oreck, Lindsay Pulsipher, Michael Rapaport, Calvin Reeder, Dee Rees, Amy Seimetz, Kim Wayans, Vilmos Zsigmond. Shot on the Canon 7D. Download the Quicktime here. (Contains adult language — NSFW.) Look for the longer edits of these […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 7, 2011 -
DSLR-Shot Films Win Prizes At Sundance
With a hat tip to Photo Cine News, here are clips from two Sundance 2011 prizewinners shot on DSLR cameras. The first, the Grand Jury Prize-winning Like Crazy, was shot on the Canon 7D. (Felicity Jones, featured in this clip, also won a Special Jury Prize for her acting.) The second, Hell and Back Again, won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize as well as the World Cinema Cinematography Award. It was shot on the Canon 5D with custom-built rigs. Hell and Back Again clip from Danfung Dennis on Vimeo.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 1, 2011 -
“HELL AND BACK AGAIN” | director, Danfung Dennis
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 23, 12:00 pm — Holiday Village Cinema IV] “Down, down, down!” yelled a U.S. Marine as bullets whizzed overhead and machine-gun fire rattled. We had been drawn into a coordinated ambush deep behind enemy lines. In these difficult situations, I use intense concentration to keep operating my camera system. As we ducked to the next mud berm for cover, I focused on keeping my movements smooth and my distance to the Marine ahead of me constant so I would have a steady tracking shot that would remain in focus. Pinned down by incoming fire, the insurgents triggered […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2011 -
25 NEW FACES – PART 5
Susan Youssef SUSAN YOUSSEF. At the IFP Narrative Lab, a mentor said of Susan Youssef’s first feature, Habibi Rasak Kharban (literally, “Darling, Something’s Wrong with Your Head”): “It’s a classic story, like Romeo and Juliet.” True, but the roots of Youssef’s story go back far further. The film is an adaptation of the 12th-century Sufi parable Majnun Layla, which was itself based on a 7th-century Arabic story. Over the years, the tragic tale of undying love between a woman and the wandering poet her family forbids her to marry has formed the basis for countless works of art, from Shakespeare’s […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 20, 2010 -
25 New Faces
Welcome to the 2010 edition of Filmmaker‘s annual survey of new independent film talent. Victoria Mahoney Writer-director Victoria Mahoney began her artistic career as an actress in theater and then film. “Shelly Winters was my teacher,” Mahoney says. “If you touched your hair too many times in her class, she’d come over and cut off your bangs. She taught me the gift of stillness.” After working off-off Broadway, Mahoney went to L.A., did a number of pilots, a few European films, and a season of Seinfeld (she played Gladys Mayo, owner of the clothing store Putumayo). But then there […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 20, 2010
