Distant Constellation
-
Twilight Hours: Shevaun Mizrahi on Her Elegiac Documentary, Distant Constellation
With Shevaun Mizrahi’s documentary Distant Constellation opening at NYC’s Metrograph today from Grasshopper Film, we’re unlocking from our print issue this feature with the director. It’s not news that nonfiction editing can be an attenuated process. Still, with footage so fully formed, I didn’t expect that Mizrahi would keep returning to Istanbul for three more years, logging more hours on the way to showing a nearly-locked cut at 2017’s True/False Film Festival, with her world premiere following later that year at Locarno. The additional time she took turned out to be crucial for capturing two additional strands that give the […]
by Vadim Rizov on Nov 2, 2018 -
Editor’s Note
One thing independent feature films often aren’t able to deal with is very recent history. Films take so long to get developed, financed and produced, and by the time they arrive, whatever proximity they once had to the zeitgeist can be a step removed, which makes the exceptions to this problem thrilling. In this issue, Vadim Rizov interviews director Shevaun Mizrahi about her documentary, Distant Constellation, featuring the residents of a nursing home in Istanbul overshadowed by mega construction sites. Mizrahi shot the film over many years, and as news breaks now about Turkey’s currency crisis—which has its roots in […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 17, 2018 -
BAMcinemaFest 2018: Four Features and Four Shorts
The mix of films in the 10th edition of BAMcinemaFest offers isn’t totally unexpected: a significant plurality of Sundance premieres (tightly curated, or maybe more accurately culled), titles from SXSW and True/False, two North American and three world premieres. The programming, though, is tighter and more original than a simple survey of The Year To Date In Festival Premieres. (I have already written elsewhere about the following titles: América, Bisbee ’17 [which has been cut down substantially since its premiere], Clara’s Ghost, Crime + Punishment, Eighth Grade, Madeline’s Madeline, Shirkers, Skate Kitchen, The Task. Please please please do not miss that last one. I’ll wait to write about Support the […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jun 20, 2018 -
Fest Circuit: Sundance, Berlin, Borscht and True/False
SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL By Ashley Clark At this year’s ceaselessly snow-pummelled Sundance Film Festival (Jan. 19-29), I hardly expected to experience my first slice of knockout formal invention while languishing at my laptop in my hotel room. But these are strange times and, having landed in Park City on Jan. 20, hours after the surreal presidential inauguration of a bit player from Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, I found immediate succor in scrolling through my Twitter feed. It had been colonized by a panoply of speedily crafted user videos depicting white supremacist goon and Trump supporter Richard Spencer […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Apr 13, 2017 -
IFP Announces Documentary Line-Up for Annual Independent Filmmaker Labs
The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) announced today the ten documentaries selected for the 2015 Independent Filmmaker Labs, IFP’s annual yearlong fellowship for first-time feature directors. The creative teams of the selected films are currently attending the first week’s sessions – The Time Warner Foundation Completion Labs – taking place May 11-15 in New York City. The Independent Filmmaker Labs are a highly immersive, free mentorship program supporting first-time feature directors with projects in post-production as they complete, market and distribute their films. The Labs provide filmmakers with the technical, creative and strategic tools necessary to launch their films and careers. […]
by Filmmaker Staff on May 13, 2015
