Documentary

THE WINDMILL MOVIE ON HBO TONIGHT

We here at Filmmaker have been big fans of Alexander Olch‘s experimental memoir/documentary The Windmill Movie since seeing it at the New York Film Festival in ’08. If you missed it in theaters over the summer it will premiere on HBO2 tonight @ 8pm. For those who don’t know about it, the film is about the 300 hours of autobiographical footage left behind by filmmaker/professor Richard P. Rogers after his death in 2001. Olch (who was a student of Rogers’s) was calling in to look over the footage and finish the film his mentor never could. What he delivers is […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Oct 28, 2009
THE LATEST IN OUR FIRST-PERSON DIY STORIES: STRONGMAN’s ZACHARY LEVY

You may have noticed that I’ve been posting in our Web Exclusives a number of first-person pieces by filmmakers discussing their distribution saga. We have already had producer Jake Abraham on distributing his film, Lovely by Surprise, and then writer/director Rob Perez on making the transition from studio distribution to DIY distribution with his nobody. The latest in our informal series is from Zachary Levy, director of the documentary Strongman. His piece, “Making our DIY Moment Matter,” is a refreshingly thoughtful take on what the trend towards alternative distribution should mean for our filmmaking. Check it out, and look for […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 27, 2009
Making Our DIY Moment Matter

Aw man, I am thinking. Last Thursday’s New York Times is up on my computer screen and I’m looking at the virtual front page, just below what would be the fold. The headline: INDEPENDENT FILMMAKERS DISTRIBUTE ON THEIR OWN. It’s turf I’ve become increasingly familiar with in the last couple of months since I started plotting a DIY course for my documentary Strongman and I dig in to the article. I don’t get too far before I realize I have a serious problem—Sacha Gervasi took out a second mortgage on his house to pay for the distribution on Anvil. I […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Oct 27, 2009
Peter Greenway, Rembrandt’s J’Accuse

It is not uncommon to describe filmmakers as “true artists,” however in the case of Peter Greenaway it is literally the case that he brings an artist’s sensibility to work on the big screen. Born in Newport, Wales, in 1942, Greenaway grew up in London and studied to be a painter at the city’s Walthamstow College of Art. In the late 60s, Greenaway began to explore his fascination with cinema, embarking on a series of documentary short films which he continued throughout the 1970s that set out to capture the peculiarities of the world (or the world from a peculiar […]
by Nick Dawson on Oct 21, 2009
GOTHAM AWARDS NOMINEES ANNOUNCED

If you missed the announcement of the nominees live on USTREAM, below are the list of nominees for the 19th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards. Best Feature AmreekaCherien Dabis, director; Christina Piovesan, Paul Barkin, producers (National Geographic Entertainment) Big FanRobert Siegel, director; Jean Kouremetis, Elan Bogarin, producers (First Independent Pictures) The Hurt LockerKathryn Bigelow, director; Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier, Greg Shapiro, producers (Summit Entertainment) The MaidSebastian Silva, director; Gregorio Gonzàles, producer (Elephant Eye Films) A Serious ManJoel Coen and Ethan Coen, directors/producers (Focus Features) Best Documentary Food, Inc.Robert Kenner, director; Robert Kenner, Elise Pearlstein, producers (Magnolia Pictures) Good […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Oct 19, 2009
THE GOTHAM AWARD NOMINATIONS LIVE, HOSTED BY A.O. SCOTT

Today at 1:00PM, A.O. Scott, film critic at The New York Times and co-host of “At the Movies,” will announce the 2009 Nominees for the IFP’s annual Gotham Awards. Watch here and learn who will be competing for Best Feature, Best Documentary, Breakthrough Actor, Breakthrough Director, Best Ensemble Performance, and the Filmmaker Magazine/Museum of Modern Art-sponspored Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You will be announced live from IFP’s Official Club, the Norwood. Watch here:
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 19, 2009
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

Monty Python fans rejoice, airing on IFC beginning Sunday is Monty Python: Almost The Truth (Lawyer’s Cut), a six-part documentary on the legendary Brit comic troupe. A very thorough examination of the six members (with new, refreshingly frank, interviews from all five living members) directors Bill Jones, Ben Timlett and Alan G. Parker leave no stone unturned as they examine everything from the troupe forming while writing sketches for David Frost, how they came up with the name Monty Python, their fights with the BBC, George Harrison fronting the money to make Life of Brian, and finally what they’ve done […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Oct 16, 2009
PREVIEWING THE PROJECTS AT POWER TO THE PIXEL

The following is our first report by Lance Weiler from Power to the Pixel. I’ve just arrived in London for the third annual digital innovation forum Power to the Pixel which consists of a conference, project pitch forum, day of workshops and a think thank. Tomorrow the conference phase of the event kicks off. I’ll be taking part in each of the phases of the event. Starting tomorrow with a presentation on Story Architecture — a look how storytelling is evolving in the age of connected devices and the real-time web. I look forward to Power to the Pixel each […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 14, 2009
OF CRISES, FALL DAYS AND NEW POSSIBILITIES AT THE WOODSTOCK FILM FESTIVAL

Several familiar faces, including my own, spoke at the Woodstock Film Festival on a panel entitled “The Changing Face of Independent Film.” I moderated, and the panelists were directors Rick Linklater and Ira Sachs; Cinetic’s John Sloss; and Big Beach’s Peter Saraf. As four of the five of us attended the Indiewire/MoMA/Zipline summit on the crisis in independent film production and distribution, I began by asking what the term “crisis” meant for them. Sloss spoke about the vanishing studio specialty divisions and with them the erosion of the indie film business model that requires a marketplace with well-funded buyers. He […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 7, 2009
PICTURING NOLLYWOOD

One of the most reprinted articles we’ve run at Filmmaker was South African producer Jeremy Nathan’s 2002 piece on “No Budget Nigeria,” the thriving Corman-esque film scene otherwise known as Nollywood. Now, artist Pieter Hugo has released a book containing his stunning square-format photos featuring portraits of performers from these films. It’s called, appropriately, Nollywood. In an essay about the images, Federica Angelucci explains Hugo’s approach, which is to compose photographs that play off the mythologies created by the films. An excerpt: Movies tell stories that appeal to and reflect the lives of its public: stars are local actors; plots […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 4, 2009

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