Fall 2019
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Creating Community Through Cinema: The Echo Park Film Center and MONO NO AWARE
I love the way Paolo Davanzo jazzes up his emails with exclamation points! He almost never uses just one; instead, he lines up two, three, sometimes four in a row, and if his ardor is not evident through prolific punctuation, he’ll apply all caps: “SO GLAD to reconnect!!!!” or “The kids created a BEAUTIFUL FILM!!!!” This cheery trait is pure Paolo, and it completely infuses the Echo Park Film Center, a small nonprofit space at the corner of Sunset and Alvarado in Los Angeles that he cofounded in 2001. EPFC packs a microcinema, filmmaking classroom and equipment rental house all […]
by Holly Willis on Sep 4, 2019 -
I Say What I Mean
Though popularly acclaimed for its thrillingly choreographed action scenes and the convergence of two of America’s great film stars, Heat (1995) endures because of its layered psychological matrix. Michael Mann interrogates masculinity, as performance and as ideology, across a cat-and-mouse genre template, crafting a diffuse portrait of ethical codes. This modus operandi, combined with Mann’s trademark urban hyperaesthetic—neon cityscapes; dark, empty roads; abandoned lots; dingy warehouses; underpopulated diners, all shot on locations off the beaten path—has elevated the material to classic status. It’s a basic-cable staple that’s also a richly studied, endlessly probed auteurist text. In other words, the perfect […]
by Vikram Murthi on Sep 4, 2019 -
Editor’s Letter
Welcome to our Fall 2019 edition, marking the start of our 28th year of publication. And, if you’re reading this letter, you’re most likely reading it in print or in our digital edition, so thank you for buying or subscribing to this publication. As this 28th year begins, Filmmaker finds itself in the happy position of having a successful, much-read website as well as a robust, healthy and burgeoning print publication. The sometimes mentioned “death of print media” hasn’t afflicted us here—this issue is larger than ever, we’re doing more bonus distribution to film festivals and industry events and, with […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 4, 2019 -
Made For These Times: Ulrich Köhler on In My Room
Ulrich Köhler’s In My Room begins with what looks like a DCP glitch. The view is from a handheld news camera entering a press conference scrum, its operator confirming in voiceover that he’s rolling while roaming from lectern to lectern. Each time an official statement is delivered, the image cuts to the aftermath—the as-yet-unseen cameraman, Armin (Hans Löw), has confused the “off” and “on” switch, and the inadvertent B-roll he shot is unusable. All of Armin’s life is similarly shabbily disarrayed: At a club, he picks up a young lady and brings her home, but an ill-phrased refusal to let […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 4, 2019 -
They Came From Within: Bong Joon-ho on Parasite
“This is so metaphorical!” Ki-woo’s metatextual reaction to the unlikely gift of a stone from his friend Min early in Bong Joon- ho’s Palme d’Or–winning Parasite isn’t the film’s most startling moment, but it’s an early jolt that both sets and undermines viewer expectations. Ki-woo (wide-eyed Choi Woo-shik—Okja, Train to Busan) lives in an underground apartment with his underemployed family, including humbled but unvanquished father Ki-taek (Bong regular Song Kang-ho, unsurprisingly great) and scheming sister Ki-jung (Park So-dam, cynical and hilarious). When Ki-woo becomes a tutor for the daughter of a rich family, the action settles into that family’s stunning […]
by Doug Dillaman on Sep 4, 2019 -
The Business Cycle: Anthony Kaufman On the Legacy of Jay Van Hoy and Lars Knudsen’s Production Company Parts & Labor.
“What always attracted me to the work is that there’s something impossible about it,” says Jay Van Hoy, cofounder of Parts & Labor, the New York–based independent film production company that helped develop a wave of new auteurs over the past 15 years, from Kelly Reichardt to David Lowery to Robert Eggers. While Parts & Labor no longer exists as it once did as a partnership between Van Hoy and producer Lars Knudsen (the two split in 2016, with Van Hoy retaining the brand), its legacy lives on, as one of the most prolific independent film companies of its time, […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Sep 4, 2019 -
25 New Faces of Independent Film 2019
Click here to read this year’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film list.
by Filmmaker Staff on Aug 28, 2019
