Ira Sachs
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Dos Estaciones, Charm Circle, a New Joel Potrykus Short and More to Debut on the Criterion Channel in August
Alongside programming celebrating hip-hop, actress Kay Frances, Roger Corman’s Poe adaptations and “eurothrillers,” this August’s streaming selections on the Criterion Channel heavily feature filmmakers who’ve appeared in this publication, including in our recent Summer 2023 print issue. First up, Juan Pablo González’s highly-recommended Dos Estaciones will have its exclusive streaming premiere on the platform. González made our 25 New Faces of Film list back in 2015, and Dos Estaciones is the director’s sophomore feature. Described by Criterion as blending a “fictional character study and documentary-like observation,” the film follows tequila ranch owner María (Teresa Sánchez, winner of a Special Jury […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jul 19, 2023 -
“The Nature of Global Capitalism is Such that [Stories About] Gay Sexuality Are More and More Difficult to Finance”: Passages Director Ira Sachs in Conversation with Stephen Winter
The following interview with director Ira Sachs by director Stephen Winter was published in Filmmaker’s Summer, 2023 issue and is being reposted today as Sachs’s film Passages arrives in theaters from MUBI. There are acclaimed films about filmmakers set during production—Fellini’s 8 1/2, Truffaut’s Day for Night and Fassbinder’s Beware of a Holy Whore, to name three. But there are far fewer set during what might be an even more psychologically fraught time: post-production. For some directors, it’s when a film wraps that things become unstable. The ersatz family of cast and crew retreat, the militarized schedule lessens somewhat and […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jun 27, 2023 -
Trailer Watch: Ira Sachs’s Passages
After world premiering at Sundance earlier this year, a teaser trailer has dropped for director Ira Sachs’s Passages. Co-written by Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias, the film will arrive in theaters later this summer. An official synopsis reads: After completing his latest project, filmmaker Tomas (Franz Rogowski) impulsively begins a heated love affair with a young schoolteacher, Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos). For Tomas, the novelty of being with a woman is an exciting experience that he is eager to explore despite his marriage to Martin (Ben Whishaw). But when Martin begins his own affair, the mercurial Tomas refocuses his attentions on his […]
by Filmmaker Staff on May 12, 2023 -
“Alexa Mini, My Best Friend in Digital Cinematography”: DP Josée Deshais on Passages
One of the best-reviewed films at this year’s Sundance, Ira Sachs’s Passages sold to MUBI for four territories, including the US and UK, shortly after its premiere. The drama is fueled by the love triangle that emerges when film director Tomas (Franz Rogowski) cheats on artist husband Martin (Ben Whishaw) with teacher Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos). The Paris-set drama marks Sachs’s first time working with French cinematographer Josée Deshais (Saint Laurent), who discusses her work on the film below. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? Deshais: Ira approached me because of a French film I […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 25, 2023 -
“Nothing Is Harder To Shoot Than a Dinner Party” | Ira Sachs, Passages
Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? For weeks before production, the film’s cinematographer Josée Deshaies and I begin a long process of creating a storyboard for the film. At some point, after we’ve established our own rhythm, we invite an illustrator—in this case, our production manager Marianne Germain’s brother Gabriel—to join us to translate our conversations into images. The work of the three of us then […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 25, 2023 -
“I Tried to Write Something Yesterday…”: Ira Sachs on Quietude, Listening and Art that Speaks to the Moment
In April, as we began to put together the Summer, 2020 issue of Filmmaker, we asked directors, cinematographers, editors and other film workers to send us their thoughts on the quarantine and their own creative lives. The responses printed here were collected from April through mid-June — personal statements that speak variously to individual filmmaking practices, films halted mid-production, politics, art and life. Read all the responses here. — Editor Hey Scott, I tried to write something yesterday, based on some ideas I had when you first wrote, but in light of what’s been going on in the world over the […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 8, 2020 -
“I Always Panic… Panic is My Normal State”: Claire Denis in Conversation with Ira Sachs about Nenette et Boni
On the occasion of Claire Denis’s birthday today, we are reprinting this Fall, 1997 interview from our print edition — writer/director Ira Sachs, whose first feature, The Delta, was in release, speaking with Denis around the U.S. opening of her Nenette et Boni. For the past ten years, the French director Claire Denis has been making a vital group of films which, with their mixture of intimate drama, sociological observation, and political acuity, have established her as an important influence on other independent-minded filmmakers around the world. After working as a crew member on Jim Jarmusch’s Down by Law,Denis made […]
by Ira Sachs on Apr 21, 2020 -
Strand Releasing’s “30/30 Vision”: Premiering New iPhone Shorts by Ira Sachs, James Schamus and Elisabeth Subrin
Strand Releasing, the inventive, carefully curated independent distributor known for its release of both American and international arthouse auteurs, turns 30 this year, and to celebrate it has invited its filmmaker friends to create short iPhone films that speak in various ways to Strand’s mission and film culture today. I’m happy to premiere here exclusively at Filmmaker shorts by Ira Sachs, whose Frankie opens this Friday, October 25th; Indignation director, screenwriter and producer James Schamus; and Shulie and A Woman, A Part director Elisabeth Subrin. Previously released have been shorts by Fatih Akin and Karim Ainouz. Comments Strand co-founder Marcus […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 22, 2019 -
“You Give The Other Artist You Work With Individual Space To Be Free”: Ira Sachs On Writing Frankie With Mauricio Zacharias
Ira Sachs will get a lot of the credit for his latest film, Frankie, an ensemble drama with an all-star cast anchored by top-billed Isabelle Huppert, playing an international movie star whos been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Many will call it “Ira Sach’s Frankie” and single him out as its main creator. But just as the film isn’t only about Huppert’s character (Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei, Greg Kinnear play her blended family), Frankie is not just about Sachs. Only one of his features, his 1996 debut The Delta, has been written solo. And four of the rest, Frankie included, have […]
by Matt Prigge on Sep 20, 2019 -
Hits & Misses: The Theatrical Performance of the Sundance Class of ’16
How do you measure success these days? When more than two million people vote for you over the other guy and you still lose? When you receive no endorsements from a single major newspaper, your party’s leadership practically ignores you, and you still win? Or, perhaps, when your heralded Sundance acquisition earns a whopping $15.8 million at the box office, but you spend more than twice that in acquisition fees and prints and advertising costs to release it? (i.e., The Birth of a Nation). How about if your film isn’t released in theaters at all, but Netflix paid $5 million […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Jan 18, 2017
