Ira Sachs
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Of Time & The City
Artistry, despair and rage — the New York City of the 1980s and ’90s was defined by its fusion of these elements as artists and activists became frontline soldiers in the fight against the health crisis of AIDS. “Silence = Death” was the slogan of activist group ACT UP, an admonishment to all those who’d deny the severity of the epidemic by not taking a position. And as ACT UP members took direct action against fearful politicians, a generation of artists incorporated the movement’s anger and social critique into their own passionate work. These New York years form the backdrop […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 19, 2012 -
MUSIC BOX PICKS UP IRA SACHS’ KEEP THE LIGHTS ON
Arthouse distrib Music Box Films today announced that they will handle the U.S. and Canadian release of writer-director Ira Sachs’ semi-autobiographical relationship drama Keep the Lights On, which premiered at Sundance back in January and won the Teddy award (for best LGBT film) last month at Berlin. Sachs — best known for his films Forty Shades of Blue, the 2005 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner, and The Delta — made headlines when he raised the final $25,000 of his budget for Lights through Kickstarter. Announcing the acquisition of Sachs’ film, Ed Arentz, the Managing Director of Music Box Films, said, […]
by Nick Dawson on Mar 12, 2012 -
Sundance 2012: Sex, Drugs and Falling Apart
Snow is pounding Park City; people are hidden under hoods and hats, the snow burying everything under a deep pile of grey and white. This is perfect weather for introspection and so far, the narrative films at Sundance have done little to break the mood. I couldn’t be happier. Early on, Sundance has featured films united by loss, by the end of relationships, by heartbreak and the assertion of possibility. I am no glutton for sadness, but there is something about the dark skies and looming mountains that make the melancholy almost comforting. If you look hard enough, every festival unveils a thematic strain, and […]
by Tom Hall on Jan 22, 2012 -
Keep the Lights On | Co-writer/Director, Ira Sachs
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, January 20 8:30 pm –Library Center Theatre, Park City] It’s not for nothing that we watch films in dark rooms, without the lights on. It’s the most intimate of artistic mediums. When a film works, we feel a nearly physical connection to the actors we are watching, as if they are playing out our own lives on screen. I like films that are messy and imperfect, that are unable to fully contain all the life going on within them. Filmmakers like Cassavetes and Loach, Fassbinder and Pialat. The plot never rules the character. The actor might at […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 20, 2012 -
SUNDANCE TRAILER WATCH: “KEEP THE LIGHTS ON”
One of the films I’m most anticipating at Sundance 2012 is Keep the Lights On from writer/director Ira Sachs (The Delta, 40 Shades of Blue). The film essays art, autobiography, and New York gay culture in the 1980s, ’90s and early aughts, and even before its arrival it has spawned a rich website that riffs on all of those themes. Just posted at that site is the film’s teaser trailer, embedded below. Keep The Lights On — Trailer from KTLO Movie on Vimeo.
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 8, 2012 -
JACK FERVER PRESENTS FASSBINDER’S “BITTER TEARS…”
Because Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra Van Kant is one of my favorites by the late German director, I’m reprinting here this email from Ira Sachs, whose IFC Center Queer/Art/Film series is screening the film tonight at 8:00 PM. It’s being presented by choreographer Jack Ferver, who has written a fantastic intro to the film. Dear Friends of Queer/Art/Film, “That little girl’s finger is worth more than the lot of you.” For this month’s August screening, we’re thrilled to finally be able to present a film by the visionary gay German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, especially one […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 22, 2011 -
KICKSTARTER: IRA SACHS’ “KEEP THE LIGHTS ON”
Sundance Grand Prize-winning filmmaker Ira Sachs (40 Shades of Blue) is fundraising for his new feature, Keep the Lights On, through Kickstarter. Here, from his Kickstarter page: I began working on Keep the Lights On with my co-writer Mauricio Zacharias because we were both frustrated by how few films exist that reflect life as we have known it as gay men living in New York City. I also wanted to make a very personal film, in the vein of some of the filmmakers that I have most loved, artists like Jean Eustache, Jacques Nolot, Chantal Akerman, and that great film-memoirist […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 24, 2011 -
“It’s an Intermediary Kind of Format Designed to Move Ideas, Language and Structure to the Screen”: Oren Moverman Talks Screenwriting with Ryan Gosling
The following interview appeared originally in Filmmaker‘s Fall, 2007 print edition. We don’t cover enough screenwriters in Filmmaker, but that’s not entirely our fault. This magazine is devoted to independent film, and for many, the director is also the writer. Or the script has emerged from improvisation or some other nontraditional means. And while there is a new breed of independent-minded screenwriters today — Charlie Kaufman, Capote’s Dan Futterman and Juno’s Diablo Cody come immediately to mind — many of the “marquee screenwriters” still work almost exclusively in the studio world. By virtue of the unique niche that screenwriter Oren […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Oct 1, 2007
