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 Since March 13, we have been living in confinement, one of us in Liège and the other in Brussels. We call each other every day to write the script for our […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 8, 2020There are fewer films to deal with in this last of a three-feature curtain raiser. Writing commentary on the selections in the other two — six and five films, respectively — is enervating after two-and-a-half front-loaded weeks of screenings, plus repeats. The potential for gratuitous collateral damage spikes and hovers precariously, which translates into: In a very few cases, one risks being harsher than intended. Some of the harshees might be worth reviewing when they open commercially, when everyone is more focused. In The New York Times‘ Critic’s Notebook (November 10, 2016), Manohla Dargis considers both the long- and short-term risks of […]
by Howard Feinstein on Oct 12, 2016(Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s The Kid with a Bike premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where it shared the Grand Prix with Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. It is being released theatrically by Sundance Selects on 03.16.12.) The Kid with a Bike is propelled by eruptive moments nestled between long stretches of calm. That it is seen through the eyes of a child too young and confused to understand as much about himself as the viewer does would appear to make the eponymous bicycle rider’s case an ironic one, but it mostly just makes it sad. Every time […]
by Michael Nordine on Mar 15, 2012The Cannes Awards Ceremony has just begun, hosted by Melanie Laurent. I’ll be refreshing this page as the awards unfold. The Short Film Prize, announce by Michel Gondry, goes to Cross Country, by Ukraine’s Maryna Vroda. The Camera d’Or, given to best first film, goes to Argentinia’sLas Acacias, by Pablo Giorgelli. To the strains of Morricone’s score for Once Upon a Time in America, jury president Robert De Niro joins Laurent on stage to introduce his fellow jury members: Olivier Assayas, Uma Thurman, Johnnie To, Martina Gusman, Nansun Shi, Linn Ullman, and Mahamat Saleh Haroun. And they announce the Jury […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 22, 2011ARTA DOBROSHI IN LUC AND JEAN-PIERRE DARDENNE’S LORNA’S SILENCE. COURTESY SONY PICTURES CLASSICS. From Auguste and Louis Lumière onwards, filmmaking partnerships with last names like Coen, Duplass, Hughes, Maysles, Polish, Quay, Wachowski, Taviani, Zellner and Zucker – just to name a few – have been proving that siblings and cinema go well together, and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are certainly no exceptions. The Belgian filmmakers, born in Liège in 1951 and 1954 respectively, have been making films as a duo since 1975, when they formed the production company Dérives. After a decade of making documentaries, they shifted to doc-style fiction […]
by Nick Dawson on Jul 31, 2009