With most incoming film students being required to make shorts during their undergraduate or graduate studies, what exemplars of the form should they look to for inspiration? Filmmaker asked a number of friends—all filmmakers—who teach filmmaking at a cross-section of institutions to list the short films they think all incoming students should check out and be inspired by. Howard A. Rodman, professor, USC School of Cinematic Arts: I consistently recommend to my students—whose films often lead with cinematography, visual effects and sound mix—that they see Andrea Arnold’s Academy Award–winning 2003 short film Wasp. Adequate direct sound, wobbly cam, minimalist VFX, yet […]

The way writer/director Michael Tully and producer George Rush tell it, Don’t Leave Home, Tully’s new feature, started with the idea of a place and a vibe. The vibe was sophisticated art house horror — something in the vein of Nicolas Roeg’s classic ghost story, Don’t Look Now — where things just feel off. And the place would be Ireland — specifically, Dublin and the spectacular mountains and eerie bogs of County Wicklow, about 40 miles south of the city. But, as Austin-based Tully — whose last feature was the Ocean City, Md.–set Ping Pong Summer — explains, there wasn’t […]

Recently announced as a European Capital of Culture for 2016, the picturesque western Polish city of Wroclaw (actually pronounced Vrotz-wav, thus rendering the title pun sadly unworkable) welcomed an extremely distinguished guest for its fifth annual American Film Festival: none other than flying POTUS Barack Obama. Well, it seemed so for a moment, but appearances can be deceptive. A closer look revealed the man to be Louis Ortiz, top Barack-alike and star of Ryan Murdock’s enjoyable Bronx Obama, which screened as part of the festival’s documentary slate. The personable Ortiz’s social ubiquity made for a pleasingly incongruous addition to a […]

Summer, 1985: Casey Kasem is on the radio and mastering the moonwalk is a must. Radford “Rad” Miracle (Marcello Conte) has to go on family vacation with his patient mom (Lea Thompson), sneeringly cool goth sister Michelle (Helena May Seabrook), and cheapskate cop dad (John Hannah), who insists on driving to Ocean City, Maryland in his police car to save money. All Rad wants to do is play ping pong, get cooler, and get the girl, but the local rich kid bullies are an impediment. Can Rad up his ping pong craft enough to beat them? And what’s up with […]

This is not production designer Bart Mangrum’s first movie at the Sundance Film Festival. He designed Septien (2011, directed by Michael Tully) and I Used To Be Darker (2013, directed by Matt Porterfield), and was both an on-set dresser and extra in Stoker (2012, directed by Chan-wook Park). But this is the first time Mangrum has been at Sundance as the production designer of two feature films screening in the same category. Mangrum was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, and still lives there. His father ignited his enthusiasm for art by teaching him how to draw during church around […]

As much a tribute to the films of the 80s as it is a tribute to the 80s themselves, Michael Tully’s Ping Pong Summer is a strangely sweet, knowingly retro coming-of-age story. Set against the unique and colorful backdrop of 1980s Ocean City, Maryland, the film follows the aptly named Radical Miracle (newcomer Marcello Conte) across a summer of old-school arcade games, teen romance, breakdancing, and of course, plenty of ping pong. Weaving the idiosyncratic style of his previous feature Septien (which premiered at Sundance back in 2011) into a warmer, more universal (yet no less distinctive) tapestry, Tully has […]

Attention, our audience’s and our own — it’s a valued commodity these days. We struggle to command our audience’s attention, for them to discover our work and then, once they’ve discovered it, to actually focus on it. Meanwhile, we struggle to focus our own attention, to fight our society’s weapons of mass distraction so we can not just see our work to completion but fully discover the meanings within it. What role does attention play in your work? Can you discuss an instance where you thought about some aspect of attention when it came to your film? Speaking on broad […]

Do we really need another award show? Michael Tully, filmmaker (Ping Pong Summer, Septien) and editor of Hammer to Nail, and Eric Lavallée, founder of Ioncinema, can assure you we do. Tully and Lavallée have partnered to announce the creation of the American Independent Film Awards (AIFAs), a soon-to-be annual celebration of “a distinctive category of micro-budget films.” Says Tully, “There are way too many awards shows as it is, and yet Eric and I have become frustrated with the way truly excellent work is marginalized every year simply because it doesn’t have the money to play with the big boys. We feel […]

Top L to R: Lauren Wissot, Michael Tully, Laura Blum; Bottom L to R: Mark Bell, Dusty Wright Part I.   Five Film Reviewers on Screening Films Part II. Five Film Reviewers Advise Filmmakers In Baal – the BBC’s 1982 cinematic adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s 1918/1923 dramatic play – Ekart is broke and unable to pay his bar bill. In a grimy tavern, he explains: “If I had money to pay, it would undermine my sense of self.” Paying a bar bill can be a bitch, but living as a drunken-pauper doesn’t sound better. Unlike Ekart in Baal*, I doubt today’s bohemians would be […]

Top L to R: Michael Tully, Marshall Fine, Lauren Wissot; Bottom L to R: Mark Bell, Dusty Wright With prices dropping and technology increasing and audiences expanding, the indie community is whacking out films at a hectic pace — but it’s even more prolific at whacking out words on films. Websites and magazines broadcast a stream of articles on the work of emerging filmmakers. For years, info-packed pieces on distribution and funding have been ubiquitous. Tacky scribblers suck up to celebrities, arty ones profile auteurs, bloggers are all over the turf — latest craze, lists of the best and the worst […]