Miranda July
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Crime Family
“We don’t call you ’hun’ or ’sweetheart’ or ’baby,’” says Theresa (Debra Winger) to her daughter Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood) late in Miranda July’s new Kajillionaire, the filmmaker’s dreamily eccentric interrogation into the social construct of familial love. “We don’t wrap little birthday presents with ribbons,” she continues, acidly, as Old Dolio looks on in despair. Old Dolio has just brought in $1,575 from an airport luggage scam—the family, which includes dad Robert (Richard Jenkins), makes their living from a succession of convoluted small-time cons that net in the two and three and, only sometimes, four figures—and she’d just […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 28, 2020 -
Five Questions with Amber Sealey, Director of No Light and No Land Anywhere
After having premiered at the 2016 Los Angeles Film Festival, Amber Sealey brings her new feature, No Light and No Land Anywhere, to theaters today. The Factory 25 release screens at the IFC Center, with Sealey doing Q&As at all the evening shows. Tickets and information can be found here at the link. And, below, read Paula Bernstein’s interview with Sealey conducted just prior to the film’s festival launch. Five years after her last feature, writer-director-actor Amber Sealey returns with No Light and No Land Anywhere, a psychosexual drama executive produced by Miranda July. Starring British stage actress Gemma Brockis […]
by Paula Bernstein on Mar 16, 2018 -
“Maybe When We’re Performing We Feel More like Ourselves than We Do in the ‘Real World'”: Josephine Decker on her Sundance Hit, Madeline’s Madeline
Three fascinating but very different actresses star in Josephine Decker’s exhilarating Sundance feature, Madeline’s Madeline. There’s Molly Parker, the exceptional film and television actress currently seen in Wormwood, who plays Evangeline, an experimental theater director who develops her work out of immersive performance workshops, challenging her company to mine their own feelings and experiences while creating new ones through the sometimes cringe-inducing exercises that can be the stuff of the improvisatory creation. Miranda July, an artist, writer, director and one of the most significant performance artists of the last 20 years, plays Regina, the frazzled single mother of a teenage […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 1, 2018 -
Somebody Wake Me Up Please
My phone is ringing. The sound pulls me from a deep sleep. It’s 5:30 a.m., the room is dark, and for a moment I’m confused. As I push the phone into my ear I hear a female voice singing. Slowly it registers; this is the wakeup call that I requested. But I’m not staying in a hotel, and the woman calling me is a complete stranger. The singing stops and the voice on the other end of the line tells me to have a wonderful day. I express my gratitude and ask her name. “Sarah from Dublin,” she replies, and […]
by Lance Weiler on Jan 21, 2015 -
Miranda July and Carrie Brownstein Promise a Somebody App That “Works”
Regarding her eccentrically beautiful messaging app Somebody, Miranda July has posted this video with Carrie Brownstein about its v.2. “Over the next few months we will be making Somebody 2.0,” she writes. “It’s just like Somebody 1.0 but it works.” If you don’t know about Somebody, it’s an iOS app (Android coming, says July in this video) that allows you to send a communication to someone via a nearby third party, who delivers that message in person. Still confused? Well, Somebody was the subject of a new podcast, Reply All — the second from podcasting startup Gimlet Media. Watch above […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 7, 2014 -
Somebody: Miranda July’s Messaging Service
Remember We Think Alone? Miranda July’s investigatory aggregate into the emails of famous people? July is again re-examining how people communicate in the age of information with a new app/messaging service entitled Somebody. Some sort of sick combination of texting and Tinder, Somebody ensures human contact upon receiving a message because that message is not your own — it belongs to someone nearby, and you are tasked with delivering it. To promote the project, Miu Miu commissioned a short from July that premiered today at the Venice Film Festival. In the supplement, a varied cast of characters (including July herself) […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Aug 28, 2014 -
Sundance Offers 2014 Artist Merch, Including Miranda July Scarf
At Filmmaker we are lousy with merch. We used to have t-shirts and tote bags, and they sold okay. But supplies dwindled, they were discontinued, and a more ambitious array of Filmmaker-branded collectibles is just another item on our escalating to-do list. (Filmmaker, by the way, is not alone in our merchandizing malaise. Elsewhere on this site, Sarah Salovaara notes the scarcity of indie film consumer swag in general.) Perhaps when we do get our merch store together we’ll look to Sundance for inspiration. The Sundance Film Festival’s Artist Editions line includes Shirin Neshat t-shirts, Susan Sarandon dessert plates, and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 7, 2014 -
Miranda July and Ira Glass Tell the Future of Storytelling
The Silent History is a fascinating new publishing project that merges app distribution with geolocational storytelling. Launched by former McSweeney’s publisher Eli Horowitz and colleagues, the project will launch next month, downloading stories to readers’ iOS devices and then coaxing them out into the streets of nearly 400 cities for more. Here is the trailer featuring the voices of Miranda July and Ira Glass. Horowitz is interviewed by Reyhan Harmanci at Buzzfeed, and he speaks of the project’s inspirations: “I got to thinking about new storytelling experiences — what can these things do, what can these things lead to,” he […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 16, 2012 -
15 Steps To Take After You Finish Your Script
A Filmmaker reader recently emailed me with a simple question. After going to film school, making some shorts and working conspicuously within his means, he’s now written a script purely from the imagination — not censoring himself by thinking of things like money and production requirements. The resulting project, I take it, is too big for his usual DIY methods. He asked, “What do I do now?” A tough question, not knowing the filmmaker very well and not having read the script. There are easier-said-than-done answers: “Find a producer! Get an agent!” But just sending out a bunch of PDFs, […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 2, 2012 -
Seven Overlooked Independent Films Of 2011
The world doesn’t need another list of the best films of the year, but after considering my own recent lists, I realized there were a handful of movies‹excellent independent work that has largely flown under the radar‹that even I initially overlooked. Here are seven bold American low-budget movies from 2011 that may have been forgotten in theatrical release, but should make for essential home viewing (if you haven’t seen them yet) in 2012. And I’ll be among the first in line to see where these young directors go next. 1. Silver Bullets. All I can say is that I […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Jan 2, 2012
